Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many committal orders were made by Magistrates’ Courts in England and Wales against women for default of payment of fines (a) in total and (b) in relation to a conviction for the non-payment of (i) a TV licence fee fine and (ii) council tax in 2020.

The Ministry of Justice has published the number of prosecutions, convictions and sentencing outcomes (including fine amounts) for the non-payment of TV licence fees up to December 2020, available in the Outcomes by Offence data tool: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/987715/outcomes-by-offence-2020.xlsx

• Select ‘191A Television licence evasion’ in the Offence filter; prosecutions can be found in row 23 and convictions are in row 24.
• To see these figures for females, select ’02: Female’ in the Sex filter.
• The number of fines issued each year can be found in row 28, and the average fine amount in row 78.

Number of charges withdrawn can be found in the Magistrates’ courts data tool: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/987723/magistrates-court-2020.xlsx

• Select ‘191A Television licence evasion’ in the Offence filter; Charges withdrawn can be found in row 25.

It is not possible to distinguish at which stage the charge was withdrawn, whether the offence was dealt with under a Single Justice Procedure or information regarding plea at magistrates’ court.

Centrally held Ministry of Justice court proceedings data does not record committals for default of fine payment because the offence will be recorded under contempt of court, which will not separately identify non-payment of fines. This information can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.