Courts Service

Albert Owen Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Williams]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. There is an underlying assumption that public transport is an add-on and that people can access court facilities in a private vehicle, but that does not apply to many of the people to whom he referred. They are completely reliant on public transport, and all too often it does not exist.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He is talking about people on the periphery, and there is a double whammy because many facilities in Wales are drifting eastwards from areas such as those that he and I serve. Does he agree that the proposed local government cuts will impact on the transport system, which is already fragile in such areas, so there is a double whammy with the closure of justice centres and contraction of the transport system?

[Mr Williams]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concern. I have tried to raise the same point over the past five years. For example, the bus subsidy grant from which many of my constituents have benefited has contracted over the past five years. Given the challenges to the public purse, that contraction looks set to continue. That is a worry, and I shall not deviate from that.

Access to justice is a key right for us all, and we will not be able to run the most economically efficient service without failing to provide the level of service required. That does not mean that we should never seek savings from the service or explore other ways of delivering a better service, but we must fully consider the impact of the loss of that service on the community.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Williams]

Thank you, Mr Hood. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on his early-day motion 312, and prompted by the excellent research note, I have just signed it. He is right to make the point, but he will forgive me if I focus on the rural challenges. I am sure that he will make the point about urban communities. The problem involves the practicalities of living in rural communities and accessing services, but access to justice as a right is a much bigger picture. He mentions in his early-day motion victim support and the implications for that.

A constituent of mine, who is a justice of the peace, acknowledges that usage of Cardigan court is low, and that that is largely due to the facilities not being good enough to accommodate many cases because of under-investment over the years rather than lack of need. Custody cases cannot be heard because of a lack of suitable cells; special measures trials are difficult because of a lack of facilities; and the court is not compliant with disability discrimination legislation. If the villages south of Ceredigion and north of Pembrokeshire are included, he estimates a catchment area of nearly 40,000 people, which should surely be enough to justify a modern court building with the necessary facilities to hold a wide range of cases.

It is also crucial to remember that the closure will not only affect those individuals who will be denied convenient access to justice. Legal providers and witnesses will be forced to travel extra distances, which might be an added deterrent. If police officers are required to give evidence, those based in Cardigan will have an additional distance to travel. There is pressure on neighbourhood policing in rural areas. The areas are vast and, as the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) will agree, there is a problem of resources. The pressures on police forces in rural areas look set to continue.

A concentration of court services away from rural areas could lead to the same trend in the availability of legal advice. People will have to travel to Aberystwyth to attend court, and they may have to travel to access legal advice. Even if that doomsday scenario is not reached, the closure will certainly have an impact on local providers of legal services.

I welcome the fact that the documentation contains a section on rural-proofing, but I fear that Cardigan is a long way from being rural-proofed. The standard of public transport is not adequate for the purposes suggested in the proposals. During a debate on court closures in Yorkshire that took place in Westminster Hall last week, the Minister stated:

“Recent improvements in transport and communication links mean that people can travel further in less time if they need to.”—[Official Report, 7 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 131WH.]

I am sure that that is true in many parts of the country, but it is not the case in west Wales where public transport has suffered over the past few years and, if anything, we have a less comprehensive service than that of several years ago.

I accept that there will always be local opposition to any change in the service, but I have been struck by how strongly people in Cardigan feel about this proposal, and the impact that it will have on the community both because of difficulties with public transport, and because of straightforward concern about lack of access to justice.

[Albert Owen]

There is also an economic argument. Many of the court areas have solicitors’ offices built around them. That is certainly the case in Llangefni in Anglesey. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that and does he agree that measures have already been put in place for legal providers to move to other courts, as has been highlighted?

[Mr Williams]

I agree with the first point, which was the concern I raised earlier. Legal providers will move to the destination of the court, and that will leave a vacuum elsewhere. Many people will be concerned about the impact on areas that have high levels of deprivation. Cardigan contains the two most deprived wards in Ceredigion, Teifi and Rhydyfuwch, which are in the top 20% most deprived wards in Wales. In the community safety domain of the Wales index of multiple deprivation, which covers recorded crime, youth offenders, adult offenders and fire incidence, Cardigan’s Teifi ward is in the top 5% of the most deprived wards in Wales. Consequently, Cardigan town council has written to me and to the Secretary of State expressing its concern at the proposals and raising many of the points that I have mentioned. The council was grateful and pleased that Cardigan has acquired a new police station with eight cells, but it feels that there should be a new court building adjacent to that police station.

There has been some suggestion that we should move towards a model that has group facilities and can achieve swift, community-based justice and make operational savings. The combination of facilities on a single site has many advantages, but I fear that sometimes the understandable drive for efficiency has clouded the vision of the best way to provide justice. Although we are not in a position to build many new facilities across the country, if we lose locations that provide a greater function to the justice system, there is a danger that we will never be able to implement that vision.

It has been suggested that Aberystwyth—38 miles north of Cardigan—is capable of taking on the extra work that would be necessitated by the closure of the court at Cardigan. The consultation points to the construction of a new justice centre in Aberystwyth, which I welcome, but the Minister will be well aware of the delays in that project after the collapse of the developers involved. Originally, the project was to have included a Crown court, with Aberystwyth serving as a mid-Wales hub for justice. Currently, the nearest Crown courts are in Carmarthen, Swansea and Welshpool.