Contributions
1,222 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)Will the Minister give way?14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)I wish to pick up on a point the Minister made earlier, as interventions from other Members hampered me from doing so at the time. She hinted in her earlier remarks that although…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)rose —14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)Will the Minister give way?14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)Could the Minister remind the Committee how many months passed and how many requests were made for the increase in sitting days that has taken place under this Government?14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)Absolutely. I have been very careful in writing my speech to not say that and to be clear about that. Again, when we have had debates about people causing the backlog and holding…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)Yes, absolutely, which is why I said earlier that I regret some of the changes undertaken while we were in government. I have made it very clear that justice and all the issues we…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)Yes, and I will be writing to the CPS about that, because commenting in the way that it has was extremely unusual. I would hope that it has a very clear explanation as to how it…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)Sometimes I wish that Government Members would pay more attention to what is being said. I mentioned “some” cases and “some” of these people. That is the difference in how we…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)Those aspects link directly, because I am discussing particular disclosure issues occurring in the magistrates court. As I will go on to explain, these are specific problems that…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)There is a fundamental difference between the CPS and, for example, the Criminal Bar Association, which is a representative organisation—its job is to represent its members. The…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)I do not think I am being the least bit unfair. I did not even ask the Minister to give a list or specifics; I just asked whether the statistics were going down in some parts of…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)I thank the Minister for explaining the measures as she understands them. I do not mind admitting that some of the explanations in the explanatory notes and the information from…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)As we heard from the Criminal Bar Association and others during the evidence sessions, we do not accept that the Government have sufficiently justified that modelling. Modelling…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)What does not bear up to much scrutiny is for the Minister to say, “Actually, the package as a whole will deliver these major reforms,” because we do not object to the whole…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)I covered all the statistics on the reforms that the hon. Member for Rugby mentioned this morning. The scale of these changes, compared with the scale of those changes, is…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)The point was made very powerfully in the evidence sessions that we have this idea that we have to take a lot of time to explain all this complex stuff to a jury, and that we can…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)I do. In the other direction, the Institute for Government highlights that “only around 30% of sentences of 6-12 months were handed out by magistrates” since their sentencing…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)Clearly, if new receipts into the Crown court are coming down, we will not immediately see a reduction in the backlogs—we need time for the trials to come down. I am glad that the…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)Nothing that I have said is in disagreement with that. The point we are making is about whether that reflects the wider, individual views of all the people who work for the CPS. I…14 Apr 2026