In total there were 73,105 cases unheard at the Crown Court by the end of September 2024, doubling the figure from before the pandemic, and a 10% increase from 2023.

PAC chair Clifton-Brown described the level of cases awaiting a court date as ‘unprecedented’, putting into question the Ministry of Justice’s ambition to reduce the figure to 53,000 by March of this year.

Dame Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Jerome Glass, director general of the Courts and Access to Justic Policy at the MOJ, Nick Goodwin, chief executive of HM Courts and Tribunals service, and Daniel Flury, operations director and HM Courts and Tribunal Service were called as witnesses to the PAC to explain why the level has got this high.

Additionally, the PAC wanted to establish if the witnesses understood the impact on victims and those waiting on remand for their trials to take place.

Dame Romeo told MPs the pandemic had a huge impact on the level of outstanding trials, after 2018 showed a record low in postponed cases, as well as noting an increase in police numbers leading to more arrests and therefore more sitting days needed in courts.

‘We recognise the real world impacts that delays have on victims, it’s very serious, the Chancellor and the government have been very clear, they want us to focus significantly on this,’ said Dame Romeo.

In 2021 it was claimed the backlog would come down to 53,000 by March 2025, but Oliver Ryan, Labour MP for Burnley demanded to know why exactly these targets would not be met. He was met by Dame Romeo saying the influx of demand cannot currently be matched with the headcounts they have.

Dame Romeo said: ‘With all the money in the world, at this point where we are given what’s happening on the trajectory it will be very difficult to get back into line, which is what we are looking at.

‘At the moment the number is definitely not going to come down to the previous ambition of October 2021 by March 2025, given where we are at the moment I wouldn’t want to make any predictions on when we would get it down to that level.’

A classic example of unacceptable delays occurred in July 2024 when a group of celebrities were brought to Southwark Crown Court for promoting financial advice online to their social media followers, resulting in thousands of their followers losing money. They all pleaded not guilty, with a date of trial not being confirmed but with the Judge indicating that it would not take place until 2027.

Despite going about their normal lives, the defendants here will be left wondering for almost three years before a decision is made.

One quarter of trials are currently labelled as ‘ineffective’ for various reasons. Flury told MPs: ‘This is principally caused by defendants being absent, defence not being ready, but also our desire to maximise court time in the Crown Court by over-listing cases to ensure we can get on as many as possible.

‘We’re working closely with the judges to look at the ineffective trial rate,’ going on to say they are looking at further ways to improve the rate in spring 2025.

An additional £477m was given to the justice system in 2021 to deal with the 60% rise in the backlog of cases after the pandemic and Nesil Caliskan, MP for Barking, asked why the numbers continued to increase despite the extra funding.

Goodwin responded that ‘about £42m of that was directed at the courts’ was there for use during covid and for covid recovery, to ‘ensure the courts were safe’, said Goodwin.

Caliskan then asked if collaboration between the ‘three levels of justice’, referring to policing, courts, and prisons, were communicating efficiently enough, alluding to this being a cause for the increasing backlog. Romeo disagreed with this, referring to money given to the justice system when more police officers were recruited across the country.

Dame Romeo said: ‘We work really hard to join up across the whole system and it was understood at the time that the police were being recruited. It’s not just about recruiting the new police, but about things we hadn’t predicted.

‘The demand coming in is not being met, we do not have the ability to dispose of the cases that are coming in at the rate they are coming in, that’s why the case load is increasing.’

Maintenance work was brought up as an issue by the committee, but Goodwin countered this, saying that just 2% of courts undergo maintenance every year, and just 0.2% of cases are affected by this. For example, Guildford Crown Court is currently being renovated, leading to relocation and delays to trials.

Additionally, criminal law barrister numbers have been decreasing over the past decade. However, Romeo disagreed with this, citing the number of criminal barristers in 2023/24 as 3,615, increasing from 3,429 in 2021, proving the level of criminal barristers has been increasing.

Anna Dixon, MP for Shipley questioned why the number of people waiting for more than a year to go to trial has increased to over 18,000, impacting justice outcomes and also the wellbeing of victims. Glass explained it was the significant increases in complex cases coming into the court system, such as sexual violence, and domestic violence cases.

‘The overall position is not one we think is desirable at all,’ Glass said of the level of lengthy delays.

Around 20% of the prison population (17,600) are individuals waiting for a trial and are on remand, up from 11% (9,602) in 2019. Due to the length of delay in trial, some will be found innocent at the end of their stint on remand.

Rebecca Paul, MP for Reigate asked what the Ministry of Justice was doing to reduce the number of people being held on remand.

Dame Romeo said this was directly linked with the Crown Court backlog, with Goodwin also explaining that the longest time someone can be held in remand without authorisation from a judge is six months. ‘You get a very wrong impression if you thought that was a common occurrence’, Goodwin told Paul.

However, 5% of the population of people on remand have been there for two years or longer, and 32% were being held beyond the six-month limit. Clifton-Brown said: ‘Any system that can hold somebody on remand for two years who could be completely innocent, there’s got to be something seriously wrong.’

The justice system is a complicated area to traverse, and therefore ensure that every chain links correctly given the number of organisations having to work efficiently to continue bringing the backlog down.

Due to this, Dame Romeo refused to predict the level of the backlog in 12 months’ time when Clive Betts, MP for Sheffield South East asked her.

Romeo simply explained that ‘demand is going to continue to grow and outstrip our ability to deal with that demand.’

It was also confirmed by Flury that trial dates were now being set for 2028.