Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of the Crown Court backlog comprises the cohort of up to three years’ imprisonment cases and would go before a Judge only court under proposed reforms.

The Ministry of Justice publishes information about cases in the open caseload at both the magistrates’ courts and at the Crown Court. This includes breakdowns of volumes and durations as part of the Crown Court open caseload published as part of Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly: Criminal court statistics quarterly.  
 
The Ministry of Justice does not publish data relating to the progression of cases or defendant elections in the open caseload. As such we cannot provide volume or timeliness estimates regarding the decision of the defendant to elect mode of trial within the disproportionate costs limit.