Justice secretary Ken Clarke has confirmed the blanket ban on filming in law courts will be overturned ‘to improve public understanding’ of the justice system.

Broadcasting will initially be allowed from the Court of Appeal before expanding to include the Crown court.

Filming will only be of judges’ remarks, and the judiciary will play a key role on developing the changes.

The Ministry of Justice has confirmed victims, witness, offenders and jurors will not be filmed.

Clarke said: ‘The government and judiciary are determined to improve transparency and public understanding of court through allowing court broadcasting. We believe television has a role in increasing public confidence in the justice system.’

In addition to allowing broadcasting, extra information will in future be published to allow everyone to see how their local courts are working.

This will include statistics for the time taken by each court to process cases, details on the number of ineffective trials and why they broke down, details on the number of former prisoners who have re-offended and anonymised data on each case heard at local courts and the sentences given.

From next May, justice outcomes will be placed alongside crime data on the police.uk website for the public to see what happens after crimes are committed.

The decision to allow cameras into the court will overturn legislation passed in the Criminal Justice Act 1925 and Contempt of Court Act 1981.

It comes just a day after an appeal by Sky News to lift the broadcasting ban in the light of public anger at the August riots.

National charity Victim Support has welcomed the decision to protect victims and witnesses from the cameras.

Chief executive Javed Khan said: ‘There needs to be proper safeguards in place to protect victims and witnesses from the added stress of court.

‘Boundaries also need to be established to ensure that televising sentencing decisions doesn’t become a form of reality entertainment like Judge Judy.’

A spokesperson for the Judicial Office said: ‘The LCJ is aware of the government’s intentions and will work with them to ensure that any changes to the current position safeguard all parties in a case and will not affect the administration of justice.’