Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to improve processing times in Portsmouth South constituency for cases involving violent and sexual offences.

A breakdown of the number of outstanding cases by region is published quarterly (accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2022). We do not measure the number of criminal cases by constituency.

There will always be outstanding cases in the courts as these figures include cases that are being prepared to be heard in the courts. Pre-pandemic in December 2019, the outstanding caseload was 38,400, well within the range of 33,000 to 55,000 over the last decade.

We are taking decisive action to reduce the Crown Court backlog. We are recruiting up to 1,000 judges across all jurisdictions in 2022/23 and have removed the limit on sitting days in the Crown Court for the second financial year in a row which will enable us to sit at maximum capacity. We have also recently announced the continued use of 24 Nightingale courtrooms into the 2023/24 financial year.

It remains our priority to deliver swifter justice for victims. We are implementing the £1.3 billion Court Reform programme, which aims to make our court processes more efficient. We are also working with the Crown Court Improvement Group (CCIG), a judicially led consultative body which has been established with the purpose of improving the efficiency of the Crown Court.