Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 22 November 2017 to Question 113046 on witnesses: video recordings, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the initial rollout in six Crown Courts of Section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 been; which courts he expects to be in the next phase of the that rollout; and when the national rollout will be completed.

We are upgrading the technology that will record and playback the cross examination which is essential to support the roll out of s.28. However, testing of this technology identified some issues that we are working hard to resolve and it is still our intention to roll out s.28 this year. We want to make sure we get this right for some of the most vulnerable people in society and that no technical obstacles stand in their way of giving their best evidence possible.