That this House takes note of the Crown Court criminal case backlog, and the impact of delays on reliability of evidence, experience of victims and fairness of proceedings for defendants.
My Lords, it is an honour to introduce this debate on the troubling issue of the backlog in the Crown Courts. I am grateful to those who have indicated that they wish to speak in this debate, many with extensive knowledge of the subject. I am especially looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield. Her experience, skill and reputation concerning issues affecting children, including those who have in some way come into contact with the criminal justice system, go before her. I know that she will have very important contributions to make in your Lordships’ House, today and in the future.
In recent days the Government have made a welcome announcement, which was repeated in your Lordships’ House. They indicated that their attention is focused on the subject of this debate and that they intend to take appropriate steps to reduce delays in the Crown Court—and without diluting justice.
They have appointed the distinguished retired judge Sir Brian Leveson to prepare recommendations on this difficult subject. Like Sir Brian, I was there when the Crown Court started in 1971, often appearing in cases alongside him. So was the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. We may have been in the very same courtroom on the first day of the Crown Court. He and I, with the late Lord Hooson, were in a set of provincial chambers that produced as many Peers as Blackpool. Sir Brian’s many years in the Court of Appeal, as well as his practical experience in the Crown Court in the past, will have given him a view, as it were, from the bridge of the criminal justice system. I know that he will be paying close attention to the advice and help offered to him by those ratings who have spent the recent post-Covid years on the deck in the Crown Court, watching the delays accumulate.
I have some statistics. In September 2024 there were 73,105 open criminal cases, nearly double the figure for 2019. Seriously delayed cases included 21% for violence and 18% for sexual offences. Public funding for justice declined by 22.4% in real per person terms between 2010 and 2023. This is an unacceptable situation.
As it happens, last Friday I attended the valediction of a judge at the Maidstone Crown Court. His honour, Judge Philip Statman, is not a famous judge, but he has been an exceptionally good one, admired over 20 years in two Crown Courts. Those who were there took the trouble of attending because we knew that he was an outstanding member of the judiciary who should be listened to.
In a courtroom with standing room only, we congregated to say a reluctant farewell to someone who has been the very model of a modern circuit judge. He has tried everything—for example, murders—but, like all circuit judges, he has tried cases small as well as great. He has dealt with many of the short hearings that unreasonably and unnecessarily interrupt almost every judge’s working day and increase the backlog, but more of that later. He told us of how in his last three weeks as a circuit judge in what he described jocularly as “the bits and pieces court”, he dealt with 10 cases each day, 150 in his last three weeks—one judge, 150 cases. He commented that too much judge time is spent filling the roles of case progression officers and that:
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register. It is a privilege to be part of this debate today, and an honour of my life to be giving my maiden speech in this great House.
I start with thanks to all my new colleagues on these Benches and to noble Lords from across the House for their warm welcome. I thank my sponsors, my noble friends Lady Armstrong and Lady Andrews, for their huge support and encouragement, not just lately but over the years. I thank the House staff for being so helpful and kind as I find my way around this place, with its corridors and procedures. They have been tolerant and courteous, and have always pointed me in the right direction.
I chose this debate today because it relates to so many of the issues that I have spent 40 years of my working life focusing on: families and children growing up in poverty, in poor housing, with poor mental health, living with domestic abuse and addiction—those children most likely to fall through the gaps.
I will come back to that, but I wanted first to give noble Lords an idea of my own journey to this place. I grew up in Otley, a small town in West Yorkshire. My father’s family worked as engineers, and he designed engines for aviation. My mother was a carer for her parents, who had lost their sight early on in life. We all lived in the same house, so I knew first hand the challenges that life could bring, and how vital support was. Their values of hard work, enterprise, caring for your community and a strong dose of that Yorkshire “get on with it” spirit, alongside a good deal of encouragement from some great teachers, were what I took with me when I left home to be the first in my family to go to university, and afterwards, as I threw myself into working with children and families in communities in east and west London.
New to the capital in the 1980s, I found the inequalities of childhood experiences stark. The families that I worked with in the East End had no expectations that the explosion of creativity, enterprise and wealth happening along the river in Canary Wharf would change their lives at all. However, they showed me how things might be different: how, with the right support at the right time, families can overcome challenges and share in the opportunities available in this great country.
