Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Andy Carter Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Lady is right to raise that concern. All of this work to modernise court and tribunal proceedings, which is necessary in its own right, will help to bring down the backlog of cases created by the pandemic. Physical hearings will always be available for those who need and want to use them, so that those who are uncomfortable or cannot access the digital and online applications will not be prejudiced. I hope that gives her the reassurance she needs to support this Bill on Second Reading.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

I agree with the comments the Secretary of State made earlier about the work of the judiciary in bringing down delays. In particular, I put on record my thanks to the magistrates who work in our courts around the UK. Does he agree that one route we could choose to reduce the number of delays in magistrates courts is to increase the sentencing powers for magistrates? Perhaps he can say a little more on that point.

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work he and the magistrates have done. They hear 85% of criminal cases. The backlog in the magistrates court is already coming down. We thank the magistrates for the incredible work they are doing. He has lobbied me on this point, and in the context of the backlog, it is something I am looking at very carefully.

In sum, the Bill will reform the immigration appeals system, protecting it from litigation attrition. It gives judges greater flexibility in judicial review to hold the Executive to account without unnecessary disruption to the essential business of Government. Above all, the Bill will drive innovation across our courts to deliver a better service for the average citizen in this country. I commend the Bill to the House.

Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Andy Carter Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham]

I am not saying that we oppose the proposal—Labour legislation first put it on the statute book—but people in the magistrates courts will get higher sentences and may well feel the necessity to appeal, so we will potentially have more appeals.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

Following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly), one of the main reasons for cases going to the Crown court is that magistrates refuse jurisdiction and send them there. There is no certainty that higher sentences will be given to individuals who are found guilty. They may well get exactly the same sentence in a magistrates court as they would get in a Crown court. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) is confusing the issue. The fact that magistrates can now keep a case in their court without having to refer up to a higher court will reduce the backlog in Crown courts.

[Alex Cunningham]

We believe the potential is there, but we want to understand the statistics on which the Government have based the proposal. However, I will move on now.

Have the Government taken into account the potential increase in appeals? I imagine that could quickly offset the 1.6% saving in sitting days. The increase in sentencing powers is interesting in the context of existing provisions in the Bill, particularly in relation to the new allocation procedure.

As Justice points out, there is a risk that more serious cases

“could proceed without defendants being physically present for a hearing, and as such without the defendant’s informed input as to whether the case should be heard in the Magistrates’ or Crown Court.”

It is also important to consider the proposal in the light of clause 9, which will allow hearings to take place in the absence of the defendant in many circumstances. Can the Minister share any assessment that the Department has made of the potential impact on appeals to the Crown court of introducing the increase in sentencing powers at the same time as the new allocation procedure and clause 9?

As the Minister outlined, new clause 1 will enable the Government to switch off and back on the maximum custodial term that a magistrates court may impose for an either-way offence—in other words, he is taking the power to reverse these new sentences when it suits the Lord Chancellor. I am interested to hear in what circumstances the Minister would want to reduce magistrates’ sentencing powers in future. Will that be triggered by the backlog reaching a certain level, or does he think there is a high risk that there will be unintended consequences, such as those that the CBA, Justice and I have described?

The whole approach suggests that the Government are not too confident that the proposal will be the success that they hope. Until Ministers address the shortages in judges, criminal practitioners and appropriate court space, victims and defendants will continue to suffer excessive waits until their cases are concluded.

I will now move on to the Opposition’s amendments and new clauses, which, as I explained earlier, aim to introduce a number of safeguards into the Bill to ensure that access to justice is not hampered in the drive towards efficiency that online and remote processes can offer.

Clause 3 creates an automatic online conviction and standard statutory penalty procedure, which will provide automatic online convictions as an alternative to the single justice procedure. Through this process, a defendant could opt to plead guilty online, which would result in an automatic conviction without the need for a hearing.

