Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-03-31.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average length of a magistrates’ court proceeding was in (a) all cases and (b) cases relating to the non-payment of the television licence fee.

Damian Green

The majority of criminal cases in the magistrates court are dealt with in a single day. Around two thirds of all cases are dealt with in a single hearing with 90% of television licence evasion cases requiring only one hearing, The Government has said that it will examine whether television licence evasion should be decriminalised.