Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of remote hearings on sentencing in (a) adult and (b) youth courts.

Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the independent judiciary.

The courts have a statutory duty to follow any relevant sentencing guidelines, issued by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales. The Council has issued a range of offence-specific and overarching guidelines to help judges and magistrates decide appropriate sentences for criminal offences. The guidelines set out factors which courts should consider when deciding on a sentence and are designed to help increase consistency and transparency in sentencing.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) recently published an evaluation of the impact of remote hearings on the Crown Court, though this did not consider sentencing [The impact of remote hearings on the Crown Court (publishing.service.gov.uk)]. Remote hearings were found to be slightly shorter than matched in-person hearings. However, using remote plea hearings did not impact the total case duration or the number of total hearings in a case. The report found no meaningful differences in plea rates or trial outcomes when remote plea hearings are used.