To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of criminal court cases.
Answered on
19 July 2023
We remain committed to reducing the outstanding caseload in the Crown Court and have introduced a series of measures since the start of the pandemic to increase capacity of the courts, and to improve the experience of court users and delivery of swift justice.
Steps taken to maximise court capacity and optimise efficiency include: extending unlimited sitting days in the Crown Court for the last two financial years; opening two new ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough; extending the use of 24 Nightingale courtrooms beyond March 2023 to provide additional capacity for all jurisdictions; passing the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act so that remote hearings can be used in criminal proceedings; recruiting up to 1,000 judges across jurisdictions in 2022/23; retaining an extra 400 judges and tribunal members (per year) by raising the statutory mandatory retirement age; and increasing spending on criminal legal aid by £141 million a year.