Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prosecutions for sexual offence cases are awaiting a (a) trial and (b) other court hearing, as of 13 September 2023.

The volume of outstanding sexual offence cases at the Crown Court in England and Wales is routinely published as part of the National Statistics series ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly’. The latest published data is available to the end of March 2023 and can be found as part of the ‘Crown Court cases received, disposed and outstanding tool’ which is available at the link below:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1166126/cc_rdos_tool.xlsx

‘For trial' cases relates to the case type at the point of receipt into the Crown Court - these are the cases that could go to trial, but they may not necessarily result in a trial (i.e. if a guilty plea is entered). It is not currently possible to separately identify cases which are awaiting a trial start from those which are ongoing in the published statistics.