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Written Question
Law Reporting: Artificial Intelligence
Monday 15th January 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of using AI to produce trial transcripts.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The government is constantly assessing how to improve the efficiency within the criminal justice system, including mechanisms to accelerate trial transcripts.

We recognise the potential merits to using automated technology for trial transcriptions, including a potential reduction in the time it takes to produce a transcription and comparative value for money.

Transcriptions must achieve very high levels of accuracy (99.5%) to ensure the justice system can operate fairly and effectively. However, even software with learning capability cannot yet reliably meet the accuracy requirements for the service without human intervention.


Written Question
Magistrates' Courts: West Midlands
Monday 23rd October 2023

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many outstanding cases there are at (a) Dudley, (b) Walsall and (c) Wolverhampton Magistrates Court.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

As of the end of June 2023 the number of outstanding cases at Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton Magistrates’ Courts are as follows:

a) Dudley Magistrates' Court: 1,017

b) Walsall Magistrates' Court: 779

c) Wolverhampton Magistrates' Court: 935

This is a further breakdown of published data that can be found in the criminal court statistics quarterly publication: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2023.


Written Question
Magistrates' Courts: Trials
Monday 11th September 2023

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases are currently awaiting trial in magistrates courts.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The volume of outstanding ‘for trial’ cases at the magistrates’ courts is published as part of the National Statistics series ‘Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly’.


The latest published data is available to March 2023 and can be found in Table M1 which is accessible at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2023.


Written Question
Energy: Meters
Thursday 9th February 2023

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department was consulted before the recent advice was issued by the National Leadership Magistrate to magistrates regarding the granting of warrants to force fit prepayment meters.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The statutory responsibility for issuing guidance to the judiciary is held by the Lord Chief Justice, the Senior President of Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner. To preserve the independence of the judiciary, they are not subject to direction or required to consult the government on the guidance they issue.


Written Question
Probate
Monday 16th January 2023

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many probate cases are under consideration in England; and what proportion of those cases have been waiting for a decision for six weeks or more.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

There were 53,253 probate cases in the Open Caseload1 as at 31 December. Of those 30,656 were more than 6 weeks old1. Of the cases over six weeks old 13,536 were stopped, 7,247 were awaiting documentation and 9,873 were ready to progress.

1 Data as at 31 December in line the official published stats. The administration of probate applications is dealt with as a national service, covering England and Wales. The open caseload excludes cases older than 6 months.

2The time outstanding is counted from the application submission date recorded in the case management system, except for digital applications with a Will, where the date of receipt of the original Will by HMCTS is used.

This data is management Information. 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. Management information can differ from the quality assured MOJ official statistics, which form the agreed definitive position. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and is the best data that is available.

HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand following an increased number of estates requiring probate and is further increasing resourcing to further bring down overall timeliness on digital and paper applications.

The improvement of the online probate system remains a priority for HMCTS, to ensure more applications can be issued first time and resources can be focused on reducing waiting times.


Written Question
P&O Ferries: Redundancy
Thursday 24th March 2022

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to ascertain whether P&O Ferries had sought a legal injunction to remove dismissed staff from their vessels.

Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

Applications for injunctions of this type are made to the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court. As at 22 March 2022 no injunction applications have been made by P&O Ferries seeking to remove dismissed staff from their vessels.


Written Question
Members: Correspondence
Wednesday 10th November 2021

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when HMCTS Probate plans to reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Warley of 7 September on behalf of Mr and Mrs Chadderton.

Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

HMCTS apologises for the delay in responding and confirms they have now responded on the 5th November 2021.


Written Question
Dogs: Tagging
Thursday 29th April 2021

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prosecutions there have been under the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015, and how many convictions secured.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions and convictions for offences under the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015, in England and Wales, up to December 2019, available in the ‘Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code’ data tool, which can be found here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/938554/HO-code-tool-principal-offence-2019.xlsx

In the data tool linked above, use the ‘Offence code’ filter to select the following offence code:

  • 111/26 - Various summary offences contrary to regulations under the Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015. (And the Microchipping of Dogs (Wales) Regulations 2015).

Number of prosecutions will populate Row 31; number of convictions will populate Row 32.

Please note that this offence code includes offences under both Microchipping of Dogs (England) Regulations 2015 and Microchipping of Dogs (Wales) Regulations 2015. In order to identify defendants dealt with in England, specifically, use the ‘Police Force Area’ filter to select all options excluding those in Wales (i.e. Gwent, North Wales, South Wales and Dyfed-Powys).


Written Question
Coronavirus: Fines
Thursday 29th April 2021

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many fines have been issued for offences under covid-19 legislation; and how many of those fines have been paid.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

National statistics on detailed offence level fines at court, including those relating to COVID-19 for the calendar year of 2020 are due for publication in May 2021.

The NPCC publishes statistics on the number of Coronavirus Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) issued by police. The latest can be found here: https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/update-on-coronavirus-fpns-issued-by-police-march-2021

Neither court nor NPCC data contains information about whether a fine has been paid.


Written Question
Courts
Tuesday 16th March 2021

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

What recent estimate he has made of the number of cases scheduled to commence in 2022.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

We have not made any forecast listings for the Judiciary. We expect almost 100% of Magistrate Courts cases are to be heard this year and over half of Crown Court custody cases to be heard in 6 months.