Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the covid-19 flexible operating hours pilots.

HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has led the way internationally in continuing justice, restarting jury trials ahead of all other comparable systems.

We continue to make significant progress on Criminal Courts Recovery. Since August, magistrates’ courts have been consistently completing more cases than they are receiving, dealing with over 21,000 cases each week and tackling the backlog.

In the Crown Court, we are listing over 150 jury trials and conducting thousands of other hearings each week.

As part of the Criminal Courts Recovery we have considered adopting different operating hours to maximise HMCTS’ own estate. Magistrates’ courts are already responding flexibly at a local level, and a number of Crown Court buildings are now testing and refining a blended COVID Operating Hours model. It is important to note that COVID Operating Hours would be a time-limited measure and whilst they would mean that our buildings will be open for longer, no one party would be required to attend court for longer.

We identified seven Crown Court locations to test and refine the COVID Operating Hours model. We are monitoring the pilots and will assess them all by the end of November before a decision on further implementation is taken.