Jess Brown-Fuller
MP for Chichester · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. Time and again, everybody in this debate has come back to the word “community”, and I believe that coastal communities do it like nobody else.”
“When I think of Selsey, I think of the Selsey Care Shop, the Selsey Venture Club, the Selsey Beach Litter Ninjas and the Selsey Sea Bathing Society. All those charitable organisations and communities come together to support each other in tackling poverty in the area, as well as the isolation and loneliness.”
“We have worked alongside them to ensure that no stone has been left unturned in seeking to secure the best possible outcomes in this legislation. Our amendments are all aimed at tightening the gaps that we can see in the legislation.”
“A statutory duty of candour in the NHS has existed since 2014, yet we know that there remains a culture of retiring or firing staff who dare to speak up. Our new clause 2 would create an offence for anyone who wilfully destroys relevant records after a major incident that could lead to an inquest or inquiry.”
“Amendments 1 and 2 would ensure that the legislation is fully up to date with modern investigations by making it clear that digital messages must be provided as evidence to investigations. The Bill includes provisions for the inclusion of subcontractors under the duty of candour, but we do not believe that they go far enough.”
“I know from her contributions in debates, her willingness and openness to meet me and Liberal Democrat colleagues to hear our concerns, and her engagement with campaign organisations and families, that she has fought to deliver the Hillsborough law as it was intended by those involved in the campaign.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Jess Brown-Fuller, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 8 of 12.
“At the moment, as Emma has said, there is a reliance on the lawyers to really lead the way with those appeals—that is possibly why only 1% of appeals go from the magistrates to the Crown court. Without a lawyer being present, and of course without there even being the right to appeal directly, you are leaving a whole load of defendants, who may well be wrongly convicted or may get the wrong sentence for the crime they have committed, floundering.”
“Q Thank you all for being here. It is very helpful to have your views as part of today’s evidence gathering. Do any of you share concerns that there is a lower level of legal aid available in the magistrates court, and that that could have an impact when magistrates hear cases that carry higher sentences? Fiona Rutherford: Yes, and I referred earlier to the impact of having more litigants in person, which would be the impact of there being fewer lawyers representing defendants in the magistrates court. If you are looking at it from a victim’s perspective, one of the key things is that you will get the cross-examination directly from the defendant in court. Equally, there are some issues with the way that appeals will take place.”
“It is worth pointing out that the Magistrates’ Association, in its response to the Law Commission’s consultation paper, agreed with retaining the automatic right of appeal on the basis that justice may occasionally result in rough edges and potential errors in the magistrates court. In its view, the automatic right of appeal operates as a crucial safeguard, and that is essentially what we are saying.”
“We have heard about swift and speedy justice in the magistrates court. It is often rough and ready; we are talking about cases being tried by lay justices, some of whom may be experienced but some may not be, and we are also talking about less experienced judges. You often find in the lower court, the magistrates court, that advocates are more inexperienced and tend to be at the start of their career. The more experienced they are, the more serious the cases they deal with. What I am trying to say is that to have rough and ready justice dealt with quickly, the magistrates court requires that automatic right to redress any mistakes that might have happened. Let me put it this way: the automatic right of appeal is the ying to the magistrates’ yang, in the sense that you have an important safeguard against the miscarriages that do happen.”
“Q Thank you. I have a question for Emma about appeals. Excuse my ignorance, but my understanding is that, if you are appealing from a magistrates court, you already have to have grounds for appeal anyway. You cannot just say, “Well, I didn’t like that; I’d like to appeal and go up to the Crown court.” There is already a threshold that has to be met—is that correct? Emma Torr: There is a simple form where you have to set out your reasons for appealing, but there is no judge in the Crown court looking at that form and saying, “You’re not entitled to an appeal because you haven’t set out the reasons why you want to appeal.” It is an automatic right to a full rehearing in the Crown court. That is so important, because that automatic right acts as an essential counterbalance.”
“There needs to be a clear-eyed assessment of the trade-off you are potentially making between swifter justice by hearing more cases in magistrates courts and more robust justice in the Crown court.”
