Written question asked by Lord Hylton (Crossbench), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Baroness Ashton of Upholland (Labour) on Tuesday, 9 January 2007.

Courts: Magistrates'

Question: asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether delays between conviction and sentencing in magistrates’ courts have increased since 1997; and, if so, by how much.

Answer: The estimated average time from date of verdict to completion in magistrates’ courts for indictable/triable-either-way cases decreased from seven days in 1997 to six days in 2005. These figures are based on all completions in the magistrates’ courts and will include cases committed to the Crown Court, and cases dismissed or discharged as well as those where a sentence was passed in the magistrates’ court. This is because timeliness data broken down by case completion type have been available only since February 1999. Therefore estimates covering all completion types have been provided to enable valid comparisons between 1997 and 2005. Recent data suggest that sentenced cases account for around two-thirds of all completions in the magistrates’ courts.

Secondary information