Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases before the Tribunals Service have waited more than (a) three months, (b) six months, (c) one year and (d) two years.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information about waiting times for Tribunal cases administered by HM Courts and Tribunals Service is not centrally collated in the format requested. However, data on clearance times in the largest jurisdictions is published quarterly in Tribunal Statistics: Tribunals statistics quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases the Tribunals Service has completed in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information about the number of Tribunal cases administered by HM Courts and Tribunals Service that were disposed in each of the last five years is published in Tribunal Statistics: Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
HMCTS continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the recruitment of additional Judges, deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems and the use of remote hearing technology.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of claims to the Tribunals Service since 1 April 2023 were not in relation to financial awards.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Tribunals administered by HM Courts and Tribunals Service exercise a wide and diverse range of jurisdictions, including appeals against decisions made by public bodies and party versus party claims.
The number and proportion of claims not relating to financial awards varies by tribunal jurisdiction and a breakdown of claims by jurisdiction is published quarterly in Tribunal Statistics: Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of claims to the Tribunals Service were in relation to (a) unfair dismissal, (b) unpaid wages, (c) unpaid holiday pay and (d) unlawful discrimination since April 2023.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information on the proportion of claims accepted by the Employment Tribunal Service for the period up to September 2023 are outlined in the attached table.
Data is a subset of the published statistics.
Statistical information in relation to the Employment Tribunal can be found in our published stats: www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.
We currently only have data published up to September 2023.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the report by the University of Manchester entitled Racial Bias and the Bench, published in November 2022, whether he has had recent discussions with the Lady Chief Justice on the recommendation to (a) publish the Judicial Executive Board report into judicial bullying and racism and (b) make the judiciary more (i) transparent and (ii) accountable.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
It is standard practice not to comment on discussions between Ministers and the judiciary.
To protect the independence of the judiciary, it is a matter for the judiciary to determine which judiciary commissioned reports are published. Under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the Lady Chief Justice (LCJ), as Head of the Judiciary of England and Wales, has responsibility for the maintenance of appropriate arrangements for the welfare, training and guidance of the Judiciary of England and Wales. The LCJ carries out these responsibilities through the Judicial Executive Board (JEB) and the Judges’ Council. Successive LCJs have laid annual reports before Parliament. The report published by the previous LCJ in September 2023 reported on training, welfare and related matters.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the report by the University of Manchester entitled Racial Bias and the Bench, published in November 2022, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the implications for its policies of the findings on the adequacy of the level of take-up of race training by legal professionals; and if he will take steps with the (a) Lady Chief Justice and (b) Chief Coroner to increase the take-up of this training.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Everyone has a right to be confident in the justice system, regardless of their background. In 2023, the government published an update to the Inclusive Britain Strategy – our ambitious response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities Report – which included the important work we are doing to improve diversity in the judiciary and magistracy.
To preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lady Chief Justice, the Senior President of the Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner have statutory responsibility for judicial training, under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and Coroners and Justice Act 2009 respectively, exercised through the Judicial College.
The legal profession in England and Wales is independent of Government. Legal professional training and statutory responsibility for encouraging a diverse legal profession sits with the approved regulators, overseen by the oversight regulator, the Legal Services Board.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the ability of unrepresented defendants to access CCTV evidence stored on the Common Platform before their trials.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
In both the magistrates' court and the crown court, unrepresented defendants do not have access to IT heritage systems and the same principle applies to Common Platform. The prosecution has a responsibility for serving all relevant materials, whether this is on paper or, where appropriate, using other media and they must also keep a record of what is served on the defendant. This extends to CCTV evidence, which is viewable to users of Common Platform. As unrepresented defendants do not have access to the Platform, alternative arrangements are made to enable the defendant to view the material being relied upon – e.g. providing a copy of the recording on disc.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the ability of unrepresented defendants to access their case files from the Common Platform.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
In both the magistrates' court and the crown court, unrepresented defendants do not have access to IT heritage systems and the same principle applies to Common Platform. The prosecution has a responsibility for serving all relevant materials, whether this is on paper or, where appropriate, using other media and they must also keep a record of what is served on the defendant. This extends to CCTV evidence, which is viewable to users of Common Platform. As unrepresented defendants do not have access to the Platform, alternative arrangements are made to enable the defendant to view the material being relied upon – e.g. providing a copy of the recording on disc.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average cost was of a prison place in each of the last five years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
An average cost per prisoner, costs per prison place and overall prison unit costs for each private and public sector prison in England and Wales are routinely published by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. This information is produced on an annual basis and is published after the end of each financial year.
Information on prison expenditure can be accessed in the Prison and Probation Performance Statistics pages for each financial year on the www.gov.uk website that can be accessed on this link: Prison and Probation Performance Statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
The average cost per prisoner place for the last five years is provided in the table below:
Financial Year | Average Cost Per Prisoner |
2017/18 | £37,543 |
2018/19 | £41,136 |
2019/20 | £42,670 |
2020/21 | £48,409 |
2021/22 | £47,434 |
The 2022/23 figures have not yet been published.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average (a) daily and (b) annual cost of a trial in the crown court was in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The estimated average total cost of a Crown Court sitting day in each of last five financial years is shown in the table below.
The average daily cost of a crown court trial is not separable from average cost of a Crown Court sitting day. However, the full average cost of a trial cannot be reliably quantified from available management information sources.
These costs include all relevant operational costs borne by HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS), including a proportional share of the cost of operating the court building. However, other HMCTS corporate overheads such as IT and headquarters functions are excluded. Costs borne by other agencies in the criminal justice system (e.g. spending on legal aid, or by the Crown Prosecution Service) are also excluded.
Financial year | Average cost of a Crown Court sitting day (£) |
2018-19 | 2,719 |
2019-20 | 3,215 |
2020-21 | 3,562 |
2021-22 | 3,027 |
2022-23 | 3,036 |