Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of court closures on the time taken for hearings to be listed.

HM Courts & Tribunals Service closely monitors the operational performance of courts in England and Wales, including listing timeliness. Court statistics, including listing timeliness, are routinely published on GOV.UK;

Criminal - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2018

Family - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-court-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2018

Civil - https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-justice-statistics-quarterly#2018

Court performance is influenced by many factors which include, but are not limited to, available judicial resource, changes in the offence and case mix and the overall performance of other justice sector agencies.

The decision to close a court has not been taken lightly. In the case of court closure, we undertook a public consultation exercise and considered the responses we received very carefully. The Lord Chancellor only agreed to close the court when satisfied that there was sufficient capacity in the remaining estate, and that effective access to justice would be maintained when the court closed.