Recommendation 30

The prison population fell during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of the cancellation of jury trials and fewer cases coming through from the courts.67 In March 2020, almost half of all courts were closed and jury trials were paused to minimise social interaction between court users.68 By June 2020, the media reported that this had created a backlog of 483,000 cases in the magistrates courts and 41,000 in the Crown courts, and that this was increasing by up to 3,000 cases per week. We asked the Ministry what plans it had to manage the impact of this backlog on the prison estate. The Ministry told us that it was determined to get the Crown courts back up and running. It was unable, however, to give us a month or year by which we could expect it to have cleared the backlog of cases.69 The Ministry told us that the Lord Chancellor would be making an announcement “very shortly” which would provide more information. Following our evidence session, the Lord Chancellor announced a recovery plan for the Courts and Tribunals Service on 1 July 2020. The plan committed to reopening all courts and tribunals which had been closed to public and stated that all remaining sites would be opened in July.70