Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect of the planned court closures on the level of cases heard in courts that will not close.

The consultations published on 18 January provide information regarding the workload at each site proposed for closure along with the capacity of the courts which would receive their work should a decision be made to close them. Our initial assessment is that there is sufficient capacity to accommodate the work of the courts proposed for closure at these sites.

No decisions will be made regarding the future of any of these courts until all consultation responses have been considered.