The head of the judiciary has laid bare in parliament the devastating consequences of the previous government and now current administration's decisions not to allow the Crown courts to sit to full capacity.

In June, the judiciary agreed with Conservative lord chancellor Alex Chalk to sit 106,000 days in the Crown court in the 2024-25 financial year. Labour lord chancellor Shabana Mahmood agreed to an extra 500 days. In 2023-24, there were 107,700 sitting days.

However, giving evidence to the House of Commons justice select committee today, lady chief justice Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill said the Crown courts have the capacity to sit 113,000 days.

The lady chief justice said: ‘The decision to limit us to the 106,500 has frankly had a drastic effect across the board. Resident judges have had to take fixed cases out of their lists, they’ve all had to cancel recorder bookings and remove vacancies.

‘To be very clear, the cases that are being taken out of the lists are cases that were ready to be heard before next April. Cases with judges, staff, courts, advocates, witnesses and complainants available. Their removals are accompanied by long delays, sometimes years. This has been a most distressing time for witnesses, police, CPS, advocates, court staff and judges alike.’

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Lead judges for Crown courts – known as resident judges - were reporting to Carr that listed trials including serious violence cases against the person and RASSO (rape and serious sexual offence) cases were coming out of fixed lists and not coming back until late 2025/26 at the earliest.

The committee also heard that courtrooms and some entire courts were being ‘stopped’, and salaried judges were not sitting because there are no sitting days. ‘Ancillary impacts’ include criminal barristers having cases taken away from them ‘when the criminal bar is already suffering’.

Carr added: ‘Equally concerning for me, I’ve got the fee-paid judges (recorders) having their bookings cancelled. Their running practices, they’ve set the time aside. Their booking is cancelled. They become very disenchanted. I’m going to have to work hard to keep them on side, so-to-speak.’

Carr highlighted three ‘real life’ examples from the west country to illustrate her point. In Bristol, hundreds of fixed trials are being removed and several ‘backers’ are being released. On average, 40% of courtrooms are not open on any given week. Bristol was dedicating certain courts to RASSO cases ‘and that’s no longer possible’. In Taunton, only one of two courts will be running in the next financial quarter and only 60 sitting days are available between January and March to conduct 76 trials currently listed needing 265 days. Truro will shut one day a week until March 2025.

‘Can I also emphasise the obvious,’ Carr told the committee. ‘This is not about saving anything. It is not about saving money. You are deferring the cost and indeed you are increasing it. Why are you increasing it? You are increasing it because inflation will mean everything costs more. You are increasing it because barristers and the CPS are going to have to redo the work they had done to be ready for trial because the case will be stale. And that is not even to touch upon the acute social cost.'

The committee heard that the sitting day figure agreed in June with the previous administration was 106,000. In August, HM Courts & Tribunals told the senior judiciary that the Crown courts could sit to 113,000. However, a decision was taken under the new administration not to fund the courts to allow them to sit to capacity in crime. The extra 500 days was found within HMCTS's allocation.

Carr told the committee she will be ‘pressing the case to allow the Crown courts to sit to maximum capacity’ when the financial settlement for April 2025 to April 2026 is being agreed.