Sarah Sackman
MP for Finchley and Golders Green · Labour · United Kingdom
“I appeared on “Newsnight” to explain the situation in our courts—backlogs reaching 80,000 and far too many people waiting for justice—and on that programme, I was confronted with the story of Morwenna Loughman. She spoke of the devastating impact that those court delays had had on her life. Morwenna was violently raped in February 2023.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Judicial College is working overtime to ensure that magistrates and district judges alike are trained, so that they are able to exercise the sentencing powers that this Bill will give them. The second excellent point that was made was about allocation and whether trials should be heard in the magistrates court or the Crown court.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I was glad to meet the hon. Member to discuss the situation at Taunton, which I know has been a deep source of frustration. Nothing could more exemplify the years of neglect of our justice system than our crumbling court estate that was presided over by the Conservatives. This Government are investing in the fabric of our court estate.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Today, the Crown court backlog stands at almost 81,000 cases, and the pressure is growing. Cases themselves are increasingly complex, not least because of the growth of digital and forensic evidence.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To do so, we need a sensible, principled and pragmatic approach. As we will no doubt hear, the Opposition have offered plenty of objections, but precious few answers to the reality facing our courts. We will not take lectures from the party that left the criminal justice system in this state.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is right that we are challenged and held accountable for whether we are increasing capacity in the magistrates courts to absorb the additional work, and indeed we are. Whether it is our recruitment drive for 21,000 magistrates—not an unrealistic one, as the hon.”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Member for Brighton Pavilion or anyone else the suggestion that we have not been making the choices to deliver on our commitment to halve violence against women and girls.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are making those choices. The difference is that we do not need legislation to make those choices. We have made those choices, including the commitment of money to fund independent legal advisers, trauma-informed training and victim support. We have made those decisions. We have put those building blocks in place. We do not need legislation to deliver specialist courts. I had this discussion yesterday with the Victims’ Commissioner. We do not need legislation. I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of the new clause. How could I not? It is in our manifesto. We are taking action to deliver it. We do not need the new clause to deliver it—that is the point. I will come shortly to its unworkability, but I will not take from the hon.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am going to make some progress. As I said, and as I discussed with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North, I assure the Committee that the principle behind this proposal is recognised by the Government. I agree with my hon. Friend on her assessment of what is needed: swifter justice and prioritisation so that victims do not wait years for their day in court; specialist staff and judges who are trained in these kinds of cases; and properly equipped courtrooms that support victims and witnesses to deliver their best evidence with dignity.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We want to deliver the specialist courts that we promised, to drive forward progress and to encourage our judiciary to be front-footed and progressive in its listing practices, but this is not mutually exclusive with the reforms in the Bill designed to drive down the backlog; it is a question of both/and, not either/or. I thank hon. Members for raising these important issues, but I urge them not to press their new clauses to a vote.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is happening as we speak, and it will be a real step change. It is something for which victims groups have been calling for a very long term, and which I hope and believe will improve the experience of going to court for victims of sexual offences. I sincerely thank all Members who have tabled new clauses in this space. It is important—and, frankly, a welcome opportunity—for me, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and others to talk about how we are galvanising these different initiatives within our criminal justice system.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is no doubt that, if these reforms receive Royal Assent, the Ministry of Justice, the Justice Committee and others will look to measure the impact they are having. I urge the hon. Member for Chichester not to press new clause 23 to a vote. In a similar vein, new clause 25 seeks to introduce specialist courts, which I have already spoken about. I hope I could not have been clearer that the Government remain committed to this enterprise and to our manifesto commitment. However, the introduction of such courts does not require primary legislation. In essence, we are getting on with it, regardless. One thing I have already mentioned is providing trauma-informed training to all court staff, which will be available from this spring. Again, there is change happening right now in our courts, irrespective of what happens with the Bill.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That was a slightly long-winded answer, but I hope it gives the Committee a sense of how much is going on in the justice firmament that is not legislative but represents real progress for citizens in this country who have the misfortune of encountering the criminal justice system. New clause 23 would require the Lord Chancellor to undertake a review of how the reforms impact the way RASSO cases are handled. It is not right for victims to continue to pay for the crisis in our courts, particularly in respect of delays. We know that victims of rape are facing, on average, a wait of over 400 days for trial, and we know that a large proportion of the outstanding caseload—around 20%—is made up of sexual offences. We need to drive down that backlog, why is why I have said that reform measures are needed.