“Q I have a quick question for Cassia. The Government proposals rely on the magistrates court taking on a significant amount of additional work and, importantly, sentencing powers. Have the Government adequately outlined how that will be mitigated in the magistrates courts? What assessment have you made about how much quicker they will be able to hear cases compared with the Crown court? Cassia Rowland: We have not done an in-depth assessment of that. If by mitigation you are thinking about the justice fairness outcome, we have been principally focused on the ability of the courts to cope with this, but there is, as Emma mentioned, an acceptance that summary justice is rapid justice and it can be a bit rough around the edges.”
“Q I have one more question. Has the IfG ever done any modelling around the efficiency savings that could be made by introducing the RASSO courts, as per as the Labour manifesto, or by other reforms to the criminal justice system, such as introducing am and pm sitting days? Cassia Rowland: We have not. Regarding the specialist RASSO courts, the principal arguments for those are about not efficiency, but the experience of the victim and the more trauma-informed and wraparound approach that that kind of set-up would allow for.”
“Her case came before the High Court, which dismissed the Government’s prosecution of her and said that jury equity is a vital principle of our democracy and she was right to uphold it. It was part of her convention rights. We lose that principle if we ignore protesters when we look at this legislation.”
“Q I have a very simple question: what are the risks of ignoring campaigners like you when we talk about fundamentally changing the way we do jury trials? Tim Crosland: The risk is to democracy and to people’s confidence in democracy in cases that explore the boundaries between public interest, the right to protest and criminal law. We lose the essence of democratic rights if people know that they will not get a trial before their peers. It is a very profound danger. It was only in 2024 after 69-year-old retired social worker Trudi Warner had been arrested and prosecuted for holding up a sign outside London Crown court that the High Court said that juries were entitled to acquit as a matter of conscience.”
“Q Do you share my discomfort that we have no pilot to refer to, to see if the proposed measures would work? Sarah Sackman: The difficulty is that any pilot where you are testing the sorts of measures that we are countenancing, which have taken their cue from the IRCC, would require primary legislation. We could not do this without primary legislation in the first place. Secondly, I do not feel discomfort, and I feel confident in the measures, because they are based on expertise that the independent review gave us. Thirdly, as we have heard, the time for pilots was yesterday—it was probably 10 years ago. The state of the backlogs at 80,000 and continuing to grow means that we have to pull every lever to not just reform the system but to invest in it and modernise it, to bring down those backlogs.”
“They said you couldn’t do it: you could not cross-examine a witness; you could not do your advocacy. Yet there we were. We were all told to go on video, and the sky did not fall in—it worked. We learnt and the MOJ got a lot of institutional knowledge through the pandemic. There are also a lot of piloting initiatives that the MOJ is undertaking: for example, our pilots for our new digital listing tool, where we are taking some of the lessons from Liverpool and elsewhere but doing that using data. We are piloting that in Isleworth and Preston. A lot of that evidence would have been put forward to the IRCC. Obviously, it is also held within the MOJ. This package of measures that we are bringing forward, when you model, it is what we believe is capable of bringing down the backlog, together with the investment and modernisation.”
“Q On pilots, I agree that something needs to be done now. A pilot ran during the pandemic that looked at dual court sitting days. That pilot showed that courtrooms were able to hear 3.5 cases in a week compared with the typical rate of 0.9. It was a short pilot that was run in seven courtrooms. Have you had conversations in the MOJ about alternative reforms to bring down the court backlogs? If you have, why was the decision taken to not look at that proposal? If you have not, why not? Sarah Sackman: We learned a huge amount through the pandemic. To give a personal example, I had a trial that was due to come on the day that we went into lockdown, and we were told that we were going to do it on video link. People had been speaking for years about the use of videos in courts.”
“Q If I can ask my question again to clarify, have you as the Minister had any conversations with any officials in the MOJ about the pilot that happened in the pandemic, specifically about two cases being heard in a Crown court in a day? Why was that discounted? Sarah Sackman: On that specific example, I would have to go away and ask what was considered by officials because it has not been surfaced to my attention. I have had the blitz courts, where cases are listed very aggressively, brought to my attention, and we are doing them in London as of next month. I do not know about the specific pilot you are talking about. I have not considered that directly, but I am sure that my officials have.”
