Ms Angela Denning:

As of today, we have: 904 cases listed for directions and 1,104 for discharge; 170 wards of courts have been discharged; and 267 are listed for discharge up until February 2026. The plan is to list all cases for discharge either through stream 1 or stream 2 in advance of April 2026, but we recognise that it may not be possible for all wards to be reviewed and discharged by the deadline. That is for practical reasons, not through any want of will on anybody's part. People could oppose discharge, there might be insufficient evidence to carry out the capacity review properly, it might not be possible to get a capacity report from a medical visitor or from a medical practitioner in time, or people could appeal the discharge order made in their case. There are therefore reasons that we foresee why not everybody might be discharged by the deadline, but we are making best endeavours to make sure that everybody is listed, and we will see what happens after that.