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One thing we must guard against—this is why we have to think really carefully about when legislation is needed and when it is not—is creating a situation where the intent might be absolutely right, but we inadvertently create inflexibility by legislating. In this case, we should not legislate in this way out of respect for the separation of powers and the constitutional dividing line between the executive and the judiciary, but there are other reasons why we might not want to legislate—for example, if it would lead to inflexibility and counterproductive results that go against the interests of some complainants in rape trials.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It works in much the same way as an NHS appointment: if somebody cancels because they are not well enough to go ahead with a surgery, but everybody else is ready—including the team, the doctors and the hip surgeon—can they pull in someone else on the waiting list? The tool will allow us to do the same kind of thing, building on some of the know-how from NHS appointment systems. We want to retain some agility while, at the same time, having a consistent approach to prioritising cases. We want to see rape cases prioritised in the national listing model, because of the vulnerability of the witnesses involved and how pernicious delays can be, and we want to drive out floating trials, but there has to be some flexibility in the system.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Some parties might be ready to go, and they will want to get the trial on sooner, so we want to allow for some flexibility to enable that. It is not about watering down all the special measures that might be needed to support best evidence, but about where it is desirable to have some agility. In that vein, the Government’s piloting of an AI, data-driven listing tool, which has been tested in Preston and Isleworth and is showing early positive results, will be crucial. I have seen the tool, and it allows us, based on certain factors in a case, to get a pretty rich understanding of how long it is likely to last.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That slightly misrepresents the problem—sometimes we need that spare capacity in a court—but it is not entirely untrue. Part of that is about not just sitting days but system capacity and workforce. Building that workforce back up will take time. That is why the Government’s investment in criminal legal aid and match funding for pupillages is crucial, as is the record settlement that the CPS received. Building up the workforce to meet the demand and reduce the number of ineffective trials is so important. The hon. Member for Chichester made an important point about the interaction between the measures we are discussing, the desirability of reducing the number of floating trials because of the impact of late adjournments, and the need for some agility and flexibility, which is why listing is a judicial function in individual Crown courts.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady asks a really good question. The point about ineffective trials is one of the greatest sources of both delay and waste in the system. She is right that last year over 1,000 trials were ineffective on the date of trial. That means that everyone had turned up except for one element, and the hon. Lady cited a number of the missing elements. That is why I do not take issue with the data presented by the Institute for Government, but I do take issue with its remedy. As the IFG itself points out, one of the greatest drivers of those ineffective trials is workforce pressures—the fact that we do not have enough prosecutors and defence barristers. We are constantly being hit with the criticism that there are courtrooms lying empty.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Extending sitting hours or attempting to run multiple trials per day risks, I would argue, reducing time for case preparation, potentially increasing ineffective and cracked trials, and then potentially worsening delays rather than improving them.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I say that because, although it is part of the Government’s ambition to grow capacity in the Crown court to meet the incoming demand and put the system on a sustainable level, the fact that we will not get there, even in the medium term, means that all those impacted by the cases sitting in the backlog—defendants on remand and potential victims—are left waiting. The lifting of the cap on sitting days is highly significant and is part of the investment lever that we all agree is needed to get our Crown court back on its feet. However, the central insight of the independent review of criminal courts is that that investment alone will not be enough, because even when we remove the limit on sitting days we cannot get to 130,000 sitting days because of capacity constraints. Extending hours alone does not increase the underlying capacity.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That offers complete flexibility in Crown court centres to hear as many cases as possible. That represents real progress, and has been welcomed by Members on both sides of the House, the Bar and judges. But we cannot immediately increase capacity to 130,000 sitting days. That is not just a question of funding. Court capacity is not just about the rooms; it depends on judges, barristers, solicitors and court staff. We cannot 3D print those. We predict that sitting at unlimited levels next year will allow us to sit for 117,000 or 118,000 days, but we are not yet ready to ratchet up to 130,000 sitting days. That is the figure referred to in Sir Brian Leveson’s review, but he acknowledged that, even in the medium term, we will not get there.