Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of numbers of magistrates.

The Government is committed to increasing the number of magistrates and we aim to recruit up to 2,000 magistrates per year. We are investing in recruitment to ensure that we build a larger and more diverse group of magistrates to meet the needs of our courts. We are also continuously improving our recruitment process collaborating with the magistracy and Advisory Committees.

As of 01 April 2024, there were 14,576 active magistrates in England and Wales, an increase of 2,907 since the start of the Magistrate Attraction and Recruitment Campaign in January 2022. The next set of statistics for the period April 2024 to March 2025 will be published in July 2025.