Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce the magistrates’ court backlog in Hornsey and Wood Green constituency.

The magistrates’ court for Hornsey and Wood Green is Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court. Following Covid, the outstanding caseload in Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court returned to pre-pandemic levels by July 2021, and performance has been stable ever since. The outstanding caseload at Highbury Corner stood at 6760 in March 2023, compared to 7119 in March 2019.

This data is a further breakdown of published data that can be found in the criminal court statistics quarterly publication: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2023.

We want to make sure every victim has the swift access to justice they deserve, and we are working hard to ensure there is sufficient capacity in the magistrates’ courts to do so. This includes raising the statutory mandatory retirement age for all judicial office holders, including magistrates, investing over £1 million in a programme to recruit new and diverse magistrates, and increasing the use of remote hearings.