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for Chichester for tabling new clauses 3 and 4, which seek to extend Crown court sitting hours, including the possibility of running two separate sessions per day, and enabling multiple cases to be heard in a single courtroom each day. In the same vein, amendments 59, 35 and 36, tabled by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, also call for a consultation on extending sitting hours in the Crown court, funding for 130,000 sitting days and a consultation on increased sitting days. As colleagues know, the Government have funded Crown court sitting days to record levels, and we are funding unlimited sitting days in the new financial year. That means that there is no financial constraint on the hours that Crown courts can sit. They can sit for as many days as possible within capacity constraints.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There was also, at the time, substantial opposition from the Bar, because although we are primarily concerned with the hearing time, because that is where progress is driven in a trial, all the case preparation—whether that is judicial, reading the papers, or the preparation time that is needed by the barristers and the prosecution—needs to be factored in. Extending sitting hours sounds like a good remedy to this problem, but we do not think it provides a solution, because time needs to be afforded to enable proper case preparation, so that when we do get on with a trial we can crack on with a hearing.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Well, during covid courts did operate with extended and flexible arrangements, but those were temporary measures, under exceptional conditions, dealing with reduced volumes. By the way, to the point made by the hon. Member for Chichester, the reduction in the hearing time in a sitting day—now under four hours—concerns me greatly. That loss of time aggregated over the 117,000-odd sitting days adds up and is hugely significant. But where HMCTS conducted pilots of increased and flexible sitting hours, it found that increasing hours alone delivered limited gains.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As I have said, we have precedent. The pilots showed that there was precious little improvement. Extending sitting hours might make things worse if, for example, one is stuck in extended hours on one trial, meaning that one is not available to be in other parts of the country.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We heard evidence from Sir Brian Leveson about how in his earlier years sitting in the Crown court it was not unusual to hear a couple of trials in a day. One of his insights was that part of the changing nature of what we are grappling with here is that Crown court trials are just taking longer. That ability to hear multiple trials within the court day has been impeded by the fact that trials are taking longer because of the nature of the evidence and the procedural safeguards. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about multiple trials. It important to note that the Lord Chancellor has a power under section 78(3) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 to determine when the Crown court sits. The amendment is not necessary with regard to needing to change primary legislation in order to change sitting hours.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a year-long project—a sprint, as it were—to look at how we can drive improved performance under the existing contract, and how we can imbed digital solutions to make that run much more efficiently.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For example, the blitz courts have been in operation in London since April, and I am going to visit one in a couple of weeks. That highly effective model of very aggressive listing has had success in the past, and it is being used to drive down certain case types in the backlog, such as assault against an emergency worker. We also need a consistent and clear approach to national listing, such as using the AI listing assistant that I referred to earlier. We are gripping the issue of prisoner delivery right across the country. Lord Timpson and I have established an oversight board, bringing together representatives of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, and the prisoner escort and custody service.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Reigate and others have made this argument during the debate: do the efficiency first, and see whether it works, before engaging in reform. I want to address that argument head on. We have been clear from the start that there is no silver bullet or simple panacea to the backlog. The insight of the independent review of the criminal courts is that we need investment, efficiencies and reform, and we are not ducking the need to drive efficiencies. One of the areas where I think we all agree is the fact that the system is incredibly inefficient, and the backlog itself compounds that inefficiency, but we are not waiting for legislation to drive at that efficiency reform. A number of other Members and I have mentioned relevant measures, and I want to touch on a few.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Within Parliament, we have the scrutiny provided not only by shadow Justice Ministers, as well as all parliamentarians, but by the Justice Committee, which provides rigorous scrutiny on a cross-party basis. Of course, we also have the regular, frequent publication of Crown court data. Although those targets are not specified, no one is pushing at them harder than the Ministry of Justice and myself, and that is what the Bill primarily targets. However, we do not think that it is necessary to publish specific targets in the legislation, and I ask the hon. Member for Chichester not to press new clause 5 to a vote. New clause 17, and to some extent new clause 13, touches on efficiencies. It suggests that we ought to review efficiencies before we embark on reform. Indeed, the hon.