Covid-19 presents one of the greatest peacetime challenges that the United Kingdom and the justice system have ever faced, but throughout the crisis we have kept courts open, we have kept cases flowing through the system and justice has been delivered, especially for the most vulnerable victims and with regard to dangerous offenders. We are ahead of comparable systems around the world and we should recognise the hard work that has allowed that to happen. Technological innovation has accelerated throughout the system, with over 14,000 cases heard remotely. Jury trials have safely restarted, with 48 Crown court centres now hearing trials, and Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service has published a plan that clearly outlines the next steps. We are not there yet and we are continuing to work on increasing available court capacity, ensuring that technology can be more effectively used throughout the system and exploring all necessary and appropriate options. This comes together with the biggest increase in the court maintenance funding structure for over 20 years.
In green spaces across my constituency, litter picks used to result in our picking up cans, bottles and crisp packets, but now, more and more, we are finding numbers of nitrous oxide canisters. An increasing number of youngsters are putting their health and lives at risk using this psychoactive substance. Will my right hon. and learned Friend look at that with colleagues across Government, so that we can get a grip of a growing and dangerous issue?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. He can be reassured, first of all, that nitrous oxide is a psychoactive substance classified under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, and it is an offence to supply it if someone knows, or is reckless as to whether, it will be used for its psychoactive effect. The most recent assessment of the drug was in 2015, when the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs concluded that there was evidence that the use of the drug can cause harm, but I would be more than happy to discuss the matter further with him.
A decade of under-investment and savage cuts in legal aid critically weakened the criminal justice system long before coronavirus. Time and again, month after month, the Bar Council, the Law Society and so many others have warned the Government about the dire predicament faced by legal aid practitioners up and down the country, but the Government’s much-delayed review of criminal legal aid is nowhere in sight. Will the Secretary of State commit to expediting the criminal legal aid review and provide a deadline by which it will report?
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