Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of ineffective trials in (a) magistrates and (b) crown courts in the Midlands did not proceed due to the lack of a prosecution advocate in (i) 2010, (ii) 2012, (iii) 2019, (iv) 2020, (v) 2021, (vi) 2022, and (vii) 2023 as of 11 March.

Figures on trial effectiveness, by region and reason, are published here: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), and allow for proportions of ineffective trials which failed to proceed due to the lack of a prosecution advocate to be calculated.

The latest data published is currently available to Q3 2022. As a result, it is not possible to supply data “as at 11 March” and the supplied data for 2022 runs from January - September 2022 only.

The data provided uses the published regional splits.

We welcome the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service has secured additional funding from HM Treasury to restore parity in fees between prosecution and defence barristers in Crown Court cases to ensure long term sustainability of the profession.