§ 37. Mr. George HowarthTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what his estimate is of the Merseyside courts' progress towards meeting Government targets on the time between arrest and court appearance for young offenders; and if he will make a statement. [2618]
§ Mr. WillsInformation is not available in the exact form requested. The Government's target for persistent young offenders is to halve the average time from arrest to sentence from 142 to 71 days by May 2002. The latest available figures are for April 2001. These show that the average time for persistent young offenders charged by the Merseyside police was 91 days. That is a significant improvement over the 1997 figure of 153 days. It reflects the work done by all the criminal justice agencies in Merseyside: the courts, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the youth offending teams.