Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to speed up the judicial process following the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the justice system.

We have taken decisive action to address the impact of the pandemic on how quickly cases can be heard in the courts. We spent over a quarter of a billion pounds on recovery last financial year, making court buildings safe, rolling out new technology for remote hearings, recruiting an additional 1,600 HMCTS staff and opening 60 Nightingale courtrooms. These measures have helped get more cases heard and we’ve reached the same level of cases completing as before the pandemic in most jurisdictions: for example, in the Crown Courts, we are completing around 2,000 cases each week.

As announced at last year’s Spending Review we have allocated £275m to increase capacity in courts and reduce delays driven by the pandemic, and an additional £40m for victims and support services, recognising the impact that COVID has had on victims of crime.

We will continue to maximise use of our existing physical estate, and we are finalising plans for sitting days this financial year, where we expect to increase them to a record level in total across all jurisdictions.