Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to (1) trial and (2) introduce artificial intelligence to speed up legal processes and reduce the courts backlog.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government continues to explore the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the efficiency of courts and legal processes.
The Ministry of Justice has established a new Justice AI Unit, led by the Department’s first Chief AI Officer, to develop a comprehensive AI strategy for the Department and its agencies.
With regards to the criminal courts, the Government is committed to bearing down on the outstanding caseload in the Crown Court and the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts led by Sir Brian Leveson will assess how the use of new technologies, including AI, could be used to improve efficiency across the criminal courts. Furthermore, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has ambitious plans to leverage new technologies to redesign and enhance legal systems and processes. Plans include the integration of AI into casework, potentially unlocking thousands of hours in improved productivity.
In the Family Courts, we are considering where both policy and technology can work together to improve services. We are seeking to reduce demand by using AI to signpost people to the right information to assist in their situation and provide AI tools such as parent arrangement planners to help separating parents to resolve issues quickly and without the need to involve courts. We aim to blend both AI, other technologies and policy to form cohesive services that address both court backlogs and court demand.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bellamy on 2 May (HL6631), how many times magistrate courts have awarded a sentence of more than the Sentencing Council's maximum sentence for any offence, where the legal maximum is longer than the Sentencing Council's guidelines, in the past five years.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
The Ministry of Justice does not hold this information in the format requested. To obtain this information would be at disproportionate cost.
Further to PQ HL6631, you may be interested to know that the Council listened to the concerns raised by stakeholders in response to its consultation and decided to increase the sentencing range upper limit for the most serious animal cruelty offences to 3 years and 6 months custody.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Sentencing Council Animal Cruelty Guidelines, published on 10 May 2022, why the Sentencing Council have proposed changing the maximum penalty for animal cruelty from five years as agreed in the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021, to three years' custody for the most serious offending.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
The maximum penalty for any statutory offence is prescribed by Parliament. There are no plans to reduce the maximum penalty for animal cruelty offences from the current five years.
Sentencing guidelines are produced by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, which is independent of the Government. The guidelines set out factors which courts must consider when deciding on a sentence and are designed to increase consistency and transparency in sentencing.
The Sentencing Council has consulted on revisions to the animal cruelty guideline to reflect recent legislation. The Council has proposed a sentence range of a fine up to three years imprisonment. As the consultation document explains, the upper limit for a sentence range is often lower than the maximum penalty set out in legislation to allow headroom for sentencers dealing with cases of exceptional seriousness. In such cases, statute permits a sentencer to step outside the offence range and impose any sentence up to the maximum.
The Sentencing Council’s consultation closed on 1 August. The Council is expected to publish the final guidelines in May of this year, having taken time to consider the consultation responses and make any revisions that they consider appropriate. Once published they would come into effect in July 2023.The consultation paper can be found here: Animal cruelty sentencing guidelines consultation (sentencingcouncil.org.uk).