The process rightly already has some limitations. For example, the defendant must consent to use of the process, so they retain the right to opt for an in-person hearing instead. Furthermore, the procedure is only available in respect of non-imprisonable summary offences where the accused was aged 18 or over when charged. The Opposition agree with those limitations, but we think they need to go further. Amendment 20 would require that all accused persons considered for automatic online convictions, as introduced by clause 3, are subject to a health assessment, and that only those who do not have any vulnerabilities or disabilities are given the option of being convicted online.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has recognised that remote justice is unsuitable for disabled people, such as those with learning difficulties, cognitive impairments or mental health conditions. The commission identified that remote proceedings reduced chances to identify a court user’s additional needs and make the appropriate adjustments. I know the Minister will share my anxiety that further roll-out of remote processes without the right safeguards may compound those inequalities even further. A recent criminal justice joint inspectorates report emphasised the need for default screening of all criminal suspects and defendants for disability, including neuro-disability. That proposal was supported by the former Lord Chancellor, who promised action on this issue. I sincerely hope his successors will uphold his promise by supporting this amendment.

I am aware that it is the Government’s intention for online pleas to be entered via the common platform, which potentially provides at least one instance where a court user’s needs can be identified so that adjustments can be made. However, the ongoing chaos with the common platform demonstrates why that would not be a sufficient safeguard in this regard. The pilot and early adopter sites have established that in its present form, at least, the common platform is not fit for purpose. The experience of the pilot courts has been widely reported to the Public and Commercial Services Union as disastrous. Their members have been working late into the evenings in an attempt to record case outcomes, with work often disappearing into thin air. Case outcomes that took a matter of seconds to record in a paper file are now taking in excess of an hour to record, provided the system is even working. Although Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service has taken steps to address slowness and instability since the intervention of the senior presiding judge in pausing the roll-out last year, PCS does not accept that those steps have addressed the fundamental design flaws. Results still routinely disappear from the court record.

I am told that confidence in the common platform at the Crown Prosecution Service—the common platform was initially a joint CPS and HMCTS venture—is so low that the CPS has retained its case management system and is using that in preference to the platform. Given the low level of confidence in the system among the professionals who use it, I am sure the Minister can recognise why I do not believe it should be relied on as a safeguard as more remote justice procedures are introduced and rolled out. Instead, he should listen carefully to the EHRC’s findings and introduce meaningful screening measures.

I turn to amendment 21, which would introduce a further safeguard to the automatic online conviction and standard statutory penalty procedure by excluding recordable offences from its purview. When I raised my concerns in Committee about the application of the AOCSSP to recordable offences, the Minister confirmed:

“There is currently no intention to extend the procedure to any recordable offences.”––[Official Report, Judicial Review and Courts Public Bill Committee, 9 November 2021; c. 228.]

The Opposition welcome the Minister’s words, but we would prefer to see that confirmed in primary legislation. The Bill already limits the use of the procedure to summary and non-imprisonable offences, but the consequences of a recordable conviction, even for such an offence, can still be serious. Many people will not understand the impact that a conviction can have on their lives. For example, it can have a detrimental impact on employment prospects in certain sectors.

In its current format, it seems as though the AOCSSP will incentivise people to plead guilty out of convenience, regardless of whether they have an arguable case. I am sure the Minister will agree that it is vital that no one is adversely impacted by pleading guilty without recognising the full impact. If the Government agree with that point, I hope the Minister will confirm that support by limiting the procedure in primary legislation to non-recordable offences.

I now consider amendment 22, which would remove children from the provisions of clause 9. Again, in Committee the Minister provided me with additional briefing on this point, for which we were very grateful. It was not, however, enough to quell my concerns about the fact that courts will be able to proceed if a child defendant is absent from a plea and allocation hearing. In Committee, the Minister confirmed that he recognises that

“in the majority of cases, the courts may not deem it appropriate to proceed”––[Official Report, Judicial Review and Courts Public Bill Committee, 16 November 2021; c. 271.]

in the absence of the child. Given that, I do not know understand why the Government insist on keeping the provision in the Bill. I have spent much time in this role trying to unpick Government proposals that treat children more and more like adults in the justice system, in both this Bill and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. It is extremely worrying to me that here we have yet another example of the Government failing to treat children in an appropriately distinct way. It is the position of the Opposition that they should be removed from the scope of the clause entirely.

