An additional 1,250 sitting days will be allocated to the Crown court in a bid to help reduce the growing backlog, deputy prime minister and incoming lord chancellor David Lammy will announce today.
The funding boost means the Crown court will be able to sit for 111,250 days this year up from 5,000 last year and reaching the highest levels on record.
The news follows a Ministry of Justice report earlier this month which showed the Crown court backlog had also reached a new high climbing to 78,329 between April and June this year – up from 76,957 at the start of 2025.
Lammy, who will make the announcement in his first speech after being sworn in as lord chancellor at the opening of the legal year, said: ‘The Crown court backlog we inherited stands at over 78,000 and behind each case is a real person, waiting years for justice. That is why we are acting with the biggest investment on record as part of our plan for change.
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‘An additional 1,250 sitting days will be allocated to the Crown court this financial year, allowing it to hear many extra cases. We know there is more to do, and generational reform that cannot wait, but this investment will help ease the torment and bring swifter justice to many more victims.’
Lammy's announcement follows one made by the government, in March this year, adding 4,000 sitting days to those initially allocated taking the total to 110,000. That was a further increase from December 2024 when his predecessor Shabana Mahmood, now home secretary, promised 2,000 additional sitting days.
Sir Brian Leveson’s first review of the courts, published earlier this year, with the second part to be published in the latter part of 2025, recommended greater consideration of out-of-court resolutions, expanded deferred prosecution schemes, establishing a new division of the Crown court with cases heard by a judge and two magistrates and serious and complex fraud cases to be tried by a judge alone as well as allowing defendants in the Crown court to be tried by a judge, not a jury.
Law Society president Richard Atkinson described the announcement as a 'welcome step'. However he added: 'Further action remains crucial to tackle the Crown court backlogs in the longer term, as well as to address the record backlogs in the magistrates court. The government needs to ensure improvements in one part of the system can be matched throughout the pipeline.
'Investment is needed across the entire criminal justice system to get this vital public service back on its feet.'
Bar chair Barbara Mills KC acknowledged the ‘positive step’ but added: ‘Continuing to limit the number of sitting days will mean the backlog is only being chipped away. To have an immediate and significant impact on the delays, there should be no limit to the number of days that courts can sit."
‘We need investment to support uncapped sitting days, increased resources for legal professionals, and a focus on rehabilitation programmes and out of court disposals, to reduce the number of cases going into court in the first place.’
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