My Lords, it is a great pleasure and an honour to follow the maiden speech from my noble friend Lady Longfield. She is a legend. She has spent decades tirelessly campaigning to improve the experience of children. In her powerful and moving speech she demonstrated her continued determination to fight for the rights of some of our most vulnerable citizens. Her persuasive expertise will make her a valued Member of your Lordships’ House and I very much look forward to working with her in the future.
Other noble Lords have and will express concern at the effects of the backlog on victims and defendants. What is less well known is that there is a looming recruitment and retention crisis in the judiciary because, as your Lordships have heard, the caseload of Crown Court judges is unsustainable. The recent Judicial Attitude Survey, conducted by Professor Cheryl Thomas, found very high levels of stress and disillusionment in judges, with 35% of them planning to take early retirement. When you add this to those who will retire by virtue of age, 42% of Crown Court judges will be gone by 2029. Of the part-time judges, from whom new judges are appointed, only 22% are planning to apply for a full-time role.
There are things that can be done, and some of them do not need to cost much money. It just requires the system to think about things differently. It has been a tenet of faith over many years that what is needed is judicial case management. Untold hours have been spent by senior judges and others devising Criminal Procedure Rules which set out timetables. But I hate to have to break it to them that they have been wasting much of their time. Most of the parties to a criminal trial have barely heard of the rules, far less read them. The reason: in the Crown Court there are no sticks and precious few carrots. You cannot make the parties comply and there is no incentive for them to do so, because they are paid the same whether they do or do not.
My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, on an outstanding maiden speech and welcome her again to this House. Indeed, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for leading this debate. In response to his invitation, I briefly say that in my view we have two fundamental problems with the court system. First, there are not enough criminal lawyers to go around—whether it is CPS, prosecution or defence. Secondly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, also said, there are many inefficiencies in the court system. If we can tackle those, we may not need radical reform.
I will take four points very briefly. Despite the recent increase in sitting days, I understand that in 2025, Snaresbrook Crown Court will still be unable to use more than 15 out of 20 courts: in other words, 25% below capacity. Isleworth Crown Court reportedly closed five courts last month, and, according to today’s Times, last Friday, only eight out of 20 courts at the Old Bailey were working. At present, the court backlog is an emergency. There is no justification in such an emergency for allowing outdated accounting rules to restrict court sittings.
On the question of costs, the court system has high fixed costs—buildings, permanent judges, staff, and so forth. But the marginal costs are relatively low: a part-time recorder’s fee is £800 a day. So, 10 recorders, sitting remotely, could do at least 50 extra court cases or directions hearings a day for less than £10,000. It is basic economics that, with high fixed costs and low marginal costs, the correct economic response is to maximise throughput—to reduce unit costs. But the present restrictions lead absurdly to the opposite result: higher unit costs per court disposal. That is not an efficient system.
More fundamentally, under the Courts Act 2003 and the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, the Lord Chancellor has a statutory duty to ensure an “efficient and effective system” of courts and tribunals. Under Section 17 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 the Lord Chancellor takes a formal oath,
My Lords, from these Benches, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, to her place and congratulate her on an excellent maiden speech; we look forward to hearing more from her.
The Lady Chief Justice, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Carr, told the Constitution Committee on 26 February that dealing with the backlog felt like
“running up a down escalator”.
She said:
“We cannot, even sitting to maximum capacity at the moment, diminish the backlogs”.
Cases are now being listed as far forward as 2028. Two inquiries are under way. The very principle of access to justice is threatened, with all the effects that this has on victims and witnesses and on lawyers and judges.
Giving evidence, as I have on a number of occasions, is not easy. The very fact that your account is to be challenged both for truth and accuracy is very daunting. The further you are from the events you are attempting to describe, the greater the pressure and the greater the possibility of self-doubt—a weakness any competent cross-examiner will exploit.
As for lawyers, according to the National Audit Office’s report on 4 March, 1,441 trials were cancelled on the hearing day in 2023, compared with 71 in 2019, because no legal professionals were available. The average time taken for a case in the Crown Court has increased in four years from 480 days to 695 days. I will say something about short listing. For the last trial I was involved in, I went five times to the Crown Court for nothing because my junior had something paid to do. I am sure you can feel the hurt as I speak.
