Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the amount of court time that has been made available as a result of his Department's policy to allow people accused of shoplifting items under the value of £200 to plead guilty by post.

There is some saving of court time where an accused indicates a guilty plea by post compared with an equivalent case where the accused appears in person and pleads guilty. To date no estimate has been made of the amount of court time that has been made available, either generally or in respect of low-value shoplifting cases. Data to answer the question is not available and it would present a disproportionate expense to HMCTS to provide it.

In all cases the defendant may choose to enter their plea in open court at a hearing if they prefer.