The UK government has announced a multimillion-pound funding package to establish dedicated courtrooms for rape and serious sexual offence cases across England and Wales (a jurisdiction covering the majority of the United Kingdom), with every crown court required to have at least one specialist facility within two years. The reforms include private entrances and waiting rooms, advance evidence recording, remote sentencing observation, and fixed trial dates to prevent last-minute delays — changes long sought by victim advocates. Prime Minister Andy Burnham acknowledged that prosecution rates for rape remain "shamefully low" and that victims had waited years for justice, though the victims commissioner cautioned that the existing backlog of tens of thousands of cases is now worse than when specialist courts were first proposed in 2021.