The remuneration at the criminal Bar is so pitiful that it reminds me of the days of the dock trial. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who is to be congratulated on securing this very important debate, is too young to remember the line of ageing barristers whose careers had been wrecked by the war and who sat in the Birkenhead quarter sessions in their yellowing wigs, hoping to be picked by a defendant for the princely sum of two guineas—with five shillings, of course, for the clerk. We are back to those days.
My Lords, it is humbling to speak in this debate in the company of those better qualified than me to make comment, but I rise to speak particularly about the impact on victims. From London, I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, to her place.
It continues to be a great shame that criminal justice is one of those Cinderella public services. We often talk or feel that spending money on things such as schools and healthcare is good, and of course it is. However, talking about spending money on prisons, probation and the courts is much less frequently affirmed, despite the fact that not spending in the courts has a terrible implication for victims. I wonder whether improving public understanding of the importance of a well-functioning court system for victims and defendants may be key to winning wider support and gaining resources that are so desperately needed. What consideration have the Government given to improving public understanding in this way?
As has already been mentioned, the new report by the Victims’ Commissioner lays bare the extent of the impact. It includes a significant toll on victims’ mental and physical health, with the risk that they may, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, give up on seeking justice altogether—a second injustice compounding the first. The Public Accounts Committee report published last week details particular distress experienced by victims of rape, serious sexual offences and violent crimes. Many found the court delays so traumatic that they withdrew from the process. In adult rape cases, 59% of victims were dropping out pre-charge in June 2024.
Perhaps the most distressing part, as already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, is the increasing number of ineffective trials—scheduled trials that do not go ahead on the day. As we have heard, according to the report published by the National Audit Office last month, the proportion of ineffective trials has increased from 16% in 2019 to 27% in 2023, with some of the reasons mentioned including failed or delayed transport. I wonder whether money is being saved in one part of the system at the cost of another. What steps are the Government taking to look at spending holistically across the system so that increased investment can be shown to pay for itself in the longer term?
My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, on her instructive maiden speech.
The outstanding case load in the Crown Court has reached a level that is irretrievable without a radical change to the way in which many Crown Court trials are conducted. I will repeat just a few figures. In January 2019, the outstanding case load was 33,000; it rose to 40,000 as Covid lockdown engulfed us in 2020, and by the end of September 2024, it was over 73,000. The December figure will soon be published by the Ministry of Justice, and there is no doubt that it will be significantly higher. The backlog continues to grow because the volume of cases coming into the system has greatly increased, and there is no sign of that volume diminishing. The proportion of cases taking more than a year to conclude in the Crown Court has roughly doubled over the same period.
All those involved in the system are working hard to iron out problems that result in too many hearings, ineffective trials or late guilty pleas—and much else that has been referred to. I am afraid that those changes and improvements will not solve the problem, but they would help. Similarly, extra sitting days would not solve the problem but would help.
There is an obvious solution, and in this I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, who must be congratulated on securing this debate. A substantial proportion of cases that can be tried either in the magistrates’ court or in the Crown Court, but which currently go to the Crown Court, should be decided in that court by the same composition that deals with appeals from the magistrates’ court—a judge and two magistrates. Obvious cases for such trials would be all offences that carry a maximum of two years’ imprisonment. It is the accident of the maximum sentence that enables a defendant to elect for jury trial.
My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lady Longfield on her excellent maiden speech. She has been such a force for good in public life, speaking up for young people, and I know she will make a fantastic contribution. She is also my roommate; I do not know whether that is a blessing or a curse for her, but it is certainly very lucky from my point of view.
We are all rightly concerned about the huge backlogs in the court system. As we heard, there are reports of cases being heard in 2028. It is profoundly shocking, and we all know that justice delayed is justice denied. How can we look victims of crime in the eye and say that we do care when their trial could take years and they have to live in limbo waiting for their day in court—particularly female victims of sexual violence? These delays cause anger, hurt and frustration to all parties, and we have heard that they can also make people drop their cases.
