Ministers have been told to “get the wheels of justice turning” again by allowing more legal specialists to serve as crown prosecutors to help clear the courts backlog.

With record numbers of outstanding cases in magistrates and crown courts in England and Wales, the shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, said the more junior associate prosecutors were “not being used to the maximum extent possible” in crown courts due to an “unnecessary and outdated legal restriction”.

There are 127 criminal law specialists employed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as associate prosecutors. They handle less contentious matters at magistrates court level, such as bail applications from defendants, uncontested applications to impose civil preventative orders and criminal proceedings relating to less serious, non-imprisonable offences.

But Labour said they were prevented from taking on the more serious casework dealt with by crown prosecutors in magistrates courts, such as initial hearings for offences that are due to be sent for trial in crown court.

The party has called for this law to be changed, saying associate prosecutors had years of experience and were already at an advanced stage in their careers but were forced to pursue costly and time-consuming retraining as generalist lawyers in order to become crown prosecutors.

Lifting restrictions on the 127 associate prosecutors employed by the CPS would represent an increase of those able to handle the workload currently reserved...

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