Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the number of cases which are sent by Magistrates to the Crown Court following a not guilty plea where (a) the charge is amended before a plea is taken, (b) the offender changes their plea, (c) the Crown Prosecution Service withdraws the prosecution and (d) the sentencing judge hands down a lower sentence as a result of time spent on remand in the case.

Data on the number of cases sent by magistrates to the Crown Court following a not guilty plea, where the charge is amended before a plea is taken, or where the sentencing judge hands down a lower sentence as a result of the time spent on remand in the case, are not centrally held.

Information about the stage in the proceedings at which defendants in the Crown Court entered a plea of guilty, covering the time period Q1 2010 to Q1 2015, is to be found in Table C6 in the Criminal court statistics: January to March 2015 (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2015).

Information on cases which are sent by magistrates to the Crown Court following a not guilty plea, where the Crown Prosecution Service withdraws the prosecution, is not currently produced and is not readily available.