The system that this new Government have inherited is broken. That is why it is good that some radical thinking is going on, and I welcome the fact that the Government have asked Brian Leveson to conduct this review. I know that many noble Lords and noble Baronesses will disagree, but I think it is time to examine whether we can move away from trial by jury in some but not all cases. I ask this question: how can it be right that a class C drugs offence sits in the Crown Court while a vulnerable rape victim has to wait five years from report to court?
I also hope that we can use magistrates’ courts more. They do excellent work and, having spoken with many in the profession, I know that they would be keen to step up. Can the Minister tell us whether there are plans to recruit more magistrates, as we may need more of them if we are to change the system? Can he also update us on plans to improve court infrastructure, including crumbling buildings and the national computer system, which often goes down and causes delays?
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“Every hour spent on administration is an hour away from judge craft, from getting it right for all those coming before the court to seek justice”.
Judge Statman was not grumbling, but he was giving a gentle plea for change to enable judges to judge in accordance with their oaths to do right to all manner of people. He described the effect of delay on victims as he had seen it, on survivors, on defendants and on those who conduct cases. As he said, we need more judges, more and competent criminal advocates and more sitting days. Otherwise, how does one explain inordinate delay to grieving families in cases of murder, death by dangerous driving or sexual abuse?
I adopt for this debate his reference to the case of R v ZA of 2023 in the Court of Appeal. Two experienced appellate judges commented:
“All too often judges’ lists allow too little time to prepare for a sentencing hearing, for the hearing itself and then for the judge to take time to reflect and to weigh up all relevant, often conflicting, considerations in arriving at the appropriate sentence”.
Today I received through an email a message from a judge who will remain anonymous, who described how they had done 30 hours of unpaid preparation for a case they were about to see in the Crown Court. In ZA, the Court of Appeal said:
“Court listing should ensure that there is sufficient time for the judge, even if that judge heard the trial and knows the case well, to read and consider all reports and to prepare sentencing remarks”
in age and intelligence-appropriate language. Judges must have time to think—wise and correct words.
Again, I reflect the views expressed by Judge Statman when I say, without any risk of serious contradiction, something about juries. The jury trial is the jewel in the crown of the Crown Court. As Statman reminded us:
“Rights took centuries to earn but they can be brushed away at a stroke”.
That we should remove the right of jury trial from some triable either-way cases to save time and cost is easily said but, in my view, neither proved nor justified. There is no need to replace jury trial for smaller cases. In any event, what is a small case? A small case to some is a huge case to others. A small case for some means the end of their working life, their reputation, their marriage or their family. If a police officer in a case of assault that is triable either way is accused of behaviour that would end his career, should that attract a lesser tribunal than asking for a trial by his peers? If a teacher, a doctor or one of us is accused of a relatively minor offence of dishonesty, conviction will likely end our professional lives and destroy our reputations. Should we deny such people trial by their peers? Having been there in the courtroom conducting such cases for the defence and the prosecution on numerous occasions in over half a century of my legal career, I challenge in principle the removal of jury trial, especially because it is completely unnecessary.
What are the time savings that it is asserted would take place if jury trial was removed from some potentially significant cases? If a judge were sitting either alone or with magistrates, unlike a jury’s verdict the judgment would have to be reasoned. We could not simply have “guilty” or “not guilty” without any explanation. That reasoning would be very similar to the legal directions and summary of the evidence given by the judge in jury trials and would take just as much time. There might be a very small net saving in court time dealing with a jury after it is retired, but, generally, that represents only a tiny slice of time taken up in court.
Indeed, it is very likely that decisions from such intermediate courts—as I think they are called—would give rise to a significant increase in appeals and thus more use of court time. It would be difficult fairly to exclude appeals on questions of fact which are not appealable from jury verdicts, save in the event of important new evidence arising after the jury verdict. I know that subsequent speakers will address alternative ways to use judges more effectively.
In addition, time can be saved by the use of amended Crown Court rules. Prosecution and defence advocates should be required to provide short skeleton arguments well ahead of the hearing date for all cases, including guilty-plea cases not requiring a jury. The prosecution should be required to indicate in advance any sentencing guidelines that are relevant. The defence should be required to indicate the nub of their mitigation submissions, including an indication of what they submit should be an appropriate sentence in the case. Advocates should be paid for the work they do on such intermediate documents. Currently, almost the entire fee payment in a criminal case is loaded into the final trial or plea hearing. I welcome the presence in this debate of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, who has done valuable work in relation to legal aid, and look forward to hearing what he says about payment of advocates.