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[Sir Robert Neill]

All in all, this is a valuable Bill and I welcome the Government amendments. I practised criminal law for the better part of 30 years before I came into the House—in both magistrates courts as a younger barrister and then predominantly in the Crown court, both prosecuting and defending. It never seemed logical that the legislative provision introduced by the Labour Government in 2003 had not actually been brought into force.

Much has changed since that time in the way magistrates operate—and for the better, frankly. It seems to me that there have been real efforts to make the bench more diverse, and those recruitment activities are continuing. As a Select Committee in the previous Parliament, we wrote a report about the magistracy—the first for a number of years—that recognised the value of the work that magistrates do. Since 2003, the sentencing guidelines have been developed to a high degree and they are available now to all benches as well.

[Andy Carter]

My hon. Friend mentioned a diverse bench. Does he agree that it is vital that employers think about the value of having employees on the bench? They should be considering that step in personal development for employees.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I salute my hon. Friend’s work as a magistrate over many years. What he says is absolutely true, and the Justice Committee report picked the point up at the time. When I practised in parts of east and central London, magistrates benches used to have a very high number of what we would now term blue collar workers—frequently trade union officials and public sector workers. They were given time off. Some of the major employers—Ford at Dagenham in the old days, for example—used to allow employees time off to serve as magistrates. The courts were much the better for that. I hope that that can be encouraged and we should make it easier to achieve.

We should also look at magistrates’ expenses, which have not been updated for very many years. We do not need legislation to do that, but we should make it worth people’s while to serve and not leave them out of pocket. That is important.

When the Committee published the report and considered why the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 had not been brought into force, we questioned the evidential basis. At that time, the Ministry of Justice’s line was that there was a risk of an adverse impact on the prison population, but we were never able to find any evidence to establish that. I think there is a bit of an urban myth that magistrates are heavier handed in sentencing than the Crown court would be. In fairness, when I first started, there might have been a bit of anecdotal evidence that I came across to support that view, but things have moved on over the years. The benches have a more sophisticated approach to sentencing and the guidelines have developed to such a degree that that dimension has changed.

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[Anne McLaughlin]

You will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that most of the SNP’s objections are around judicial review, so I have only two amendments that I want to speak to and I can do that within a couple of minutes to give other people time to speak.

The online procedure rule committee will potentially cover wide areas of law and will sometimes make rules applicable in completely distinct legal jurisdictions. The SNP is concerned about the lack of representation on the committee from Scotland. Amendments 40 and 41 would therefore ensure that someone with knowledge and experience of the Scottish legal system will be appointed to the committee and that appointment should be made by the Lord President of the Court of Session in Scotland. I cannot see any reason to say no to that. That would address the imbalance in the representation of the Scottish legal system and allow the Government to keep up their pretence about respect for Scotland ahead of an independence referendum.

I say to Labour colleagues—I do so gently because the Labour Members present were on the Committee and we very much enjoyed working collaboratively with them—that I was a little disappointed that, with one notable exception, they abstained on amendments that would in effect have allowed Cart judicial reviews, or Eba judicial reviews as we call them, to remain in Scotland. I ask them to consider voting for this simple little measure so that we would have someone with experience and knowledge of the Scottish legal system to represent our system on the committee.

