CLEARING the backlog of cases waiting to be dealt with by the courts is “very challenging”, the new top civil servant for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has said.

Antonia Romeo, who is four weeks into the senior role of permanent secretary for the department, told MPs she cannot “pretend” the outstanding number of cases, which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, is not a “significant issue”.

Asked whether it will take a decade to clear the backlog, as previously suggested by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Ms Romeo said a “huge” amount of work has already been carried out to tackle the problem.

Speaking to the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, the economist – who joined the Civil Service in 2000 and most recently served as the permanent secretary for the Department for International Trade – said: “A huge amount has been done already to make sure we are in the best possible place.

“There’s no doubt that this is very challenging for us. Like every sector in the economy, there’s been a massive impact of the pandemic."

Last month, Labour called for the size of juries to be cut from 12 people to seven to help clear the criminal case backlog.

So-called “wartime juries” were used during the Second World War when numbers were cut except for murder and treason trials and have been suggested to reduce the space needed to hold socially-distanced hearings.

This followed warnings from justice watchdogs, who said the “unprecedented and very serious” court case backlog poses the greatest threat to the criminal justice system in England and Wales.

The criminal courts backlog stood at 457,518 as of November, the latest available figures from the MoJ show.

There were 53,950 cases outstanding in the crown courts and 403,568 outstanding in the magistrates’ courts.

The overall number of outstanding criminal cases has fallen slightly since October, but is still about 100,000 higher than figures for February 2020, before the country first went into lockdown in March, according to the data.

Justice Secretary Robert Buckland previously said he hoped to clear the backlog of court cases exacerbated by the pandemic by Easter this year.

The Government has said it is investing £450 million to “boost recovery in the courts and deliver swifter justice”, insisting this is “already yielding results”.