Advocates should be required to adhere tightly to the time-saving rules and remunerated for that currently unpaid work they do on pre-hearing documentation. I have no doubt that there would be a favourable cost-benefit evaluation of such work. I am sure from my experience that that sort of exchange of information would mean that many cases would be over in minutes with such a system. There should be a target of no more than two hearings in every ordinary case—you would not believe how many hearings there are sometimes in small cases in the Crown Court.
In an excellent House of Lords Library briefing, produced on 13 March this year, one of the three causes of the current situation was described as “more ineffective trials”, saying that 27% of trials do not go ahead on the day scheduled—almost a doubling since 2017. Key reasons included witness and defendant unavailability and the late arrival or non-arrival of prisoner transport. This shocking figure calls for severe contractual financial penalties for such failures.
Another cause of the backlog is the decline in the number of criminal law barristers available for publicly paid criminal work. Declaring my interest as a member of a chambers conducting predominantly criminal work, I suggest that remunerating criminal advocates proportionately to comparable activities elsewhere in their profession would produce sharper, quicker, better prepared cases.
Sitting days need to be increased, which, in my view, would show a cost-benefit gain. Part of the cost-benefit analyses should factor in the paraphernalia of problems for everyone involved, including witnesses and victims facing worsening mental health until the case is determined, and 20% of defendants being retained in custody but acquitted later, with considerable financial loss.
We have to recognise that sometimes the work can be done better. Doing cases a little faster can improve the quality of a trial, and that should be subject to judicial directions, particularly where there is interminable documentary evidence that could be summarised more effectively and which juries struggle with.
A major area for further possible change is in relation to very complex fraud cases—those expected to last more than 20 days. I have done a number that have lasted months and months, far more than 20 days. In cases where it can be agreed between prosecution and defence that a non-jury trial would be satisfactory, subject to specific provisions that would be acceptable, we could speed up the courts. Such provisions might include a maximum sentence of, say, seven years’ imprisonment; a judge sitting with two experts, along the lines of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which was presided over by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, when I became a chair of that tribunal; and a full written judgment on Competition Appeal Tribunal lines. These courts could be separated from the general Crown Court.
In addition, there should be more and earlier diversion orders in suitable cases, to ensure that young defendants especially can be diverted from crime; more efficient listing schemes, such as the trial blitz at Manchester Crown Court; and increasing the credit for guilty pleas where the case has not yet reached trial.
Unfortunately, we have a crisis in the Crown Court, but we should not waste that crisis. I suggest that careful, moderate modernisation of the Crown Court system, including more efficient management at every level, from the courtroom to the Lord Chancellor’s Department, can solve current problems without damaging the fundamentals of our trusted justice standards and principles.
I have spent the last four decades working to enhance those opportunities for all children. I led a national children’s charity and worked with the noble Baronesses, Lady Harman and Lady Hodge, on the delivery of the Sure Start programme in the No. 10 strategy unit. I campaigned for many years for better childcare at a time when many saw the issue as quite niche.
As Children’s Commissioner for England, I spent six years championing the rights and interests of children with those in power who make decisions about children’s lives. I am particularly proud of the pioneering work that my office did in highlighting the barriers that hold back children and their life chances.
My last year as Children’s Commissioner coincided with the Covid pandemic. I saw then how children can too often slip from view and be an afterthought. We should of course celebrate that most children and families in our country are doing well, but a sizeable group are not, and we need to be ambitious for them too. We have lost so many of the early intervention programmes—Sure Start, youth clubs, family support projects—and now pour billions into acute late intervention services. These are the £1 million kids who come into care too late and cost £250,000 a year and more to care for. We should also pay attention to the corrosive impact of issues of misogyny and violence online, so powerfully portrayed on our screens at the moment in the drama “Adolescence”. If your Lordships have not seen it, please tune in.