New clause 7 in my name would ensure the Bill’s compatibility with article 6 of the European convention on human rights: the right to a fair trial. To return to the example I gave earlier about the employment tribunal fees judgment in 2017, if the Bill had been in place when that landmark ruling was handed down, no one would have had fees refunded, everyone would have continued to pay the unlawful fees and, going forward, the Government could have simply changed the unlawful so that it was lawful: in other words, there would be no point whatsoever in taking the Government or other public bodies to court. The chilling effect would be widespread. That is surely a breach of article 6, which gives people the right to a fair trial and an effective judicial remedy. The new clause would allow judges a way to disapply the Bill if they considered there was a breach.

Let me give one more example of a group of people who may be refused their rights to a fair trial if the Bill passes: those who require legal aid. To secure legal aid, applicants must be able to demonstrate a tangible benefit if their case is successful. As I and others have demonstrated, if the Bill is enacted, there will regularly be no tangible benefit. If the Government are trying to keep people on average and low incomes away from being able to bring judicial reviews and access justice, they are doing a very effective job, but they should at least be honest about that. They have said and will keep saying that the Bill is compatible with article 6, but surely that begs the question: why do they continue to resist any amendment to ensure compatibility?

[Andy Carter]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate in support of the Government’s new clause. The Minister and hon. Members will know that I continue to sit in magistrates courts; I am on the Merseyside bench at courthouses in Sefton in north Liverpool, in Liverpool city centre, in Birkenhead and occasionally in Chester and Crewe. I decided to do so because I felt that, as a Member of Parliament, it would be incredibly helpful and informative to continue to go into courts to understand the issues that magistrates and members of the legal profession face, as well as to hear and see those experiencing the criminal justice system from the other side.

In the last 10 years, I have seen tremendous change in the operation of the courts, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) mentioned, all of which has been designed to make the system more efficient. I think it is fair to say that some of the changes—closing court buildings in particular—have been pretty unpopular with members of the judiciary and members of the legal profession. After Dale Street magistrates court in the centre of Liverpool closed—a wonderful old building that had proper courts—and magistrates moved into the Queen Elizabeth II law courts where the Crown court is held, I wondered for a time what that would do to our magistrates courts. On reflection, knowing that four other buildings contained courthouses in Liverpool, I could completely understand why those decisions were taken. The waste that we were seeing within the system was unjustifiable. Our ability to reduce the amount of buildings and focus on developing technology and investing in courthouses to improve the facilities is critical. The ability to invest in the number of professional judges sitting as district judges has enabled a swifter and more effective process in the magistrates courts.

Many members of the magistracy have seen the number of magistrates in the courts continue to fall, which is one of the concerns. and I am pleased that the Government are taking steps to address that. Another area of concern was the centralisation of certain types of cases in certain courthouses. Let me give the House an example. On Merseyside, all motoring offences are now dealt with in Birkenhead, so if a magistrate regularly sits only in Liverpool city centre, they will never come across a motoring case. It can sometimes be a bit of an issue for magistrates to get their head around such issues if they are faced with an appeal, or an issue that has been referred back to their court, and they have not dealt with a motoring offence for some time. I say to the Minister that the ability for all magistrates to deal with all issues is really pertinent in the criminal court.

As the Minister said, magistrates play a fundamental role in our society, covering the overwhelming majority of criminal cases that appear in our courts. I want to join hon. and right hon. Friends in paying tribute to the 13,000 magistrates in courthouses across England and Wales, and to recognise and put on record the sacrifices that they have made throughout the covid pandemic. The overwhelming majority of courthouses stayed open. The magistrates, who were all volunteers, turned up to do their public duty. We should recognise the value that that has given to local society up and down the country. They have ensured that speedy justice has been delivered. I saw magistrates adapting and moving into Nightingale courts in Liverpool, in the historic St George’s Hall, where they continued to provide an outstanding service to the people of Merseyside and Cheshire.