“I find it strange that the defendant chooses the mode of trial, rather than the court triaging it. I use a healthcare analogy: if I go to A&E on a Saturday night, I do not get to insist that I get to see the specialist consultant if I can be treated appropriately by a resident health associate. It seems to me that the changes are normative and values-driven, and would be good for the system anyway. We probably would not be here at this time of night with this exact shape of debate if it was not for the crisis, but I stand by the principles that lie behind the reforms we are bringing forward.”
“You have heard me say in the Chamber, and I am not going to resile from it, that there are certainly parts of this plan that I would be advocating for anyway, because I think that they will make the system fairer and more sustainable. You heard the police chief talk about the fact that demand pressures come into the picture not just because of the backlog but because of the changing nature and complexity of criminal trials. The system needs to reform itself. You heard Charlotte, one of the victims who spoke earlier, talk about the changes to the right to elect. I find it curious that Scotland, for example, does not have the right of election for a defendant. We know that it exists in Canada—we heard about that example—but it does not exist in Scotland, and there are lots of other jurisdictions where that does not exist.”
“Q Sir Richard Henriques, who we heard from earlier, said that if we were not facing such a huge backlog we would not be here at all. I may have bastardised his language slightly, but do you agree with him? Sarah Sackman: I think that I know where this is going, because I think that you will push me on this. Plainly, we are here, and the nature of the debate is shaped by the appalling backlog in our courts and the crisis we face—we all agree on that. There are 80,000 cases, and behind every one is a victim, and cases are being listed into 2030. This British justice system, which we will have huge pride in, is kind of indefensible.”
“It is important that people who can afford to pay their legal fees do but, where you do not have the means, it is important that you can access legal aid to get representation, which is why the hardship mechanism that we currently have exists. That will be a really important feature of the system to ensure that legal aid provision—”
“Q Finally—I will be very quick—you spoke about making the system fairer, and I think that it is shared across all parties that we would like to see that. Will you be looking to address the disparity between the legal aid provision in magistrates courts and Crown courts during the passage of this Bill? Sarah Sackman: That is a really good question, and you have asked me it in the Chamber. At the moment, 97% of applications for legal aid in the magistrates context are approved. We have to fully consider the IRCC package and see what final version of this Bill, if it passes through Parliament, receives Royal Assent, and then reassess and ensure that the availability of legal aid across both magistrates and Crown courts is not a barrier to access to justice. We have a means test in criminal legal aid, and that is important.”
“We go to doctors and I try to advocate and fight for her, but we are told, ‘Maybe she just has a low pain threshold. Have you considered putting her on birth control to ease the symptoms of her periods?’” That is heartbreaking for that mother. She is not fighting for herself any more; she is fighting for the next generation of young women, who need to get support as early as possible so that their diagnosis can be made and their treatment options explored as early as possible.”
“I have seen two of my closest friends being gaslit and for over a decade being told, “Maybe it’s IBS; maybe you are a bit of a hypochondriac; have you considered gluten intolerance? Could it be stress? How is your lifestyle?” Only now, after both of them, I am sad to say, suffered ectopic pregnancies, are they being taken seriously and endometriosis is being explored for both of them, which will explain the pain they have both been in for a decade—for one of them, two decades. Of the constituents who have got in touch with me since I was elected, there was one mother who got in touch who had suffered from endometriosis. It took nine years to get her diagnosis and she said, “My daughter is now starting her periods and I am seeing the same thing repeat itself. She is showing the same symptoms that I had as a teenage girl.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and a pleasure to see the Minister in her place. She has been a doughty campaigner not only for children’s health but for women’s health over many years. I am pleased to see her in her place. I thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) for securing this important debate. We share a common goal because I have been applying for a Westminster Hall debate on endometriosis since I arrived in this place. I am delighted to see it finally happen. Endometriosis was a word that I grew up with in my house, because my mum suffered with it and ended up having a full hysterectomy in her mid-30s. As a woman in her mid-30s, I am watching the cycle repeat, but with my friends.”
“Finally, does the Minister believe that all medical professionals should have mandated gynaecological training so that they can give support as early as possible to those who so desperately need it?”
