Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend. I can reassure him that contempt of court and reporting restrictions apply to social media as well as mainstream media. We continually look at what more we can do to strengthen the law in this area, and that is why we have asked the Law Commission to consider the issue as part of a wide-ranging review of the law on contempt of court. Two new offences in the Online Safety Bill will criminalise the type of behaviour we have seen in the Eleanor Williams case. The false communications offence will criminalise communications where a person sends information that they know to be false with the intention of causing harm. As I say, I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)]

14. What progress he has made on tackling the backlog of court cases.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)]

The outstanding case load has reduced across the UK. I do not have specific numbers for my hon. Friend’s constituency, as we do not calculate them by constituency. We are taking action across the criminal justice system to bring backlogs down and improve waiting times for those who use our courts.

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend will be aware of the saying that justice delayed is justice denied. What steps is he taking to ensure that the courts sit for as long as possible to try to get the backlog down?

[Mike Freer]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that we have removed the limit on sitting days in the Crown court for the second financial year in a row, and that means that courts will continue to work at full capacity. We are also continuing with the use of 24 Nightingale courtrooms into the 2023-24 financial year, and are recruiting 1,000 new members of the judiciary to ensure that we get the backlog under control.