Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect of the closure of Camberwell youth court on the (a) backlog of youth court cases and (b) resilience of the youth justice system.

In the case of any court closure, we undertake a public consultation exercise and consider the responses we receive very carefully. The Lord Chancellor only agreed to close the court when satisfied that effective access to justice would be maintained when the court closed.

The number of outstanding youth court cases in the South London Local Justice Area was 441 in June 2020, this figure includes the outstanding arrest warrants. The next publication of the National Statistics series ‘Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly’ will provide the quarterly information to September 2020 and will be available from 17^th December 2020: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics

Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) continually review and prioritise all youth cases. Judicial instructions for the prioritisation of cases ensure that youth cases, particularly those involving an individual who will be crossing a relevant age threshold, are a top priority. Our £1bn reform programme involving over 50 projects to improve our court and tribunal services, is delivering new technology and modern ways of working, delivering a more flexible and resilient justice system.