Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many trials have not taken place as a result of the defendant being deemed not fit for trial due to mental health conditions in each of the last five years.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data regarding ineffective trials due to a defendant being ill or otherwise unfit to proceed. However, it is not possible to identify specific instances where this was due to mental health concerns because this data is not held centrally. This information may be held on court records but to examine individual court records would be of disproportionate cost.

The published data on ineffective trials can be found in the “trials data tool” which is available as part of the Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly which is available at the following link: Criminal court statistics quarterly: October to December 2023 - GOV.UK.