Asked by: Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many claims before employment tribunals were outstanding in each month of 2020.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The published number of outstanding single employment tribunal claims each month in 2020 are set out below:
Month | Outstanding claims |
Jan 2020 | 36,315 |
Feb 2020 | 35,653 |
Mar 2020 | 36,758 |
Apr 2020 | 39,241 |
May 2020 | 36,365 |
Jun 2020 | 42,786 |
Jul 2020 | 44,303 |
Aug 2020 | 45,130 |
Sep 2020 | 46,512 |
Asked by: Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many cases have been heard to date in each of the 'Nightingale Courts'.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Recovering from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is our top priority. By opening 18 Nightingale courts, we have added vital capacity and provided 33 extra court rooms, alleviating the pressure on courts and tribunals resulting from the pandemic. Additionally, we have secured £30m of funding to open a further 40 Nightingale court rooms in early 2021.
We do not break down data on cases heard in Nightingale Courts.
Asked by: Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many hours each of the 'Nightingale Courts' have been (1) open, and (2) sitting for court business, in each month since July.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
As part of our recovery plans across all jurisdictions, Nightingale Courts have enabled us to open a great deal of additional court capacity.
All 18 of the existing Nightingale Courts operate regular court opening hours of 9-5pm, and this will apply also to the additional five Nightingale sites announced this week. Data on sitting days in each court is recorded under their parent court. It is therefore not possible to disaggregate the data with sufficient granularity to set out sitting hours in each Nightingale.
Asked by: Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many trials have been completed in the Crown Court of England and Wales in each month of 2020.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Crown Court trials which proceed on the planned date are recorded as effective. We do not record trials in the Crown Court under a category of completed.
Data showing effective trials in each month of 2020 in England and Wales, can been found in the table below.
Published data is up to September 2020 (the end of Q3) and we are unable to provide data past that point.
Year | Month | Number of effective trials1 |
|
2020 | January | 906 |
|
| February | 824 |
|
| March | 520 |
|
| April | - |
|
| May | 8 |
|
| June | 61 |
|
| July | 200 |
|
| August | 275 |
|
| September | 471 |
|
Notes:
1). The total number of trials listed during the reporting period indicated, is considered 'effective' once a jury is sworn in regardless of whether they go on to reach a verdict. Not all cases will go to trial, for the purposes of trial effectiveness we consider a ‘trial’ at the point of initial listing. A trial which goes ahead on the planned date and occurs is then considered as ‘effective’, a trial that is listed but does not go ahead is considered either cracked, ineffective or vacated.
Asked by: Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what the average wait time between charge and sentence for crimes tried by jury was (1) in each year from 2008 to 2019, and (2) in each month of 2020.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The average number of days taken from charge to completion for crimes tried by jury in the Crown Court in England and Wales between the period of 2008 to 2019 has been provided in the table below.
The average waiting time between charge and completion for crimes tried by jury in the Crown Court in England and Wales in each month of 2020 is not available at this time. This is due to MoJ changing its data gathering, access and release practices due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
| Number of defendants whose cases have completed 5 | Charge to completion |
| |
| ||||
|
| |||
| Number | Mean | Median |
|
2010 Q2-Q4 | 72,916 | 204 | 174 |
|
2011 | 92,813 | 210 | 178 |
|
2012 | 82,214 | 212 | 179 |
|
2013 7 | 76,134 | 196 | 165 |
|
2014 | 76,531 | 206 | 174 |
|
2015 | 76,818 | 232 | 189 |
|
2016 | 69,563 | 234 | 186 |
|
2017 | 64,592 | 224 | 178 |
|
2018 | 64,852 | 239 | 188 |
|
2019 | 57,463 | 226 | 178 |
|
Notes:
1) Includes cases with an offence to completion time greater than 10 years but excludes a small number of cases with identified data quality issues and breaches. 2) Includes all for trial criminal cases (triable-either-way and indictable only cases) which have received a verdict and concluded in the specified time period in the Crown Court. This data also includes cases where the prosecutor has chosen not to continue with the prosecution. Not all cases included in this data will have gone to a full jury trial, for example where the defendant has pleaded guilty before their trial date.
3) Only one offence is counted for each defendant in the case. If there is more than one offence per defendant that completes on the same day, a set of validation rules applies to select one offence only and these relate to the longest duration, seriousness and the lowest sequence number of the offence.
4) Data from Q1 2018 to Q4 2019 are not comparable with previous periods and there is a requirement to break the series. The data from Q1 2018 onwards has been revised following the identification of defendant attrition through the timeliness process, as a result these defendants have been put back into the analysis. It is our intention to investigate the more efficient and effective way to provide robust and reliable back series in future.
5) The number of defendants shows the number whose cases have completed and where it has been possible to match from initial appearance at magistrates’ court to completion in the Crown Court. The match rate is typically between 90-95%, as for some cases, it is not possible to match defendants through the system and these cases are excluded.
6) Timeliness figures are only available from April 2010, so data for 2010 is presented above for Q2 to Q4 only.
7) Committal proceedings were abolished nationally on 28th May 2013. Triable-either-way cases are now sent rather than committed for trial.
Asked by: Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many cases were outstanding (1) in the Crown Court of England and Wales, and (2) in the magistrates’ courts, in each month of 2020.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The volume of outstanding cases in the criminal courts is published routinely. The latest available data for the number of cases outstanding (1) in the Crown Court of England and Wales, and (2) in the Magistrates’ courts, in each month of 2020 has been provided in the table below.
| Magistrates1-3 | Crown1,2 |
Month | Outstanding | Outstanding |
Jan-20 | 314,169 | 38,411 |
Feb-20 | 316,818 | 39,218 |
Mar-20 | 337,897 | 40,037 |
Apr-20 | 391,228 | 40,997 |
May-20 | 415,559 | 41,342 |
Jun-20 | 433,516 | 42,459 |
Jul-20 | 444,173 | 44,892 |
Aug-20 | 443,605 | 47,544 |
Sep-20 | 424,651 | 50,123 |
Oct-20 | 411,807 | 52,133 |
Notes:
1) The management information presented in this table reflects what is recorded on relevant case-management systems on the date of extraction. The case-management systems are continually updated and so the information presented will differ from previously published information.
2) The management information presented is different from the quarterly MOJ official statistics published due to timing and definitional reasons. The official statistics go through a more comprehensive quality assurance and analysis process to ensure quality and coherence.
3) Figures above include all case offence types. However, MOJ published statistics are filtered to include only the following offence types: Triable-either-way, Indictable Only, Summary Motoring, Summary Non-Motoring, Breaches.
Asked by: Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many category A and category B prisoners are currently being held in category C or category D prisons.
Answered by Lord Faulks
All prisoners are assessed as to their risk of escape or abscond, and their risk of harm to the public should they escape or abscond, which ensures allocation of prisoners to a prison providing appropriate levels of security. Only those prisoners categorised as C would be held in a category C prison and only those considered suitable would be held in category D open conditions.
Those same procedures ensure that category A and B prisoners are not allocated to category C or D prisons and that all prisoners are held in an establishment of at least the security category to which they have been assigned.
Prisoners re-categorised to a higher category would be held in the prison's Segregation Unit until such time as they could be moved to more appropriate accommodation.