MPs condemn court delays

Government’s ‘meagre ambition’ insufficient to deal with backlog

Unacceptable delays to jury trials in England and Wales are unlikely to be addressed by the government’s “meagre ambition to reduce the Crown Court backlog by less than 8,000 cases by March 2025”, the Commons public accounts committee says in a report published today.

The number of outstanding cases has nearly doubled from 33,290 in March 2019 to 59,928 …