§ Mr. Simon HughesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 24 November 1999,Official Report, column 125W, on trial by jury, if he will give a full breakdown of where the estimated savings to the criminal justice system from the Government's proposals to limit the right of defendants to elect for jury trial will be made, including savings to (a) the courts and (b) the Prison Service; and if he will make a statement. [102649]
§ Mr. StrawFor the courts, there would be annual resource savings of £12 million on committals and £36 million on Crown Court trials which would no longer take place. This would be offset by the cost of magistrates courts trials (£8 million, including the cost of any subsequent committals for sentence), and the cost (estimated at £0.5 million) of interlocutory appeals to the Crown Court. Resource savings for the Prison Service, estimated at £66 million annually, would result from the shorter custodial sentences imposed by magistrates courts.
§ Mr. Simon HughesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 26 November 1999,Official Report, column 244W, concerning jury trials, if the material requested has been prepared; and if he will make a statement. [102650]
§ Mr. StrawThe available information, drawn from two sources, is given in the table:
Defendants proceeded against for triable either way offences, 1989–98 Year Number of defendants convicted or acquitted following summary trial1 Number of defendants committals for trial1 Percentage of committed for trial resulting from defendants' elections2 1989 270,695 81,973 42 1990 277,916 82,026 39 1991 277,407 82,643 36 1992 267,341 74,902 37 1993 257,955 66,643 35 1994 263,041 69,528 35 1995 244,877 61,133 33 1996 243,860 61,215 32 1997 258,393 66,456 28 1998 291,785 51,952 28 1Source: Home Office Court Proceedings Database 2CPS prosecutions only. Source: Crown Prosecution Service statistics.