Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the contribution of the Secretary of State for Justice on 1 December 2014, Official Report, column 73, on how many occasions in the last two years each government department has been threatened with judicial review; and in each such case, whether judicial review proceedings were subsequently (a) launched and (b) successful.

This information is not available. A ‘threat’ of judicial review could range for example from a pre-action letter sent to a central government department to an oral suggestion made at a stakeholder meeting.

It is crucial that judicial review continues to hold public authorities to account for the right reasons. The Government’s reforms strike a fair and sensible balance between limiting the potential for the abuse of judicial review and protecting its vital role as a check on public authorities.