Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of rape trials in England and Wales that were postponed in each year since 2015; and what the principal reasons were for those postponements.

The Ministry of Justice publishes figures for the volume of ineffective trials and reasons on a quarterly basis in the ‘Trial effectiveness at the criminal courts’ tool: Criminal court statistics quarterly: July to September 2025 - GOV.UK. An ineffective trial does not take place on the scheduled trial start date and requires a subsequent rescheduled listing.

A vacated trial is one that is removed from the trial list prior to the date of trial. These trials may or may not be listed for a future date. The trial effectiveness tool also includes data on the volume of vacated trials, but the Ministry of Justice does not currently publish reasons for vacation.

The offence group field can be filtered for ‘02: Sexual offences – All Rape’ and there is also a filter for the reason for ineffective trials.