Royal Commission on the Criminal Justice System

Lord Falconer of Thoroton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the last point the noble Baroness made is absolutely right; I sought to make it earlier. Of course, the priorities for the royal commission need to be prioritised and perhaps added to in light of the impact of the Covid pandemic. That will obviously include the effect on the prison estate as well.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, there have been three Questions in your Lordships’ House to the Ministry of Justice in the last two weeks: on inaccessible child trust funds, difficulties about marriage law, and now the criminal justice system. In all three areas, Members of your Lordships’ House described the talk from the Ministry of Justice and then the doing of nothing. On criminal justice, the Chief Inspector of HMCPSI described the pre-Covid backlog as “unacceptable”. A few days ago, the Lord Chancellor apologised for the massive reduction in rape prosecutions. A few days before that, the chair of the Bar Council said that unless the Government commit urgently to massive investment in the criminal justice system, the backlog will get worse. There is currently a backlog of 59,000 cases in the Crown Court. When will that backlog be dealt with, and what additional investment will be put into the criminal justice system to deal with it?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord raises three issues. Child trust funds were set up under a Labour Government and, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, pointed out to this House, no thought whatever was given to the impact of the legislation—the Mental Capacity Act—on people’s access to those funds, so we are sorting that out. Marriage law goes back to 1847. The Law Commission is looking at it, and we are sorting that out as well. A few weeks ago, I laid before the House regulations to enable people whose marriages had been delayed to get married outdoors this year. The criminal justice system is in the middle of a pandemic, and we are responding to that as well. The noble and learned Lord is, with respect, quite wrong to lump these three quite disparate matters together.