That brings me to this debate today and young people in the criminal justice system. When I have asked children in prison how they ended up there, almost every one can pinpoint when things got worse and what could have been done differently. It is almost like a blueprint: the first exclusion at school, mum losing her job, the professional interventions that came too late. Some four in 10 children in custody now are on remand and most will not receive an immediate custodial sentence once they get to court. That is why I have argued that we should do everything we can to keep most children out of custody during remand. We are seeing promising results from a Ministry of Justice pilot that keeps children on remand in the community in Manchester. It would be great to see more of those.
It will not surprise noble Lords to hear that I will continue to work on causes such as this in the House. I believe in the potential of public services to stand alongside people to bring about that positive change. I also believe—as my mother used to say to me quite often—that where there is a will, there is a way. I know everyone in this House wants children in our country to flourish, but experience has taught me that it will not happen on its own for a lot of children. They need help to prevent problems becoming barriers. I will be doing all I can to ensure that we in this House do all we can to provide the kind of help and support that can change those lives.
The result is a large number of pointless hearings in court, achieving little other than both increased blood pressure and an increased backlog. I do not have to imagine these problems because, until just before Christmas, I was one of those judges. I used to think constantly, “I’ve got 35 years’ experience as a criminal barrister, 12 of which were as a KC. I never thought that I would sit in hearing after hearing, day after day, saying to counsel, ‘So, you’ve done none of the things you were ordered to do. Okay, let’s set a new timetable, which you and I both know you are not going to comply with either’”.
Crown Court judges are a precious resource. Many of them came to it because they regard it as public service. Yet they cannot get on with the things they ought to be doing, because they are—to be frank—spending a large proportion of their working lives messing around, setting timetables.
I too have reservations about an intermediate court with no jury. My concerns include the impact on diversity and thus on public confidence. Most juries are economically and socially diverse, the judiciary less so. So, my proposal is not an intermediate court but an intermediate judge: the criminal master, who could, for example, be a district judge interested in promotion to the Crown Court. The master could hear all the small routine applications, leaving the judges free to do what they ought to be doing: presiding over jury trials and passing sentence.
“to ensure the provision of resources for the efficient and effective support of the courts”.
That is an absolute obligation, not subject to Treasury whim or political change in the wind. So, would the Minister accept that, by virtue of those statutes, resources must be ring-fenced from spending cuts and funded properly?
Lastly, given the astonishing figure from the NAO that 27% of court trials are ineffective, as already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, does the Minister agree that although listing is traditionally regarded as “a judicial function”, the general efficiency of listing practices, as distinct from decisions on individual cases, is a legitimate subject of public debate and scrutiny by Parliament?
As for judges, the Judicial Attitude Survey, published in February, found that more than three-quarters of serving judges suffer from work-related stress symptoms, with higher figures for females and minority judges. Some 30% said they are suffering from burnout. In addition, the survey showed that court buildings and equipment are in a mess and that such buildings are not fit places to work in.
This is not the time for wringing hands. I do not apply my family motto, ar bwy mae’r bai—who can we blame? It is a time for action. What are the Government going to do?
Finally, I welcome the Government’s wider focus on reforming criminal justice and the call for creative thinking. This is seen especially through the sentencing review, to which my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester submitted a paper proposing a new approach to sentencing reform. I hope we will continue to think creatively, but always with victims and defendants in mind, to reduce the Crown Court blockage.
Many other cases—including drugs offences, criminal damage, regulatory offences and others where, on conviction, the sentence would inevitably be non-custodial or a short term of imprisonment—might also be considered for such trials. Such trials would take hours rather than a couple of days, because that is how long they take in the magistrates’ court. Perhaps more importantly, many of the tactical not guilty pleas that are entered in the Crown Court at the moment would evaporate.
The limit on these speeches today, which I notice I have reached, makes it impossible to develop the arguments or deal with the reasoned arguments in opposition. But, having pondered this question for some time, I note that this solution, first mooted 25 years ago by Sir Robin Auld, stands a good chance of reversing what is otherwise an inexorable decline.
We all have a shared interest in sorting this out. Our country is built on the rule of law, and we believe in having a strong legal system. But, if we do not find a way to clear these backlogs in a reasonable time-space, there is a real danger that people will not only lose trust in our system but feel that we now live in a society that is essentially lawless, and that crimes go unpunished for years and years, and then maybe just wither away. That is something that none of us wants.