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the independent review of the criminal courts, Sir Brian Leveson made a series of recommendations related to how performance management and accountability across the criminal justice system could be strengthened. We are looking carefully at those recommendations, particularly in respect of whether we ought to establish a performance oversight board, in addition to the governance forum that already exists. Sir Brian recommends that such a board should monitor and report on the performance of local criminal justice boards and publish a shared set of performance measures. As I have said, we will be publishing our response to the second part of Sir Brian’s review shortly. Performance management, and monitoring our success in reducing the court backlogs, is essential.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have published our central demand forecasts, on which the Department’s impact assessment and modelling is based, but the fluctuation and uncertainty in demand makes it particularly challenging for us to set a fixed, specific target. In the absence of credible reforms, targets will not achieve much. I can tell the hon. Member for Chichester in general terms that we want to get back to a sustainable position. Some Members have referred to reverting to our position before the covid pandemic, which was when we saw the exponential rise in the backlogs. However, I do not want to put a figure on it, because that would simply not be achievable, and having targets that we know we cannot achieve is setting ourselves up to fail, and it lacks credibility.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This group contains a number of new clauses, and I want to make sure that I address all the principal themes. New clause 5, tabled by the hon. Member for Chichester, relates to publishing targets for reducing court backlogs. It would require the Lord Chancellor to set and publish targets for reducing court backlogs, and to report annually to Parliament on progress. It is important to note that the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service are downstream Departments, by which I mean that we are subject to demand pressures that are not fully within our control as they are driven by additional arrests and charging decisions.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is what all these reforms amount to. I know the establishment of the Crown court bench division keeps being cited because it will make a 2% saving, but we estimate that the package of measures taken together will make a 20% saving, because of the combined effect of the changes to magistrates courts’ sentencing powers and the magistrates retaining more work. We are pulling every lever because, when we combine all three levers, that will get the backlog down in the timeframe that the Deputy Prime Minister has set out in his various statements.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course we hope that case co-ordinators will get the systems going through, and that blitz courts will work, particularly in London, where things are most acute. But I am not prepared to assume that all that will cumulatively amount to efficiency gains of more than 5% year on year, because we have all seen the lessons, not just from the criminal justice system but right across public services, in respect of how difficult efficiencies are to achieve. That is why we are pulling every lever—not just the investment or the efficiency drive but the structural reforms—so that the investment is going into a reformed, modernised system that takes the decision to reallocate work to the magistrates court, where we know that cases are dealt with in a more timely and proportionate fashion, and out of the Crown court.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If it were easy to do, previous Governments would no doubt have achieved it. I am not going to assume more than a 5% efficiency gain, because to do so would be setting ourselves up to fail. This is probably the area where I take issue with the Institute for Government, because although it accepts, in broad terms, the time savings that can be made through our reform package—I understand that Members will say, “The assumptions are highly uncertain” and all the rest of it—it assumes that we can revert to the efficiency levels that existed pre-pandemic. It essentially assumes an efficiency gain of between 18% and 20% practically overnight, and I simply do not think that that is achievable. Of course we want to drive improvements in prisoner transfer.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Reigate, and others who maintain the argument that we should make the efficiencies and have the uncapped sitting days and the investment before we trouble ourselves with reform. I am a realist, and when I look right across Government, questions of efficiency and productivity challenge our public services all the time. Of course we want our systems to be more efficient, and so we should—the taxpayer deserves nothing less—but we have the insight of the independent review, and our own modelling, which assumes that we have maximalist investment coupled with 5% efficiency gains year on year, and those two things together will not reduce the backlog. They temper it and dampen it down, but they do not cut into it. Assuming efficiency gains above 5% year on year would be optimistic for the system.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If we want to reduce the demand for prisoner transport, unless it is needed to further the interests of justice, one way to alleviate some of the pressure is to make greater use of remote hearings. This kind of cross-agency working and grip, with ministerial attention, as well as taking soundings and engaging with the Bar, which sees the effects every day, is going to be really important. We are expanding case-progression functions and case co-ordinators to every Crown court; introducing staff with delegated judicial powers to focus on progressing cases; and sorting out problems that would otherwise take up judges’ time and reduce the hearing time that we spoke about earlier. All those things are under way and will drive at the problem. But I want to be honest with the hon.