“Fixing the way we perceive endometriosis as a country is one of the things that we can do, so that we can look back on our time here and think about how we made a difference for women up and down the country. I know the Minister shares my ambition to do better for all women, so I ask her: what are the Government doing to break down the barriers to earlier diagnosis for women suffering with gynaecological issues, especially endometriosis? Does she believe that there are benefits to having dedicated gynaecological wards in hospitals? In my local hospital, St Richard’s in Chichester, there is no specialist gynaecological ward; patients are put in different wards depending on which procedure they have had, which means that they are potentially not receiving the specialist aftercare they could be.”
“I could not agree more with my hon. Friend about research into gynaecological conditions. If we invested as much into women’s health as we have done over many decades into men’s health, maybe we would not have so many different types of Viagra and we might have a response to women’s health. Clinicians, importantly, do not have to have specialist training in gynaecological conditions when they go through their training. It is not mandatory, so it is vital to ensure that such training is available and mandated for all clinicians, especially those in general practice, because the most important thing we can do as MPs is break down the barriers that our constituents face daily.”
“My hon. Friend is making a passionate speech about how we build in this country and the considerations we need to make. In my constituency, we have a large-scale development called Minerva Heights that was planned to be built in phases. Lighting down St Paul’s Road, which connects phase 1 to other centralised communities, was meant to be delivered before phase 2 was built out, but phase 2 is not yet coming because phase 1 homes cannot be sold. I have been contacted by many constituents who feel trapped in their community and unable to engage in other areas because they have no way of moving around the building that has already been done. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is why we need an infrastructure-first approach that comes with lighting delivered before the homes are built?”
“That amendment would give victims access, free of charge, to transcripts relating to the route to verdict, extending current provisions encompassing bail decisions and judicial summaries, voiding many of the extortionate costs that we have heard about and providing victims with clarity regarding their cases. I thank the Conservatives in the other place for their support on that amendment, and I urge the Government to get behind it on Wednesday. Without those provisions, we will continue to fail victims. As is the case with much of the Government’s rhetoric around improving technology and the use of AI on the court estate, there is little excuse not to put them in place as quickly as possible.”
“That is why we welcomed the cross-party work in the Sentencing Bill to introduce the provision of free sentencing remarks for all victims. I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, as well as Baroness Brinton in the other place and the various Ministers in the MOJ, including the Minister who is answering today, worked to achieve this vital first step, which we believe is a stepping stone towards providing all transcripts free of charge. The timing of this debate could not be more pertinent, with the return this week of the Victims and Courts Bill from the Lords, now with the Liberal Democrat amendment tabled by my noble Friend, Baroness Brinton.”
“However, for too long and for too many those transcripts have been out of reach, reserved for those who can afford what can be incredibly large sums. Providing free court transcripts for victims is about giving them the support and protection that they deserve. Many trials are lengthy, take place years after the event and can be retraumatising experiences, even when victims do not attend in person. Everyone will handle such situations differently but, given that victims are among the most vulnerable in our society, they should be afforded as much support as possible to overcome those challenges. That is why consistent free access to transcripts is vital. They must be available beyond the 28 days after a trial concludes to access the unduly lenient scheme. Such measures would markedly improve the experiences of both victims and survivors.”
“Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). Her campaigning for her constituent Juliana—a victim of rape who was told she would be charged £7,500 for her transcript—has been inspiring and has truly shifted the dial. I thank my hon. Friend for her advocacy in this area. She also highlighted an important fact: her constituent was still battling with the harms of her trauma and did not hear the case that she was the victim of; in order to be able to move on, she needed to have that document. What is clear—reflected in much of the testimony today as well as in the national support for the petition—is that, for many victims, court transcripts are a vital part of their recovery, either personally or via therapy.”
