- [Mark Pritchard in the Chair]
- 6:00 pm
- I beg to move,That this House has considered e-petition 756036 relating to access to court and tribunal transcripts.It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, and a privilege to introduce this important debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. I put on record my thanks to Daniel ShenSmith for creating the petition, and to Dr Natalie Byrom, Adam Wren and Fiona Goddard, whose insights on this issue have proved invaluable to me in preparation for the debate.The petition seeks to make it a legal obligation for all courts and tribunals to make transcripts available free of change. Currently, in both civil and criminal cases an application for transcripts may be made for all or part of a hearing, with such an application generally requiring the payment of a fee. However, there are circumstances where parties can appeal for the cost of the fee for transcripts to be paid at public expense. For that to happen, the court must be satisfied that the requesting party qualifies for free remission, or is otherwise in such poor financial circumstance that the cost of obtaining a transcript would be an excessive burden, and satisfied that it is necessary in the interests of justice for such a transcript to be obtained.That brings me to the key question that the petition seeks to address: does Parliament think that access to records of court proceedings should be treated as a public good? The petition has over 200,000 signatures from members of the public, so this is clearly an issue that has struck a chord with many of our constituents. The problem is that the current system is not fit for purpose. It undermines transparency and disproportionately affects the aspiration of a court to protect victims, bereaved families, and those who are wrongly accused or seeking to challenge injustice.Let us concentrate on how unfit for purpose the system is. His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service commissions transcription services through a procurement framework: a pre-approved panel of private suppliers established via a competitive tender. The current framework was awarded in June 2023 and runs until June 2027. Under that model, HMCTS pays suppliers for the transcripts that it requires for court purposes. The transcription company is responsible for any anonymisation that may be required and for applying any reporting restrictions that are in place.When a member of the public requests a transcript, however, they must make a request to the court in which the hearing took place and pay the transcription company directly at commercial rates. If the hearing has already been transcribed for HMCTS or another member of the public, a lower copy rate will apply. If a member of the public wants a transcript of court or tribunal proceedings, they must complete a lengthy form and pay the court the cost of the transcript. The cost will be determined by the length of the transcript, with transcription companies charging per block of 72 words. More complex cases will have longer transcripts and therefore costs will be much higher.Only a handful of transcription companies are part of the tender process and each is attached to a particular court on a geographical basis, creating a monopoly with no competition. That only drives up prices. There are accounts of people being quoted up to £50,000 for the release of these important documents. The Government’s website promises that those who apply for a free transcript will hear back within 20 days of submitting a request. If they are not eligible, they will be invited to apply for all or part of the transcript and to pay for it at a commercial rate. The judge assigned to the court case must give approval for the transcripts to be released in the first place. That approval alone can add weeks, if not months, to the process.That is a significant problem for the groups who need to receive the most protection—victims or, in cases in which the victim has died, their families. That is because the court judge might rule otherwise and rule against a request that has been put in place, quite rightly, by victims or survivors, who want to understand the true, underlying reasons behind a jury making a decision or that were part of the court process writ large.
- In the spirit of cross-party consensus, I commend both the hon. Member on securing this debate and the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on her campaigning work in this area. Does he agree that for victims it is vital that they have agency within the court process as a complainant, and that following a court or tribunal case there is transparency for them, regardless of the verdict in their case, so that they can understand the decision and seek closure after the process has concluded?
- I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member. For a witness or a victim or survivor of a crime who has gone through a lengthy court process to then have to pay what is sometimes a huge cost for the transcript of those proceedings to be made available to them is deeply unfair. A victim or a witness participates in only part of the court proceeding and is therefore unable to fully understand the complexities of the case or the contributions to it that other witnesses may have made. They are able to gain a full understanding of it only once the full transcript has been made available to them.That brings me to a key point, which is that the unduly lenient licensing scheme means that victims and victims’ families have just 28 days to appeal the sentences of their abusers. Having court transcripts is a vital part of the appeal process, so the current system creates another huge barrier to justice for victims and their families, because it might only be once they have looked at the transcript that they decide to appeal to the Attorney General against an unduly lenient sentence.Another significant reason for delays is the technology being used to record and produce these transcripts, because some courtrooms are still using tape recorders to produce transcripts. The need to create a justice system fit for the digital age is not a new one. A 2022 report by the Justice Committee described the situation on court transcripts as unsatisfactory and recommended that HMCTS should explore whether greater use of technology, such as AI-powered transcription, could be piloted to establish whether it can be used to reduce the cost of producing court transcripts.
- I almost wanted to have a bet on who would mention AI first in this debate. AI is always said to be the solution, but for once it might be. Everything that the hon. Member is saying about the system of transcripts—that it is anachronistic, lacking in transparency, costly and baroque—is absolutely right. We must move towards greater transparency. Magistrates courts currently do not have recording at all, although they will have to after the Courts and Tribunals Bill is passed. The solution has to be to do this work stage by stage, and AI will be very important in that process.
