Legislation will remove uncontested road traffic offences from the courts to be dealt with by a single magistrate in an office, the justice secretary has told bench chairs.

Addressing the National Bench Chairmen’s Forum, Chris Grayling said: ‘It’s utterly absurd that three magistrates should spend their time rubber-stamping foregone conclusions in simple road traffic cases.’

Where the defendant does not contest the case, Grayling said, one magistrate could deal with it more efficiently on the papers. Confirming proposals announced last month by his colleague Damian Green, Grayling indicated that the government will legislate to free magistrates to focus on more ‘serious and contested cases’.

Grayling also wants to address the reason why 40% of defendants sent to the Crown court for sentence receive no more than six months’ imprisonment – a sentence that magistrates could have passed.

He said that an Offender Rehabilitation Bill will also introduce new licence and supervision measures for people serving short custodial sentences and create powers for magistrates to deal with offenders who breach the conditions of their supervision.

Elsewhere in the speech, he criticised as a ‘scandal’ the fact that fewer than half of trials proceed as planned in the magistrates courts.