Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - Godalming and Ash)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to respond to emails sent by the Rt Hon. Member for Godalming and Ash dated 18 November 2025 and 20 January 2026 concerning a case relating to a Magistrate.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
A response was sent on 24 February and the Department apologises for the significant delay in replying. We recognise that, on this occasion, the delay falls short of expected standards.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cases exceeded the statutory time limit of six months for summary offences in each year since 2020, broken down by (a) offence, and (b) police force.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice does not hold data on the number of cases that exceeded the statutory time limit of six months for summary offences. We are unable to exclude cases from our timeliness data that are exempt from the time limit and cases that have been reopened.
Timeliness estimates from offence to charge for defendants dealt with in summary only cases at the magistrates’ courts are available in Table T3 of the published Criminal Courts Statistics release available at the following link: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of restricting access to trial by jury in England and Wales on public confidence in the judicial system.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Courts and Tribunals Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 25 February 2026. Alongside the Bill, an impact assessment of our proposed justice reforms was published: Courts and Tribunals Bill - GOV.UK. This includes an assessment of the proposed changes in the threshold for who can access a jury trial.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many serving Magistrates there are in a) Newcastle-under-Lyme and b) Staffordshire.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Magistrates are appointed to a Local Justice Area (LJA). Newcastle-under-Lyme and Staffordshire both fall under the Staffordshire LJA, and we are unable to separate them as Magistrates are able to sit across all courts within this area. As of 01 April 2025, the number of serving magistrates in the Staffordshire Local Justice Area was 217.
Asked by: Phil Brickell (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his department is taking to ensure that publicly available court information is not fragmented or incomplete, in the context of the deletion of the court desk archive.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
There has been no deletion of the Courtsdesk archive of courts lists. Courtdesk does not hold courts records. We recognise that the ability for journalists to access and search courts lists in a single place is helpful. We are doing three things to improve the way in which magistrates’ and Crown court lists are made available. First, we have launched a market engagement exercise for new providers to apply to reuse our data under a new licensing regime (which would be open to Courtsdesk to apply for). Second, we have met Courtsdesk with a view to potentially re-establishing their service, provided they can demonstrate they will comply with data protection requirements. Third, by the end of March we will be expanding the Court and Tribunal Hearings (CaTH) service, an online portal which allows journalists, professional users and the public to access and search court-related information, to include magistrates’ and Crown court lists alongside the civil, family and tribunal hearing lists already published.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of cases in the Crown Court backlog are either way cases that would be no longer eligible for jury trial under proposed reforms.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information about cases in the open caseload at both the magistrates’ courts and at the Crown Court. This includes breakdowns of volumes and durations as part of the Crown Court open caseload published as part of Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly: Criminal court statistics quarterly.
The Ministry of Justice does not publish data relating to the progression of cases or defendant elections in the open caseload. As such we cannot provide volume or timeliness estimates regarding the decision of the defendant to elect mode of trial within the disproportionate costs limit.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of either-way cases in the Crown Court backlog yet to elect mode of trial.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information about cases in the open caseload at both the magistrates’ courts and at the Crown Court. This includes breakdowns of volumes and durations as part of the Crown Court open caseload published as part of Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly: Criminal court statistics quarterly.
The Ministry of Justice does not publish data relating to the progression of cases or defendant elections in the open caseload. As such we cannot provide volume or timeliness estimates regarding the decision of the defendant to elect mode of trial within the disproportionate costs limit.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department received any representations on the replacement of Justice Chamberlain as the judge presiding over the judicial review of Palestine Action’s proscription.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government has no role in the process for assigning judges to cases, and it has not received any representations on the composition of the bench for the judicial review of Palestine Action’s proscription.
Asked by: Jessica Toale (Labour - Bournemouth West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce the number of prison recalls following implementation of the Sentencing Act 2026.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Further work is underway to understand how best we can support practitioners in safely managing risk in the community. This will inform future options to ensure recall continues to be used proportionately, to support both public protection and rehabilitation.
We are also looking at our approach to recall across the prison estate, including how the 56-day recall period can be used more purposefully in custody, alongside gathering learning from regional initiatives to safely reduce recalls and strengthen pre-release and release-day support. This work will support our cross-government commitment to halve the proportion of offenders on probation who become homeless on their first night out of prison; and shape future options for a more consistent, end-to-end, and evidence-based approach to recall across the estate.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his press release entitled Every child caught with a knife to get tailored support, published on 11 February 2026, if he will set out how the £320 million Youth Justice Services funding package will be allocated across England and Wales; and what proportion of that funding is new money.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Over the next three financial years, the Ministry of Justice will allocate £281 million for youth justice grants and a further £46 million of funding for the extension of the Turnaround grant programme.
This is a continuation of funding levels from previous years but the Department has provided multi-year funding to youth justice services. This will give youth justice services the stability to retain staff, plan effectively with partners, and commission services more efficiently - ultimately strengthening their ability to tackle knife possession and other offences committed by children.
Funding will be allocated to Youth Justice Services across England and Wales using same distribution method that has been applied for the past 13 years. We recognise that the current method for allocating youth justice funding needs updating and later this year we will undertake a consultation about long-term funding and oversight arrangements for youth justice services.