Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of cases awaiting trial at Truro Crown Court in the last 12 months.

This Government inherited a record and rising courts backlog. We have funded a record-high allocation of Crown Court sitting days – 110,000 days this financial year, 4,000 more than the previous Government – to tackle the outstanding caseload.

However, the scale of the challenge is beyond what increasing sitting days alone can achieve.

This is why we commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to undertake an Independent Review of the Criminal Courts to consider the merits of longer-term reform and the efficiency of processes in the criminal courts. We will carefully consider Sir Brian’s proposals in more detail before setting out the Government’s full response to the report in the autumn.

At the end of March 2025 there were 373 open cases at Truro Crown Court. 328 of these were "for trial" cases, up from 191 the previous year.

Truro continues to maximise the use of Crown Court estate to increase the number of cases sat. In June 2025 Crown Court appeals were heard at Truro magistrates’ court to reduce the appeal backlog, whilst also maintaining trials at Truro Crown Court.

Further information regarding caseload trends can be found in the published statistics which can be found here: Criminal court statistics quarterly: January to March 2025 - GOV.UK