MILLIONS of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent on preparing legal cases which never reach a courtroom while the UK’s legal service faces “eye-watering” budget cuts, a Gwent MP has said.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, January 11, Torfaen MP Nick Thomas-Symonds said the Crown Prosecution Service, which runs criminal prosecutions in the UK, spent £21.5 million in the 2014-2015 financial year on cases which were not heard in court.

Speaking in his capacity as shadow solicitor general, the Labour MP, who worked as a barrister before being elected to Parliament in 2015, said only £5.5 million of this was due to factors out of the organisation’s control.

“This is not purely about money,” he said. “Obviously it is not.

“However, it is now 2017, and the Conservative party, either in coalition or on its own, has been in power and responsible for our criminal justice system for nearly seven years.

“It has to bear a responsibility for the system as it is today.”

Calling cuts to the service “eye-watering”, Mr Thomas-Symonds said it had seen a real-terms funding cut of 24 per cent since 2010-2011, with a decrease in its staffing budget of 40 per cent over the same period.

He also pointed to figures showing waiting times for cases had increased over the same period as well as a government report published last year which said “the criminal justice system is close to breaking point”.

“The responsibility is on the government for these measures to improve,” he said.

“I am sure they accept that responsibility, but they have to act, and act quickly because the performance of the system clearly needs to improve rapidly.”

Replying, solicitor general Robert Buckland said, it was “a little unfair” to lay the blame for delays to cases at the feet of the CPS.

He said: “There has been a marked shift, the honourable member for Torfaen will agree, away from the sort of volume cases that might take a day or two to quite complex and often difficult cases involving sexual allegations.”