The news this week that the Government are promoting a recruitment drive for 4,000 new magistrates is very welcome. They truly are the unsung heroes in our justice system. We need to ensure that people from every part of our society are represented in their ranks. I urge the Government to look at the recruitment process and the length of time it takes from applying to becoming a magistrate to actually sitting. I know many people who have applied to become a magistrate but who have fallen off during the process because it seems to be endless. The local advisory councils have historically been responsible for selecting magistrates. The Government need to consider that process carefully. The regular meeting of those advisory panels needs to be focused on.

I welcome the news that magistrates’ sentencing powers will be increased from six months to 12 months to help drive down waiting times and bring the criminal justice process to a speedier resolution. As the Minister and the Opposition spokesman mentioned, I have raised this in the House on numerous occasions, and I am delighted to see that it is now moving forward. I thank the Minister for taking this forward and making it happen. Ministry of Justice figures show that victims are waiting more than 600 days for justice after crimes are committed to the Crown court, a rise of more than 50% in the past year. Such delays increase the pressure on defendants, witnesses and victims of crime. The increase in sentencing powers will mean that less serious crimes can be heard much more speedily in magistrates courts, freeing up around 2,000 extra days in Crown courts.

[James Daly]

Based on his long experience in the magistracy, does my hon. Friend agree that the increase in sentencing powers is not going to have a great impact on the magistrates? They are not suddenly going to decide to send to prison everybody they previously would not have sent to prison because of that increase; it simply expands the sentencing range open to the court. I join my hon. Friend in praising our magistrates, who are experienced, common-sense people from their own communities who make decisions in the interests of justice.

[Andy Carter]

My experience is that the overwhelming majority of magistrates will do everything they can to avoid passing a custodial sentence, and if a custodial sentence is required, a primary consideration is to look to suspend that sentence. Of course, all magistrates, no matter their length of service, sit with an experienced legal adviser who guides them through every step of the process from a legal perspective, so I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that it will not make a significant difference in that respect.

I know that the idea of changing magistrates’ sentencing powers has polarised opinions, with some saying that lay members of the judiciary should have no powers at all to impose custodial sentences. I am afraid I do not agree: magistrates play an important part in the sentencing process and the role of legal advisers in the courts ensures that the right sentence is given in the overwhelming majority of cases. The Minister mentioned that less than 1% of cases that go into magistrates courts appear in the Crown court for an appeal. I serve on a Crown court appeals panel and there are very few occasions on which I feel that something is wrong and the sentence given should be overturned.

The Minister mentioned that the increase in the retirement age for magistrates is covered in another Bill, but it is important that all these steps are taken together. My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) introduced an excellent private Member’s Bill to address the issue, which the Magistrates Association has looked at carefully. Many good, experienced magistrates —presiding justices who chair the benches—are approaching 70 or have gone over that age but can contribute significantly to the work of the courts.

I am delighted that the Government have addressed the issue and look forward to welcoming back colleagues with whom I have served who can bring their experience back into the courthouse. We must remember that when new magistrates are recruited they can sit as wingers for the first five years of their time in the court, and it is important that they sit with experienced magistrates. If we did not address that issue and all the magistrates were reaching retirement age, we would have a serious problem in respect of experienced presiding justices in the magistrates courts, so I am pleased that that increase is to happen.

I wish to touch for a moment on the proposal to make changes to local justice areas. I recognise the importance of local justice and defendants, victims and witnesses not having to travel too far to attend a courthouse, but from a magistrate’s perspective there are some perverse issues with local justice areas. Let me give the House a couple of examples. I live on the border of Greater Manchester but operate in the Cheshire and Merseyside area. The courthouse in Greater Manchester is closer for me to get to, but because I am not in the Greater Manchester local justice area, I cannot sit in that court. That makes no sense at all, so I urge the Minister to look into new ways of thinking about local justice areas for magistrates so that they can sit in whichever courthouse is closest to them, no matter what local justice area might apply.

