Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the submission of pre-recorded evidence in rape trials on the (a) number of such cases brought to court and (b) number of convictions in such cases.

On 3 April 2023, the government published a process evaluation of the implementation of pre-recorded cross-examination (section 28) for intimidated witnesses, including survivors of rape and modern slavery (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/process-evaluation-of-section-28-evaluating-the-use-of-pre-recorded-cross-examination-for-intimidated-witnesses). The evaluation explored witness and practitioner views and experiences of section 28 to understand whether the provision was working as intended. The evaluation found that witnesses who used section 28 noted an improved experience compared to giving evidence live at trial.

While we are unable to determine how many rape cases progressed specifically due to the section 28 provision as opposed to other factors, we know that 433 witnesses gave evidence via section 28 in adult rape cases between January 2021 and December 2022.

The section 28 process evaluation did not analyse conviction and acquittal rates. However, MoJ are currently scoping an impact analysis of section 28 which is expected to cover conviction rates.