Courts: Record number of judgments too
The number of claims lodged at the county court in the second quarter of this year was the highest since the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) started publishing quarterly statistics in 2009.
As a result, the courts have also issued a record number of judgments.
The latest civil justice statistics, for April to June 2026, recorded 571,250 new claims, a 11% increase on the same period last year and the highest of any quarter since 2009.
The figures show that the first time new claims topped 500,000 was the first quarter of 2017 and stayed around that level until Covid hit in 2020.
Since then, they only returned to that level in Q2 2025 (513,780), which was beaten in the first quarter of 2026 (527,738).
The increase in the last quarter was mainly in money and damages claims – which made up 91% of all claims – and the MoJ said this was “likely driven by a rise in claims to recover monies in relation to parking on private land”.
There was a 21% year-on-year rise in the number of claims valued under £500, to 245,000.
Meanwhile, the small increase in the number of non-money claims was “driven by an increase in claims for return of goods”.
The downward trend in delays in cases reaching trial continued for fast, intermediate and multi-track claims, where the median wait was 55.9 weeks, 6.1 weeks faster than a year ago. The median time taken from issue to trial for small claims was 41 weeks, 0.7 weeks longer.
The MoJ has only reported on median wait times since 2022, having previously just used the mean figure.
On the latter measure – which can be skewed by extremes – the average wait for small claims was 48.5 weeks and for other claims 69.1 weeks, both less than a year ago.
However, the mean figures are still both around nine weeks slower than Q4 2019, the last period unaffected by Covid.
There were 368,000 judgments made in April to June 2026, up 26% compared to the same quarter of 2025, “as a result of the knock-on effect of the rise in claims received”. Of these, 94% were default judgments.
There were 1,328 judicial review applications received in the quarter, up 42% on the previous year and the highest level since the end of 2012, when the majority of immigration and asylum cases were transferred to the Upper Tribunal.
Of these, 400 were civil immigration and asylum applications and 890 were other civil applications, the highest level since quarterly reporting for these began in 2007. There were 38 criminal judicial reviews.