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady makes a fair point. There is a mismatch between the performance data that PECS has recorded and the qualitative evidence that one hears from barristers and the judicial office as to the time that is being lost because prisoners are not being produced on time. One of the things we discussed in the first meeting of the oversight board was that we need to have a shared understanding of the data and how we capture it. Another important theme, which we will come to in respect of another new clause, is remote hearings. Clearly, while we absolutely need to improve and speed up the operation of prisoner transport, and initiatives like opening up bus lanes are all to the good, we also have a demand issue.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We say again that the new clause is not necessary, but those questions around public trust in our system are writ large through the Government’s mission, not just in our approach to this legislation, but in our entire approach to restoring our criminal justice system to the state it needs to be in.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If a system ceases to work and breaks down—if someone who reports an assault that they experienced on their way home from the underground station is told that they will receive a court date that is one or two years away—that is the sort of thing that corrodes trust. We can think of myriad ways in which it can happen, but I would suggest that a state failing to deliver the very basics of timely justice is corrosive of trust. That is why what I am trying to do is not just about efficacy, or being able to say that we now have a properly run criminal justice system; it is about trust and legitimacy. Those questions of trust are true, irrespective of someone’s social background.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are two essential elements to sustaining public trust, the first of which is transparency. We have spoken about this a lot, and I know the hon. Member for Chichester has tabled further new clauses on transcripts. We have spoken a lot about transcripts and the recordings of proceedings in both the magistrates court and the Crown court. I think that opening up the process and making it intelligible to the public is so important, as well as the provision of reasons by judges in the Crown court bench division. Those are all ways in which transparency can play an important part in maintaining public trust. However, there is another element of public trust: people trust systems that work.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We remain committed, during a later stage of the Bill’s passage, to tabling a Government amendment on a review that will cover all the things that we believe are necessary, including consideration of the impacts of our criminal justice system not just on black and minority ethnic groups but on those from working-class backgrounds. Given that commitment, I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden not to press the new clauses to a vote. New clause 13 touches on efficiencies, on which I have already set out my arguments, and also addresses questions of public trust in the system. A theme of our debates has been the importance of public trust in our criminal justice system. Even those who do not directly interface with the criminal justice system need to know that it works and is there if they need it.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friends the Members for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) and for Bolton South and Walkden, rightly highlight the disparities in outcomes that we see across our criminal justice system, and the questions about the trust and confidence that many minoritised communities have in the system. We had a constructive debate on this issue last week, generated by new clause 29, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington. As I said then, the Government are listening carefully, not only to the Committee but to stakeholders that represent those communities impacted every day by questions of racial inequality in the criminal justice system.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I understand that this Department is going to be judged on whether we turn the corner on the backlog in this Parliament, and whether we see it start to come down in enough time, so that victims of crime and defendants on remand can start to feel it in this Parliament and certainly early into the next. That is the essay question I set myself, and we asked for a comprehensive, evidence-based answer from an independent review. It told us that we could not pick and choose our levers; we need to use all three, and that is what these measures are designed to drive at. That is the best explanation I can give for why we say that, while efficiency and investment are hugely important and necessary, they alone are not sufficient. We need the reforms in clauses 1 to 10. New clauses 32 and 33, which were tabled by my hon.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Here, we are saying, “Let’s reform the system, get it working better and more efficiently, and give it a chance to succeed by equipping it not just with the investment in terms of sitting days, but with the capital investment, too.” This is not, I hope, an enthusiastic strategy. I call it the kitchen-sink strategy, because I am trying to throw everything at it to achieve the real-time goal of bringing down these backlogs. When we announced these plans and the timeframe for when we expected to see the backlogs come down, even with these bold and radical plans, the argument I was met with was, “My goodness, you’re not getting the backlog down until 2035,” and we are pushing to see if we can make that date sooner and pulling at every lever we have.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not know if we would ever get it back down, because our modelling shows that it is insufficient. That is the conclusion that Sir Brian Leveson drew and it is supported by our impact assessment. It is why we have to act for the people stuck in the system now, with their cases being listed until 2030. I have drawn on healthcare analogies a number of times in this debate, as have others. The NHS, for example, is an institution that always needs more funding—we are all living longer, and some of the conditions we are facing are more and more complex—but we do not keep pouring money into an unreformed system.