Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of rape trials in England and Wales that have been postponed within 24 hours' notice in each year since 2010.

A trial which will no longer take place on the date set aside for it in the court calendar is referred to as a ‘vacated’ trial. This usually happens when one or both parties is not ready to proceed and there is agreement between them that an adjournment would be in order.

Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and is the best data that is available. Data are taken from a live management information system and can change over time.

Trials vacated because either the prosecution discontinued the case before the trial date or where the defendant changed their plea to guilty to the original charge have been excluded since there was no further need for a trial. Trials vacated because either the prosecution discontinued the case before the trial date or where the defendant changed their plea to guilty to the original charge have been excluded since there was no further need for a trial. If a trial date was vacated more than once in the same year it has been counted for each time.

We are progressing significant work to improve victims’ experiences of the criminal justice system. We have invested a significant amount of funding, are recruiting up to 1,000 judges across all jurisdictions in 2023/24 and have recently announced the continued use of 24 Nightingale courtrooms into the 2023/24 financial year. We are delivering enhanced specialist sexual violence support in three Crown Court locations and funding Operation Soteria to provide police and prosecutors with new tools to support them to progress cases more effectively.