James Cartlidge, justice minister, has revealed that the Nightingale courts – introduced to deal with the accumulation of cases during the pandemic – cost £34,661,000.
Labour MP Alex Cunningham questioned the cost of each existing Nightingale courtroom – of which there are 50 spread across 23 sites – and discovered they had an average expense of nearly £700k.
This figure does not account for staff, judicial or court costs, which could see the actual figures rise exponentially.
Some of the sites came with extortionate costs: Barbican, London, cost £2,822,000 for just two courtrooms. Park Hall Hotel, Wolverhampton, brought two courtrooms for £2,208,000. This can be compared with 102 Petty France, London, which added four courtrooms for a total of just £488,000.
Admittedly, these courtrooms may have had differing functions which would partly explain the disparity in cost. For reference, only 32 of the 50 courtrooms were able to host Crown court jury trials.
Yet, the sheer extent of the discrepancy in price leaves more questions than answers, and it is not inconceivable that things could have been achieved more efficiently. Six of the Nightingale courtrooms were situated in former court buildings in Fleetwood, Chichester and Cirenchester that had all been closed since 2010. It cost nearly £1.6m to bring these buildings back into use during the pandemic.
Cartlidge said:
“Nightingale courts have been essential in keeping the wheels of justice turning throughout the pandemic when social distancing severely restricted our ability to carry out face-to-face hearings. We have worked hard to keep costs as low as possible and continue to make sure that these temporary venues are providing best value for money.”
Cunningham also asked Cartlidge about the future of the Nightingale courts. Cartridge said:
“As Covid safety measures change we have been able to bring additional hearing rooms in our permanent estate back into use, which has reduced the need for Nightingale courts.
We now have over 470 Crown courtrooms available, which is comparable to pre-pandemic levels. An update on the future use of Nightingale courts will be provided in due course.”