“Trust in our justice system is built upon transparency—upon seeing the work and the reasoning behind decisions that affect so many lives. That is vital for defendants and crucial for victims and bereaved families, a point the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) spoke passionately about. As the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) says, we have achieved a consensus: this is one way that we can break down barriers for our constituents—as the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) mentioned, that is surely the most important role that we can play in this place—and make a genuine difference to people across the country who are engaging with the justice system. The Liberal Democrats have long campaigned on this issue, particularly through the work of my hon.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank all hon. Members who have spoken so thoughtfully on this important topic. I especially thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for representing the Petitions Committee; he has certainly done his homework, and I thank him for highlighting how mystified people often feel when they go through a lengthy court process only to find out that their trial has been monetised—or privatised—and that they have to spend thousands of pounds to gain access to their case. I pay tribute to all 200,000 people across the country who signed the petition; I believe the general public got behind it so strongly because they are surprised that people are not entitled to transcripts of their own case. Justice must be accessible and visible.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his impassioned speech about the state of our roads. I was recently speaking to a driving instructor in my constituency who literally relies for his livelihood on having a car that is on the road. Every day that his car is taken off the road, he loses £250 of income, and over the past two years he has spent more than £600 repairing his car because of potholes. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a human and a business cost when our roads are falling apart?”
“The family courts urgently need reforming so that victims, especially those of domestic violence, are not experiencing a system that is being used by perpetrators to continue to control and abuse. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner reported that 73% of hearings in the family courts involved evidence of domestic abuse, but it is frequently not recognised in determinations. In the Courts and Tribunals Bill, the Government have included a clause to remove the presumption of parental responsibility, so will the Secretary of State take the opportunity to increase the scope of the Bill by including the family courts as a whole within it, and restore some faith for victims in our family court system?”
“I associate the Liberal Democrats with the Secretary of State’s condolences to the family of Jeff Blair. Strategic lawsuits against public participation, known as SLAPPs, have been used by the rich and powerful to silence victims and undermine the free press in this country. Anyone engaging in public-interest activities can be a target of SLAPPs. Powerful individuals who are exploiting the justice system in this country should not be shielded from scrutiny, so when can we expect legislation from this Government to address this?”
“I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for infant feeding and inequalities. One of the key barriers to women returning to the workplace occurs if they continue to breastfeed their children. A lot of workplaces do not provide facilities for expressing and storing breast milk. Will the Minister update the House on what the Department is doing to support women back into the workplace when they are still breastfeeding their children?”
“Developers building in Bosham, Earnley and Bracklesham in my constituency were given planning conditions that did not allow them to move residents on to the new developments until there was sufficient waste water treatment works capacity. Well—surprise, surprise—there is no extra capacity at the waste water treatment works, yet the developers are now going back to the council to ask it to remove from the planning conditions the commitment that got them the planning permission in the first place. Will the Leader of the House arrange for me to meet the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, so that I can talk to them about an infrastructure-first approach to development?”
“The hon. Lady raises Nancy Astor, of whom there is a statue in Plymouth. There are 11 statues for people to view in my constituency, but none are of women. Does she agree that it is important that women throughout history are also represented in statue form? Would she therefore join my campaign to erect a statue outside Chichester cathedral of the amazing suffragist, Ethel Margaret Turner—known affectionately as Madge Turner? She was our own suffragette in Chichester, and this campaign has been launched by Chichester Women’s History. Does the hon. Lady agree that we should all get behind it?”
“The hon. Member is right to highlight the resource challenges that local authorities have. From an outward perspective, my Chichester constituency is a very affluent area, with lower levels of homelessness, but in 1989 a gentleman died on our streets, and so a charity called Stonepillow was formed. It has gone on to support thousands of people experiencing homelessness across the Chichester and Bognor area. Does the hon. Member agree that although the charitable and voluntary sector has admirably stepped in where local authorities are too poorly funded to support people, it should not have to do so?”
“As has been well established today, the blame for failures does not lie with postal workers, who are doing all they can to deliver a service. It lies with a private company that is telling its staff to prioritise parcels, but then pretending that is not its policy. My Chichester constituents have received hospital appointment letters four days after their appointment was due to take place. One constituent in Selsey received their letter for a specialist appointment in London an hour before it was due to take place. What can the Minister do to put pressure on Royal Mail, so that my constituents’ health is not put at risk as a result of its failures?”