I was recently given another example by a magistrate who sits in Highbury but lives in Hertfordshire. His court in Highbury does not sit at the weekend—it has no operation at the weekend at all—so he is a working magistrate who is available to sit in the courthouse on Saturdays but, because he does not operate in the Hertfordshire local justice area, he is not able to sit at the weekend, when he is most available. It would be really valuable to create the flexibility for magistrates to sit in areas that are convenient for them and where they understand the pertinent local issues.

As I said, it is important that we recognise that defendants, victims and witnesses should not have to travel long distances and rack up travel costs. It is really important that justice is done locally and I would not want to see trials and cases listed for courts many miles away from the local area.

I want to talk briefly about technology. I have seen a number of different technologies used in courtrooms, and a number of different systems trialled—Common Platform has been mentioned—and one thing I have seen is that, whatever system is put in place, the legal advisers are brilliant at adapting how they operate, particularly in magistrates courts. I know that magistrates courts have had to make some changes recently and that some things are not quite as quick as they used to be, as legal advisers are recording cases at the same time. I think the Opposition spokesman talked about paper files. Any suggestion that we want to go back to using paper files in courthouses is really not the way forward. When I first started as a magistrate, we all had a big book containing all the sentencing guidelines. Everything is computerised now, and the ability to look up sentencing guidelines or to calculate fines on a laptop is really valuable. I think that all magistrates would recognise that, despite some early hesitancy, we now have a far better system.

My final comments on the changes in magistrates courts reflect the point I made earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst about younger magistrates. The Young Magistrates Network has made some really good inroads into understanding the perspective of being a JP while holding down a full-time job. I welcome the extension of the retirement age, but we also need to think about how we have as wide a talent pool as possible. We should have on the bench hard-working members of society who are in employment. If we are getting to a situation where only retired people have the time to sit on the bench and are selected, that is really dangerous.

Importantly, I also think that parents should be encouraged to sit on the bench, particularly in youth courts, because the knowledge and experience of being a mum or dad can be so very valuable when talking to a young person appearing before a youth court.

[Sir Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the youth courts. Does he agree that it is often not appreciated that the youth courts deal with very serious matters which, if they involved adult offenders, would undoubtedly go to the Crown court, and that requires not only the best possible lawyers, but the most experienced and diverse magistracy available to deal with those important cases, just as we would expect for a jury, with the same level of experience of the world that is brought to bear across the piece?

[Andy Carter]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The sentencing powers of youth courts are already far greater than those in magistrates courts for criminal offences. I do not sit in youth courts, but I have observed them and I know that the conversation and dialogue that takes places between the bench and the young person who finds themselves in court is very different. We do need a really broad, balanced bench in the youth court. I encourage the Minister to look at what support he can give to encourage employed people and young people to come into the magistracy.

The Young Magistrates Network—it is co-ordinated by a young magistrate, Luke Rigg, who has done a marvellous job of looking at this area—has made some very good recommendations, which I think HMCTS is now considering as part of its review. We need to ensure that any recruitment campaign is targeted, using social media, in the right places. I encourage the Minister to look at the school governors’ network, which has done a really good job of talking to employers about the value that somebody who is a school governor can bring to their business. I think that magistrates can also bring a tremendous amount to a business.

Since coming to this House, I have pushed for a number of things to happen in relation to the magistracy. I have raised three or four issues many times, so it is absolutely brilliant that the Minister is putting them all in the Bill. It is like all my birthdays coming at once: everything is happening on the right day. I am very supportive of the Bill. I thank the Minister for engaging with the magistracy and the Magistrates Association, for listening to JP colleagues and for the progress that we are making.

[Janet Daby]

It is always a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Deputy Speaker. I fully support the Opposition amendments and the safeguards that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) outlined so eloquently, especially new clause 2 on online procedural assistance and new clause 3 on the review of the single justice procedure.

I will speak mainly about case backlogs and the online procedure rules in the Bill, but may I first say a few words in response to my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee? I was on the Justice Committee when it was looking at magistrates, and I remember many magistrates coming to meet us on the estate before covid.