- My response to the hon. Gentleman’s points is that AI is a technology that exists. It is rolling out and therefore, as recommended by the Justice Committee, it should absolutely be looked at by the Government, in order to make sure that court transcripts can be made available, ultimately—ideally—free of charge to the public. I will go on to build the case that that is actually in the interests of the public good, from a transparency point of view.I now turn to victims. I have been lucky enough to meet many victims as part of the outreach process to prepare for this debate. Ultimately, they are at the heart of this issue. It is a sad situation, but in this country we have a judicial system that fundamentally disempowers victims instead of empowering them.Fiona Goddard is a woman I have worked with for several years. She is a champion of victims, who has tirelessly campaigned for the victims of grooming gangs. Fiona spent years being abused by a grooming gang in Bradford. When her case was finally brought to court, there were over 100 witness statements that she was not aware of. Therefore, she went on to say that her contribution was literally only part of her own story, despite the fact that she was the victim and witness in her own case. That is a common theme in experiences throughout the judicial system; witnesses will see and contribute to only part of their case and will not be aware of the full extent of all the contributions.Another case reported by the BBC involved a woman from Berkshire who, as a victim, endured a seven-week trial. The accused was cleared of rape and the victim was told that securing transcripts for the whole trial would cost more than £30,000. She said:“The entirety of my sexual violence trial hinged around me. There are five weeks of material that debate me”.She said the material dealt with the details of her case, including her words and experience, and her levels of anxiety increased. She said:
- I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s points, and those of the victims whose voices he is bringing to the fore. Does he agree that both the proposals by the Government and the amendment to the Victims and Courts Bill that was agreed to in the other place, which says that victims will have the right to access a transcript of the judge’s route to verdict, are inadequate? That is not a transcript of the full case and, as the hon. Gentleman said, it is important for victims of crime to be able to work through—with therapists or other support—the full details of what happened when they were not present in the courtroom, during what was, as he also rightly said, their case. Access to full transcripts would re-empower victims to get closure after the event.
- I absolutely agree. The amendments in the other place and the aspirations of the Government do not go anywhere near achieving the transparency associated with the full transcripts being made available, free of charge, to any victim, survivor or witness, should they wish to get clarity around the court cases that they have been involved in.
- My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I fully support the case that he is making for full transparency, but in the spirit of “I’ll start by starting”, he touched on witness statements that would have been prepared beforehand but were still not available. If the Minister accepts the principle around greater transparency, does my hon. Friend agree that certain aspects could immediately be made much more available, while some of the other technical discussions are taken in parallel?
- I agree with my right hon. Friend. If a victim has gone through a challenging court case, having immediate access to some of the witness statements and contributions that were made during the court proceedings —which can happen without difficulty, following a judge’s ruling—will potentially enable that victim to properly seek closure regarding the sentence that has been given. Probably more importantly, if they wish to challenge that sentence—and currently, under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, they must do so within a 28-day period—being able to look at the transcripts, albeit only what can be released in the short term, could provide them with the opportunity to do so.
- Clearly, we are talking about having access to accurate court transcripts. I have been contacted by a couple of constituents who work as registered public service interpreters. They feel that the current system is very patchy and that the quality of interpretation services is not good enough. Indeed, someone can still act as an interpreter in the system without professional or vocational training. Does the hon. Member agree that we must raise standards and ensure that there is a strong supply of level 6 qualified interpreters to support people in getting access to the transcripts we are discussing?
- I absolutely agree with the hon. Member’s points. They were some of the key ones picked up in the Justice Committee’s report, because they not only advocated for better use of technology but argued that there was a skill challenge among the various courts. That feeds back into the issue’s narrative: when the tender was given back in June 2023, it was geographically based, and once that tender was locked in, it was very difficult to alter it, despite challenge, our raising it in the House of Commons, and a petition coming down the line with more than 200,000 signatures. So I would like put the hon. Member’s points directly to the Minister.
- Will the hon. Member give way?
- Order. The hon. Gentleman can give way, but the hon. Member for Strangford knows, because he has been here a very long time, that it is courtesy and a convention of the House to be in the Chamber at the start of somebody’s speech before trying to intervene—I think he came in some minutes after the beginning of the speech. It is entirely up to the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley, but that is the usual courtesy.
- That is very kind, Mr Pritchard, but I will give way.
- I thank the hon. Gentleman for introducing the debate; he is absolutely right to underline these issues. He has given a number of examples of where the process has fallen down because evidence could not get to the victim—I always focus on victims, as I know he does. Is he aware of any cases or examples where, because of not being able to get the evidence, and the victim not being able to ascertain all the necessary information, cases have fallen and justice has not been delivered?
- The hon. Member makes an excellent point. Those points were not put to me in the outreach I have done, but based on the narrative and level of concern about transparency and reassurance, there could be examples of that out there. I suspect that is why more than 200,000 people have signed the petition and feel so strongly that this should be brought directly to the Minister’s attention, so that we can give better clarity and reassurance to many victims and survivors who have been through horrendous court cases.Victims should, and must, be at the heart of the justice system, yet time and again they are made to feel completely disregarded—like an inconvenience, as some victims have put it to me. The feeling among victims I have spoken to is that trust needs to be rebuilt, and that is partly done through increasing transparency.This is a timely debate: the Courts and Tribunals Bill, which represents the most significant reform to the criminal procedure in decades, is making its way through Parliament. It will abolish jury trials for crimes likely to carry a sentence of fewer than three years, but the Institute for Government has warned that judge-only trials risk damage to public confidence in a criminal justice system. The Bar Council chair has cautioned directly that the reforms“compromise public trust and confidence.”In addition, local media is facing unprecedented pressure —gone are the days when each paper had a local court reporter to sit in on court proceedings. Despite the Government’s recently announced local media action plan, investing in local news while maintaining cost barriers to court transcripts is directly contradictory. Without affordable access to clear records of what is said in court, local journalists cannot hold the justice system to account or ensure that accurate information is shared with the public.