Draft Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Act 2020 (Exception) Regulations 2020

Chris Philp Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Draft Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Act 2020 (Exception) Regulations 2020.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell; I think it is for the first time, and I hope that it will be the first of many such happy occasions.

I will be extremely brief. The purpose of this instrument is very straightforward. Colleagues will recall that a few months ago we passed the Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Act 2020, which is a precursor to the introduction of a sentencing code. One of the things that Act does is a so-called clean sweep, which consolidates all previous sentencing legislation into a single code, for the ease and convenience of both the judiciary and the public.

However, certain important exceptions to that clean sweep have been made to ensure that no offender who committed an offence previously—that is, before the consolidation—is exposed to a more serious or heavier penalty than would have been the case without the consolidation. That is just a matter of fundamental natural justice. A change has been made recently—in April—to the victim surcharge, which has been increased by 5%. As a matter of fairness, any offence committed before the change to the victim surcharge should be charged at the old rate. It would be unfair if someone was charged at the higher rate even though the offence had been committed previously.

The purpose of the instrument the Committee is considering is to make an exception to the clean sweep, adding to the other exceptions that we put in the Act, to make sure that, for offences committed before the change made to the victim surcharge in April, the old surcharge applies and not the new one. Colleagues, including the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton North, will recall that we debated this provision at some length in Committee, and it is doing exactly what we said we would do to ensure that fairness applies. On that basis, I commend the regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I will reply briefly to the shadow Minister’s comments. First, I welcome his support for this measure. I lament the absence of his colleagues—it is a shame they are not here with him to debate this important matter.

The hon. Gentleman raised a couple of points. Let me start by addressing the number of cases waiting to be heard before the courts. Obviously, coronavirus has enormously disrupted the operation of the courts because of social distancing and so on, but in the magistrates courts, for the last few weeks, disposals have exceeded receipts. We have been dealing with more cases than have been received and therefore the outstanding case load has begun to decline. That is an important, seminal moment in our recovery plan.

In relation to the Crown court, which the shadow Minister talked about, and jury trials, he will be aware that the Lord Chief Justice completely suspended jury trials in late March, and they did not recommence until May. Inevitably, if jury trials are suspended for health and safety reasons—for covid reasons—cases will back up. Since then, we have got Crown court jury trials up and running across the country, but in a way that is safe, so that jurors do not get contaminated by one another or by anyone else. That has necessarily limited the number of court rooms available, but we are now back to about 110 operable Crown court jury rooms as of today, and the intention is to reach 250 by the end of October. That will enable us to hear 333 Crown court jury trials per week by the end of October, which is back up to the pre-coronavirus level. That will be done in a safe way through a variety of measures to do with social distancing, perspex screens and separate jury retiring rooms. [Interruption.] I can see the shadow Minister is twitching eagerly, so I will give way.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am keen to understand whether the Minister will start bringing his Nightingale courts in as part of that. He must accept that, even before the coronavirus crisis, there was a crisis in the courts, with 1 million cases in magistrates and Crown courts, and tribunals outstanding at the end of last year.

[Chris Philp]

The number of Crown court cases outstanding at the beginning of this year was lower than it was in 2010. A great deal of progress had been made, and the Lord Chancellor had authorised, prior to coronavirus, additional Crown court sitting days that would have enabled further progress to be made.

In relation to Nightingale courts, all 10 announced in July are now up and running operationally. Further Nightingale courts are being announced, and we have secured further Treasury funding to the tune of £83 million to expedite the recovery of the court system after coronavirus. On the comments about funding that I heard quoted—I was surprised to hear such comments made by a judge in a judgment—the issues around funding have been and are being addressed.

On custody time limits, there is a short-term, nine-month extension because the hiatus caused by coronavirus means we need to extend those custody time limits temporarily. The shadow Minister accused us of trying to slip that past Parliament and the Opposition, but he also acknowledged that I phoned him personally to flag the changes. If I was trying to slip it past him, I would hardly have picked up the phone and telephoned him. That would have been an ineffective method of subterfuge, even by my standards.

[Alex Cunningham]

I did make the point that the Minister was kind enough to inform me, but the whole of Parliament learned of this in a written instrument—a negative SI—which is not really the way to do business.

[Chris Philp]

We did telephone everybody with an interest. I made phone calls, so I do not think that an allegation of subterfuge is one that I would accept. I am happy to phone anybody who wants a phone call on a Friday evening. It is a free service courtesy of the Ministry of Justice.

We have strayed a little beyond the strict terms of this instrument, so perhaps I should sit down. I commend the instrument to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.