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do have confidence in the changes. Look at the levers in the Government’s gift: we can get more money for the system—tick. We can try to drive performance and govern the system to be more efficient—we are doing everything we can, but I refuse to be over-optimistic about that. The other lever I can pull is reform, based on the recommendations we have had. The hon. Lady asks me why we are not piloting, being more cautious or waiting for the efficiencies to work themselves through the system rather than running all these things in parallel, and I simply say: look at the crisis we are in, and look at the extent of the problem. If I were to wait for that 5% to play out year on year, even with maximalist investment, I cannot say that we would get the backlog down in 20 or 30 years.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course, we have also begun to roll out the independent legal adviser service for rape victims. We have also undertaken consistent engagement; I met the Victims’ Commissioner just yesterday to discuss some of the ways in which we can marshal the over £500 billion-worth of investment that the Government have made in victims services, so that we can ensure that we have a victim-centred approach. Case management is ultimately a matter for the judiciary, but taking into account the impact that delays in processes have on victims will of course form an important part of that. I would say that a publication strategy is not a matter best addressed through primary legislation, but I understand the thrust behind the hon. Lady’s proposal, and it is one that we would agree with.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me begin, as we all have in this Committee, by acknowledging the challenges that victims face in accessing the information and support they need. We have talked about the Government’s drive to centre victims in the criminal justice process. I have a couple of things to say in response to new clause 7. First, there is lots of work under way. For example, on 5 February this year we launched a consultation on a new victims code to ensure that we get the foundations right for victims. Through the connecting criminal justice data programme, we are aiming to strengthen data sharing by seeing how we can both track and share that data with victims, as appropriate. We have published statutory guidance on independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers, recommending best practice for those roles.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely recognise what the hon. Lady says. That is why I come back to this: swifter justice for victims is the guiding principle behind all these reforms. As she says, the longer people are stuck waiting for their day in court, the longer they need to be supported. It becomes a vicious cycle, because we must expend more resource on victim support to keep them engaged in the process. It is not just that we do that for longer; it gets harder the longer they are stuck in the backlog. I very much agree with her: I would rather that money were redeployed to enhance what those victim support agencies can do. I do not think primary legislation is the vehicle for it, but I absolutely agree with the sentiment. I urge her to withdraw her new clause.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I entirely agree that training, in all the respects that the hon. Member for Chichester speaks about, is key, whether it is training on equal treatment or on a trauma-informed approach to rape and serious sexual offences, or specific training pertaining to domestic abuse and identification of coercive and controlling behaviour, or to ensure the consistent application of special measures and evaluation of expert input into trauma-informed practice.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We do not have anything against piloting per se, but in a world in which the demands on our criminal justice system are changing, we must keep up. We have thought long and hard, based on independent review. I would suggest that that is an evidence base.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are not going to do a pilot, not because piloting is not a good idea per se, but because a pilot would necessitate legislation, which is why the hon. Lady has proposed it in this way, and because it would lead to a criminal justice system with different models running in parallel. That is okay—that happens with pilots and trying new things, I understand that—but fundamentally we are not piloting the changes to courts because of the extent of the crisis we are in. We need to bear down on the backlogs. We are satisfied that we have the evidence that the package of reforms will deliver significant time savings in the Crown court to achieve those efficiencies. We think we have struck the right balance between access to jury trial and speeding up the courts. For that reason, we maintain that we do not need to do a pilot here.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I understand that the Opposition disagree, but we think, based on the expert review we were provided with, that this is the right package. We do not think there is a need for a pilot, nor is there a need for a sunset clause.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not accept that the vast majority of the changes we are introducing are unprecedented; in the main, we are shifting caseload from the Crown court to the magistrates court, and we already have a way of testing that. Trials for either-way offences, some of which are already retained in the magistrates court, give us a direct comparison. People can elect the Crown court, and we can see that those retained in the magistrates court are dealt with more promptly. We also saw evidence from international comparators, as well as from experienced judges. We think these are the right measures, and not only to deal with the backlog; they also have a normative basis in striking the right balance between defendant’s rights and those of complainants and victims. We think that is right.”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