Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

1. What recent assessment he has made of the effect on access to justice of the courts digitisation programme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Paul Maynard)]

Enhancing access to justice is at the heart of our £1 billion court reform programme. Our new online district services provide an easily accessible, intuitive route for people to bring cases to court. Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is testing, learning and inducting online services, based on feedback from the people who use them. More than 150,000 people used our services in 2018 and public feedback has been extremely positive.

[Chi Onwurah]

Unfortunately, this Government are developing a track record of using digital technology not to improve services and empower people, but to cut costs and exclude people, so will the Minister commit to me now that he will ensure that the digitally excluded, especially the homeless, detainees and prisoners, have special access to support services; that access to legal aid will be clearly signposted online for the digital courts; and that the feedback and performance data—showing who is using these services, where and when—is publicly shared, so that we can measure whether the programme really is a success?

[Paul Maynard]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. I am intuitively sympathetic to all the points that she makes. I am very clear that there should always remain a telephone service, a paper-based service for those who need it, and the appropriate signposting. Inclusive justice is very important and we should never innovate merely because we can. We do not use new technologies merely because we can, but because they give a better outcome for the people who use our justice system.