Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of days (a) crown courts and (b) magistrates courts in England (i) sat in 2018 and (ii) are expected to sit 2019.

The number of days sat in the Crown Court in England in the calendar year 2018 was 97,431 days.

The number of sessions sat in magistrates’ courts in England in the calendar year 2018 was 208,711. We don’t count days sat in the magistrates’ court and instead count sessions. A session is usually half a day in length.

We estimate that we will sit around 79,000 days in the Crown Court and around 215,000 sessions in the magistrates’ courts in England in the financial year 2019/20. These estimates are based on how much resource is required to deal with the number of cases expected to be received in 2019/20 and reflect demand in the Crown Court.

We will continue to review demand and performance in the Crown Court and magistrates’ court and will ensure they have the resources they require.

Waiting times for trials in 2018 were the lowest since 2014, despite the challenge of increasingly complex cases