Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to assist the recruitment and retention of magistrates.

The recruitment of more magistrates is the Government’s top priority for the magistracy. The MoJ has invested over £1 million in a programme of work to increase and improve magistrates’ recruitment. In January we launched a digitised and more inclusive recruitment process which seeks to improve data collation, alongside an inclusive marketing strategy which aims to target a wider, more diverse audience, attract more applicants and recruit more from under-represented groups. In the first nine weeks since the marketing launch, we received over 30,000 registrations of interest to the magistracy.

Additionally, we have increased the judicial mandatory retirement age to 75 via the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022, which we expect to retain around an additional 2,000 magistrates annually when compared with the previous mandatory retirement age of 70.