Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many court rooms have been in use on average in each court in England and Wales in each of last 12 months.

Over the time period requested, the number of court and tribunal rooms available for use has increased by over 8%.

We allocated over a quarter of a billion pounds to support recovery in the last financial year, making court buildings safe, rolling out new technology for remote hearings, recruiting additional staff, and opening Nightingale courtrooms, including retaining 32 Crown jury courtrooms until the end of March 2022.

The total number of rooms recorded as available for use in all courthouses and tribunal hearing centres in England & Wales over the past 12 months is as follows:

Because a number of locations contain multiple jurisdictions (i.e. include both courts and tribunals) and rooms which are used flexibly, it is not possible to provide data for just courtrooms without artificially deflating the number of rooms actually available for court use.

The data includes all permanent and Nightingale rooms but excludes the court and other hearing rooms within the Royal Courts of Justice Group.