I agree that we need to continue to appreciate our magistrates and make sure that they have the support they need to do their job extremely well. We also need to recognise that they have been vital during lockdown as key workers, in situations made extremely difficult by the backlogs that they have had to endure. I agree that we need younger magistrates and magistrates from more diverse backgrounds; as hon. Members may or may not know, there are also many judges from diverse backgrounds who want to be promoted up the ranks. We need to be mindful of ensuring a diverse bench of judges.

Mr Deputy Speaker, our

“criminal justice system is at breaking point.”

Those are not my words, but the words of Derek Sweeting QC, the then chair of the Bar Council. The backlog of criminal cases had pushed past 60,000 by June 2021 and is still increasing. To address it, we need to modernise our court systems. New technology can bring efficiency and help to address the backlog, but our drive to improve the court system should never come at the cost of safety or justice. For example, the online procedure rules set out in the Bill will enable more work to be completed remotely via the internet; one can see the immediate time-saving benefit, but the new rules risk excluding those without internet access or those who are less digitally literate. It is also vital that the online procedure rule committee that will shape the digital rules should reflect the diversity of Britain, which will help to protect the criminal justice system from further bias or any discrimination.

To ensure that all adequate safeguards are put in place, will the Minister commit to an independent pilot of the new technology before its general application? People in poverty do not necessarily have access to new technology, so we cannot take that access for granted or even assume that they are able to use the systems.

While it is important to explore modern solutions, we must not let that task distract us from the reality that our legal system simply needs more funding. There is no silver bullet to solve the crisis in our courts, and no magical technology will appear over the horizon to wipe away the vast number of backed-up cases. New technology and increased funding must go hand in hand. The National Audit Office recommended that £500 million of extra funding would be required between 2021 and 2024 to keep the backlog below 50,000. The Minister should follow that advice and promise that extra funding for our overburdened court systems.

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[Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I will speak only briefly, but it is so important that I do. I was elected on the Government’s promise to take back control. With this Bill and the Nationality and Borders Bill, I think we are moving in the right direction to make sure that that happens.

I want to speak about two points. I had a third point to make about magistrates, but my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) has already spoken excellently about the issue.

[Andy Carter]

At length.

[Nick Fletcher]

And at length, yes.

My first point is about allowing adult defendants to plead guilty to, and accept a pre-determined penalty for, minor offences online. Over the past two years, an increasing number of services, from schools to banking, have moved primarily online, at least temporarily. Although some people have found the online experience frustrating at times, and although in most cases I believe that in-person services should resume, in this instance I support going online.

My main point is about Cart JR. It is a question of court resources, but it also relates to an issue about which my constituents frequently contact me: immigration. Most judicial reviews against the upper tribunal relate to immigration cases. I understand that some cases are quite complex, but others appear to be no more than an abuse of the judicial process through endless, meritless appeals. As the Justice Secretary has noted in previous debates on the Bill, the success rate is hardly above 3%—an appalling statistic.

It is difficult to defend the UK’s immigration system to my constituents as fair and effective when they see in the news that hundreds of people arrive via the channel every week, yet the processes that we have in place seem to allow anyone to stay, regardless of how well-founded any claim is. The message that they are getting is that it does not matter whether someone is a genuine refugee: as long as they are prepared for a protracted legal battle, with legal aid at the taxpayer’s expense, they can stay for years, if not indefinitely. As I know from my casework, that does not incline my constituents to see all asylum applicants as potential refugees; on the contrary, it leads them to see all asylum applicants as willing to abuse the legal system. That perception may not be well founded, but it is understandable.

I am sure that such behaviour can be justified, but when the entire judicial system is under unprecedented pressure after nearly two years of the pandemic, it is especially ridiculous. We need every hour of the judiciary’s time that we have. I therefore commend the Bill and will happily support it.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.