Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that important question. We are broadening access to legal aid. The means test review, when fully implemented, will put an additional £25 million into legal aid and bring an additional £2 million into the scope of legal aid. We are rolling out the housing loss prevention advice service—that is another £10 million going in. There will be up to £141 million going into legal aid. We are also rolling out the review of civil legal aid, which will report later this year. We will be issuing a Green Paper in July to look at what we need to do to have a sustainable, resilient and well-resourced system, because we want high-quality lawyers doing civil legal aid. That is vital for the kind of country we want to be.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

18. What recent assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the case backlog in the criminal and civil courts.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

We remain committed to reducing the outstanding case loads across our courts in England and Wales. To enable the courts to get through more cases, we have extended the use of 20 Nightingale courtrooms this financial year, allocated £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of our court buildings up to March next year, and funded unlimited sitting days, including 107,700 days during the most recent financial year, the highest level since 2016.

[Mr Carmichael]

For anyone who has been a victim of crime, delays in getting cases into court add massively to the stress and anxiety they experience. What would the Secretary of State say to any Member whose local magistrates court had 1,954 criminal cases waiting to be heard at the end of December 2023? Would he say that a backlog of that scale was acceptable?

[Alex Chalk]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point about magistrates courts. It is true that case loads in magistrates courts, which of course deal with over 90% of crimes—common assault, criminal damage, non-residential burglary and so on—are significantly lower than they were during the pandemic. The particular pressure is in the Crown court. We made a decision of principle during the white heat of covid not to get rid of jury trials. Now, I know that in Scotland the SNP Government are a little ambivalent about jury trials, but we think they are a very important part of the rights of free-born Britons. We will hold fast to them and we will put in resources: more Nightingale courts; more judges, by raising the retirement age; and more legal aid. We will invest in and recover the system while holding fast to our principles.