Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the frequency of late delivery of prisoners to court by contractors Serco and GEOAmey.

The performance of the criminal justice system as a whole against the requirement for timely delivery of prisoners to court is 98.31%. The latest available annual figure (1 December 2024 to 30 November 2025) for Prisoner Escort and Custody Service contractors’ performance against the indicators on timely delivery is 99.92%. We keep the contractors’ performance under constant review.

Penalties, known as service credits, are incurred for delays attributable to failure on the part of the contractor. They are calculated from the point 15 minutes after court proceedings are ready to commence – provided it is within the agreed court start times. A service credit is incurred for every subsequent 15 minutes of delay, or part thereof (in which case the supplier is penalised for a full fifteen minutes).

During the 12 months from 1 December 2024 to 30 November 2025, out of 343,638 journeys to court undertaken by the Prisoner Escort and Custody Service, there were 273 instances of failure that resulted in service credits being paid by suppliers for late delivery of a prisoner to either the Crown Court or a magistrates’ court.