Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Philp and Yasmin Qureshi

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point, which was touched on by Members under Question 3. It is vital that we help victims of these terrible crimes to pursue the case right through the court system, rather than dropping it after reporting the crime, and there is a lot more to do there. The provisions in the Domestic Abuse Bill, introduced for its Second Reading last week, will help that, as will the increased funding to support victims of these terrible crimes, to which I referred earlier.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The Government have undertaken an unprecedented sale of courts, which has made giving evidence in court far more difficult for the many victims of crime who now have to travel much further to have their day in court. As the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) said, the fact is that victims of sexual and other physical abuse are already reluctant to come to court, and this plays into that even more. Will the Minister agree to an independent assessment of the impact of these court closures and commit to no further closures unless it can be proved that they are not having a detrimental impact on access to justice?

[Chris Philp]

Of course, access-to-justice considerations are extremely important. Before any court is earmarked for closure, there is an extremely thorough consultation process, and if any courts are due to close in the future, a similarly thorough consultation process will be gone through. I would point out that in the cohort of courts consulted on in 2015 that were subsequently closed, on average their utilisation rates were about one third. We need to balance a reasonable approach to the court estate with the access-to-justice considerations that the hon. Lady quite rightly raises.