“Sir Brian Leveson was clear in his report that the fundamental drivers of the ever-increasing backlog were systematic underfunding, the readiness of defence and prosecution teams, and the availability of witnesses, victims and defendants, but he did not identify juries as the cause of the problem. Between 2016 and 2024, the number of ineffective trials increased from 15% to 25%. In that time, the average court sitting time fell from 3.8 hours per sitting day to 3.2 hours. Juries are not the problem; inefficiencies are. In my Crown court in Chichester, all cases were suspended for a fortnight in January because the heating system failed and it was too cold in the building. Across the country, there are stories of courts closing due to crumbling roofs, water pouring into courtrooms, gas leaks and general poor maintenance over many years.”
“The backlog in our criminal courts now stands at 80,000. That disgraceful situation deprives victims and defendants of justice for years—cases are now being listed for the end of this decade. This has a huge impact on the quality of evidence, and it even causes victims to pull out of cases because so long has passed since the crime and they just want to move on with their lives. It also leaves defendants’ lives on pause while they await the opportunity to prove their innocence. The system as it stands fails everyone. Something must be done about this crisis, and it must be done now.”
“The Liberal Democrats will be voting against the Bill, and we have tabled a reasoned amendment that sets out why we fundamentally disagree with the approach of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Courts Minister to tackling the Crown court backlog. Our views have been well aired in this place over the last few months, but today is an opportunity for us to lay out the reasons why the Bill should not progress in its current form. Something that we agree on is that the current backlog is unacceptable, untenable and unsustainable. We agree with the Government that that is because of the historic and monumental failings of the previous Conservative Government, whose complacency and mismanagement of the justice system left the criminal justice system on the brink of collapse. It is a shameful legacy.”
“Joanna Hardy-Susskind put it well today, when she said: “I have seen the adjournment of two rape trials this year. It’s only March. Nothing in Lammy’s proposed Bill would have saved the trial dates in either case. Nothing.” Barristers across England and Wales are reporting delays to their cases because of the failed prisoner escort and custody services contracts—something I have asked the Justice Secretary about many times. These issues regularly cause cases to run late because the defendant has not been delivered on time from prison, or because there is nobody on site to bring them up from the holding cells. Juries are not the problem; Government contracts are the problem.”
“I thank the hon. Member for that intervention; I have also seen the amendment that his group has tabled, and I agree with that. Trial by jury is deeply enshrined in our conscience and constitution, and it is respected all over the world.”
“I agree with some of what my hon. Friend said. I do agree that trial by jury is one of the only parts of our justice system that is still actually trusted. The possibility of being tried by one’s peers is fundamental to a fair trial in this country. The Deputy Prime Minister himself recognised that point in the Lammy review in 2017, and then again during the pandemic when curtailing the right to a jury trial was proposed to deal with the increasing backlog.”
“Did they choose to ignore Sir Brian Leveson’s proposal of a Crown court bench division with a judge and two magistrates because, although they agree—I think—that the lay element to a trial is an important part of the system, they know that they do not have enough magistrates and are likely to struggle to find enough willing to preside over lengthy cases? Does the Courts Minister really believe that defendants opt for a Crown court trial because they want their cases to be heard in a Crown court building—because of the facilities or because it might have better coffee—rather than because they want a trial by jury?”
“I am happy to make it absolutely clear for the hon. Member. If I was allowed to get on, I could make that point. Trial by jury is not the problem. We agree that there is a problem that needs to be solved, but curtailing the right to a jury trial will not achieve what the Government and the Opposition want: the backlog coming down. Leveson’s report proposed a bench division with a judge and two magistrates. The Government have gone further and proposed a swift court with just one sitting judge.”
“I have a huge amount of respect for the Courts Minister and for the Deputy Prime Minister, which is why I am disappointed to be here making this speech. It is not too late for them to change course.”
“If the Government are willing to include an important clause on the presumption against parental responsibility in the Bill, why will they not extend the scope of the Bill to address the fundamental reforms needed in the broken family court system? The Government’s proposals are opposed by the Criminal Bar Association, the chair of the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Four Bars, the Secret Barrister, Judge Rob Rinder, Jo Hamilton OBE, many Labour Members and 3,200 legal professionals, who have written to the Deputy Prime Minister today. If they will not listen to all those organisations and people who have spent their lives committed to making the criminal justice system, which has been poorly managed by successive Governments, as effective as possible for victims and defendants, who will they listen to?”