Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of court cases delayed in 2025 as a result of the failure of custody transport services to deliver the defendant at the correct time.

Data on the number of trials declared ineffective due to the non-production of defendants can be found here: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK (trial effectiveness at the criminal courts tool).

In 2025, the non-production of defendants by the Prisoner Escort Custody Service (PECS) accounted for 176 (2%) of ineffective trials in the Crown Court and 885 (4%) of ineffective trials in the magistrates’ courts.

Sir Brian Leveson made a number of recommendations to address the late arrivals of prisoners to court in his Independent Review of the Criminal Courts. We recognise the problems we inherited in prisoner transfer with delays occurring at prisons, en route between prison and court, and at courts themselves in bringing prisoners to the dock. We are gripping this – along with the Minister for Prisons, I am establishing an oversight body to review prisoner transfer from end to end. This will monitor and drive performance improvements in prisoner transfer across the country.

We are also working with the Department for Transport and local authorities to expand the number of areas where PECS vans can use bus lanes to reduce traffic delays, and in London we are working with Transport for London to retime the traffic signals to prioritise PECS vans so they are more likely to receive a green light.