Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government, for each of the last five calendar years, how many appeals have been made against magistrates' court decisions which have rejected defendants' claims of exceptional hardship in proceedings concerning drivers liable to disqualification under the totting-up provisions; and how many of those appeals were successful.

The Ministry of Justice publishes quarterly data on appeals against magistrates’ court decisions heard in the Crown Court in the Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly release which can be downloaded from the Criminal Court Statistics landing page here: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK. Table C11 provides details of appeals heard at the Crown Court.

However, data is not centrally recorded on the specific grounds of appeal, including whether an appeal relates to the rejection of an exceptional hardship argument in proceedings concerning drivers liable to disqualification under the totting-up provisions.

This information may be contained within individual court records. However, identifying and reviewing relevant cases would require a manual examination of those records and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.