Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department holds on the number of (a) receipts, (b) disposals and (c) cases outstanding for cases in magistrates courts in England and Wales by (i) offence group, (ii) region, (iii) local criminal justice board area and (iv) Crown court for each quarter in each year since 2010.

Data on receipts, disposals and outstanding caseloads in the magistrates’ (from 2012) and Crown courts (from 2014) are published in the Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly publications and associated tables here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics.

Additional spreadsheet tools to further examine the receipts, disposals and outstanding caseloads in criminal courts including geographical breakdowns are set out in the latest Magistrates’ court tool (since 2016): (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1047817/mags_rdos_tool.xlsx).

And Crown court tool (since 2014): (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1047819/cc_rdos_tool.xlsx).

We continue to take action to tackle the impact the pandemic has had on our courts and tribunals system. We are extending magistrates’ court sentencing powers from 6 to 12 months' imprisonment for a single Triable Either Way offence, to allow more cases to be heard in the magistrates’ court. This important measure will provide vital additional capacity in the Crown Court, keeping more sentencing hearings in the magistrates’ courts and helping to drive down the backlog of cases over the coming years.

We invested a quarter of a billion pounds to support recovery in the last financial year (20/21). In the recent Spending Review, more than £1 billion has been allocated to boost capacity and accelerate recovery from the pandemic in courts and tribunals. This increased funding will enable us to hear more cases and reduce backlogs. We are extending 13 Nightingale courts beyond the end of March 2022. This equates to 30 extra courtrooms, mainly dealing with criminal work, but also some civil and family cases. We have also removed the limit on the number of days the Crown Court can sit in the 21/22 financial year, and in the next financial year we expect to get through 20% more Crown Court cases than we did pre-Covid (116,700 in 22/23 compared to 97,000 in 19/20).