Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the process for assigning judges to cases involving legal challenges to Government decisions.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Under section 7(2)(c) of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the Lady Chief Justice is responsible for the maintenance of appropriate arrangements for the deployment of the judiciary and the allocation of work within courts. Accordingly, the Government has no role in the process for assigning judges to cases.
This is consistent with the important principle of judicial independence, which shields judges from external pressures and gives the public confidence that cases will be decided fairly and in accordance with the law.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he has taken to consider increasing the number of sitting days at [a] Leicester Crown Court [b] Coventry Combined Court Centre and [c] Warwick Crown Court.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government is committed to bearing down on the backlog. In the Crown Court for this financial year, we have allocated 111,250 sitting days - the highest number of sitting days on record and over 5,000 more than the previous Government funded for the last financial year.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Lady Chief Justice continue discussions on the allocation for 2025-26 as part of the Concordat process and we will say more in due course.
Asked by: Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they consider (1) the European Court of Human Rights, and (2) the International Criminal Court, to be foreign courts.
Answered by Baroness Levitt - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and International Criminal Court (ICC) are international courts based respectively in France and the Netherlands. The UK is a State Party to both the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Rome Statute, the international treaties which established the ECtHR and ICC respectively. It is also a founding member of both instruments.
The Human Rights Act 1998 and the ICC Act 2001 give effect to the UK's obligations under the ECHR and Rome Statute. We respect the independence of both courts.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent topics has he discussed with external bodies when considering the potential impacts of proposals to reduce jury trials.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In developing his recommendations, Sir Brian Leveson and his expert advisers, including Professor David Ormerod, engaged with several external bodies with invaluable expertise of our Criminal Justice System including criminal legal organisations, charities, academics, and members of the judiciary. A full list is at Annex C of his report.
When considering Sir Brian’s recommendations and developing our proposals, I have engaged regularly with stakeholders and relevant sectors over the last 12 months including representatives from the legal sector (Law Society, Bar Council, Criminal Bar Association), victims and victims representatives (the Victims Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Rape Crisis), judiciary (Circuit leaders, Judicial leadership), magistracy (Magistrates’ Association, Magistrates’ Leadership Executive), non-governmental organisations (Appeal, JUSTICE, Transform Justice), court staff in criminal courts around the country (Wood Green, Snaresbrook) and similar international jurisdictions. For example, I met judges and visited courts in Canada, which uses types of judge-only trial.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which external bodies has he recently spoken to about the potential impacts of proposals to reduce jury trials.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In developing his recommendations, Sir Brian Leveson and his expert advisers, including Professor David Ormerod, engaged with several external bodies with invaluable expertise of our Criminal Justice System including criminal legal organisations, charities, academics, and members of the judiciary. A full list is at Annex C of his report.
When considering Sir Brian’s recommendations and developing our proposals, I have engaged regularly with stakeholders and relevant sectors over the last 12 months including representatives from the legal sector (Law Society, Bar Council, Criminal Bar Association), victims and victims representatives (the Victims Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Rape Crisis), judiciary (Circuit leaders, Judicial leadership), magistracy (Magistrates’ Association, Magistrates’ Leadership Executive), non-governmental organisations (Appeal, JUSTICE, Transform Justice), court staff in criminal courts around the country (Wood Green, Snaresbrook) and similar international jurisdictions. For example, I met judges and visited courts in Canada, which uses types of judge-only trial.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of his Department's progress on increasing the processing capacity of the court system.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government has made significant progress in increasing the processing capacity of the courts and tribunals system and remains committed to reducing backlog.
In the Crown Court for this financial year, we have allocated 111,250 sitting days - the highest number of sitting days on record and over 5,000 more than the previous Government funded for the last financial year.
In the Family Courts, reforms are already delivering results. Courts operating under the private law Pathfinder model are achieving some of the lowest case durations nationally, in South East Wales, for example, average duration fell from 37 weeks to 12 weeks on average. In addition, the Department for Education invested £10 million in 2024/25 to fund pilots aimed at reducing delays in family proceedings, with evaluation due to conclude in 2026.
Across the tribunals system, we are taking a comprehensive approach to improve productivity. Sitting day capacity has been set at or close to the maximum deliverable level. We are also promoting early dispute resolution to reduce unnecessary demand, including judicial Alternative Dispute Resolution pilots in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Lady Chief Justice continue discussions on allocation for 2025-26 and we will say more in due course.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people in prison or a Young Offender Institution self-describe their ethnicity as (1) black, (2) mixed-race, (3) Asian, and (4) white; and for each of these groups how many are aged (a) 15-17, (b) 18-20, (c) 21-24, (d) 25-29, (e) 30-39, (f) 40-49, (g) 50-59, (h) 60-69, and (i) 70 and over.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The answer to this question has been provided as an Excel document alongside this response.
The table provided was published as part of the Offender Management chapter of the 2024 ‘Ethnicity and the Criminal Justice System’ publication. (This series is published every other year.)
The figures presented are based on the total prison population and therefore include those held on remand, those sentenced and non-criminals.
Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his planned timetable is for Crown Court judges to produce written judgments in cases tried by a single judge sitting alone.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Post-reforms, any judge sitting alone in the Crown Court will give a reasoned judgment for their verdict in open court. This will increase transparency over how decisions to convict or acquit are reached as juries do not currently give reasons for their judgments.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the costs incurred by Department as a result of the Legal Aid Agency data breach on 23 April 2025.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This data breach was the result of serious criminal activity but it was enabled by the fragility of the LAA’s IT systems as a result of the long years of neglect and mismanagement of the justice system under the last Conservative Government. Upon taking office, I was shocked to see how fragile our legal aid systems were. The previous Government knew about the vulnerabilities of the Legal Aid Agency digital systems, but failed to invest. By contrast, since taking office, this Government has prioritised work to rebuild the LAA digital systems. That includes the allocation of over £20 million in extra funding this year to stabilise and transform the Legal Aid Agency digital services as we build back better in response to this attack. We are now in a position where all providers have online access to our civil legal aid services currently available via SiLAS, alongside our criminal legal aid services, which were restored in September.
This is an evolving situation but to date the total operational and digital costs of the incident are forecast to be £22 million for this financial year.
All providers have been able to access payment for work carried out whilst systems have been offline.
For some types of legal aid this meant adjusting the way in which providers submitted their claim for payment to the LAA. From 19 May, providers have been able to claim their usual payments for Legal Help, Crime Lower & Mediation work via a contingency process. Due to previous investment, the criminal legal aid systems were more modern, and internal access was restored more quickly. This enabled the LAA to resume paying Crown Court bills from early June.
It was necessary to agree a payment contingency for Civil Representation work with HM Treasury. This led to the implementation of the Average Payment Scheme on 27 May. The Average Payment Scheme enables providers to opt in to receive a temporary average payment for Civil Representation work that would otherwise be due, or where the value of their outstanding work varies from this, to apply for a specific payment to meet the cost of that work. Payments are made on a weekly basis. The weekly average payment is based on previous payments made to that provider over the 3 month period preceding the cyber incident. Some providers have not opted in to receive payment in this way and wait for the restoration of the systems, but payments are there should they need it. We are unable to quantify the number of legal aid providers who have not opted in to receive an average payment in each of the weeks it has been available.
Providers are obligated to act in the best interests of their clients both by their own SRA regulatory requirements and by their LAA Contracts. In circumstances where a legal aid provider is unable to continue providing representation in an ongoing case, for whatever reason, they have a professional and contractual obligation toward their client to assist them in finding alternative representation.
We have not seen any evidence of legal aid providers leaving the market directly as a result of the cyber-attack. Since April 2023 there has been a net increase in the number of providers contracted to deliver legal aid services.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) barristers, and (b) solicitors have not been paid by the Legal Aid Agency since the data breach of 23 April 2025.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This data breach was the result of serious criminal activity but it was enabled by the fragility of the LAA’s IT systems as a result of the long years of neglect and mismanagement of the justice system under the last Conservative Government. Upon taking office, I was shocked to see how fragile our legal aid systems were. The previous Government knew about the vulnerabilities of the Legal Aid Agency digital systems, but failed to invest. By contrast, since taking office, this Government has prioritised work to rebuild the LAA digital systems. That includes the allocation of over £20 million in extra funding this year to stabilise and transform the Legal Aid Agency digital services as we build back better in response to this attack. We are now in a position where all providers have online access to our civil legal aid services currently available via SiLAS, alongside our criminal legal aid services, which were restored in September.
This is an evolving situation but to date the total operational and digital costs of the incident are forecast to be £22 million for this financial year.
All providers have been able to access payment for work carried out whilst systems have been offline.
For some types of legal aid this meant adjusting the way in which providers submitted their claim for payment to the LAA. From 19 May, providers have been able to claim their usual payments for Legal Help, Crime Lower & Mediation work via a contingency process. Due to previous investment, the criminal legal aid systems were more modern, and internal access was restored more quickly. This enabled the LAA to resume paying Crown Court bills from early June.
It was necessary to agree a payment contingency for Civil Representation work with HM Treasury. This led to the implementation of the Average Payment Scheme on 27 May. The Average Payment Scheme enables providers to opt in to receive a temporary average payment for Civil Representation work that would otherwise be due, or where the value of their outstanding work varies from this, to apply for a specific payment to meet the cost of that work. Payments are made on a weekly basis. The weekly average payment is based on previous payments made to that provider over the 3 month period preceding the cyber incident. Some providers have not opted in to receive payment in this way and wait for the restoration of the systems, but payments are there should they need it. We are unable to quantify the number of legal aid providers who have not opted in to receive an average payment in each of the weeks it has been available.
Providers are obligated to act in the best interests of their clients both by their own SRA regulatory requirements and by their LAA Contracts. In circumstances where a legal aid provider is unable to continue providing representation in an ongoing case, for whatever reason, they have a professional and contractual obligation toward their client to assist them in finding alternative representation.
We have not seen any evidence of legal aid providers leaving the market directly as a result of the cyber-attack. Since April 2023 there has been a net increase in the number of providers contracted to deliver legal aid services.