Courts: Fines
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the total amount of outstanding court fines are.
Answered by Sir Nicholas Dakin
Financial penalties imposed by the courts will often consist of multiple elements including, amongst others, compensation, victim surcharge, prosecutor’s costs and a fine.
The Government takes the recovery and enforcement of all financial impositions very seriously and remains committed to ensuring impositions are paid. The courts will do everything within their powers to trace those who do not pay and use a variety of sanctions to ensure the recovery of criminal fines and financial penalties. These sanctions can include deducting money from an individual offender’s earnings or benefits, if they are unemployed, or issuing warrants instructing approved enforcement agents to seize and sell goods belonging to the offender. If the offender does not pay as ordered and the money cannot be recovered by other means, then the court can take other actions which includes sending them to prison for non-payment of the financial penalty including a fine.
The total amount of outstanding fines is published annually in note 4 of the HMCTS Trust Statement. (Trust Statement 2023-24).
The amount outstanding at 31 March 2024 was £1,064,286,669.
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