Secure 16 to 19 Academies Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(2 days, 14 hours ago)
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Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 12, leave out subsection (4).
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 2, to the title, line 4, leave out from “Academy” to end.
Sir Christopher Chope
Some people may be unfamiliar with the detail of the Bill because it did not receive a Second Reading debate. It went through on the nod on 16 May. It then went into a quite truncated Public Bill Committee on Wednesday 2 July, and it has now come back to the Chamber on Report.
I tabled amendment 1 to highlight my concern about the consultation arrangements proposed in subsection (4). Amendment 2 is a consequential amendment. As people will have noticed, in the Bill’s long title, it states:
“expand a secure 16 to 19 Academy; and to alter the consultation question required when it is proposed to establish or expand a secure 16 to 19 Academy.”
If amendment 1 were successful, the long title would need to be amended, and in anticipation of that, I tabled amendment 2. As ever, I am most grateful to the Public Bill Office for having ensured that I was on the right lines with that and that such an amendment could be tabled.
Amendment 1 arises from the fact that section 10 of the Academies Act 2010 states that before entering into an academy arrangement, the provider
“must carry out a consultation on the question of whether the arrangements should be entered into.”
Clause 1(4) would insert into that provision an exception that
“where the educational institution, if the arrangements are entered into, is to be a secure 16 to 19 Academy…the person is not required to carry out a consultation on that question”.
In other words, it is an exemption from the requirement for a consultation on the question of whether the arrangements should be entered into. I do not see that as a reasonable thing to do.
In the short debate on this matter in the Bill Committee, there was a bit of a misrepresentation when it was stated that
“secure schools do not compete with other schools.”––[Official Report, Secure 16 to 19 Academies Public Bill Committee, 2 July 2025; c. 4.]
That may be true, but they can compete with other institutions, particularly those providing alternative provision.
Clause 1(4) adds to section 10 of the 2010 Act that for a secure 16 to 19 academy, the person is not required to carry out a consultation on that question, but
“must instead carry out a consultation on the question of how they should cooperate with potential local partners in connection with the establishment and carrying on of the Academy.”
Those local partners are described as “potential local partners”, meaning
“persons exercising functions of a public nature”—
I think the Bill has in mind organisations such as the health service, the local education authority, councillors and so on—
“and…so far as not falling within paragraph (a), proprietors of educational institutions…with whom the person carrying out the consultation thinks it appropriate to cooperate.”
Again, that discretion is left with the person carrying out the consultation.
I do not understand why we are abandoning the much more fundamental issue of the consultation.
There might be no competition between a secure 16 to 19 academy and an ordinary school, but there may well be competition between that secure academy and another such academy that is already in existence or that may be proposed.
The 2022 legislation on secure academies was introduced in the previous Parliament. At the time, nobody thought there was any problem with having the same arrangements for secure 16 to 19 academies as for other academies. This short debate on amendment 1 will give the Minister an opportunity to explain why that change is necessary, how it is justified, and why there needs to be a deletion of the existing consultation arrangements rather than an addition to the existing arrangements of being subject to consultation, which is the subject of proposed new subsection (2A)(b) to section 10 of the Academies Act 2010, as in subsection (4).
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Sir Nicholas Dakin)
The hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) focuses on the specific question of why this change should be made. It is very much a technical change. We have one secure school, the Oasis Academy in Kent, which I have visited. These secure schools are for young people who are sentenced to custody; they join the rest of the youth custodial estate, which includes three young offenders institutions and a secure training centre, as well as a YOI in Wales and some secure children’s homes.
It is a very discrete landscape. There is no competition with alternative provision or any other provision locally, because it would be inappropriate for a young person who was sentenced to custody to go into alternative provision, as they have to go to secure provision—that is, a young offenders institution or one of the other secure provisions, one of which is the secure school.
It was a bit of an oversight in the original legislation to use the term “consultation” about whether it should go ahead, because there is no competition in the locality. A more useful consultation would be about how, because there are issues about working with other partners, including partners that might provide alternative provision, and that is the most appropriate way of doing that.
I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody) has brought this Bill before us today. It seeks to make more sense of the legislation, so that it will be more effective for these particular young people and these particular places.
Sir Christopher Chope
I am so grateful to the Minister. What a breath of fresh air that a Minister has actually answered my challenge and given an explanation! In the light of those circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Third Reading
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I now have the chance to talk about the Bill. I did not have a chance on Second Reading, because the Bill went through on the nod, and I was not on the Bill Committee. I am the loser as a result; I was not invited. The hon. Member for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody) steered it through Committee quickly, and now it has come back to the House and she does not feel the need to expand on it in any way.
I will take up one particular challenge, because my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) asked a question in Committee and the Minister said:
“I thank the hon. Members who have contributed so far. On the issues just raised by the hon. Member for Spelthorne, they are for the Bill as it makes progress. Assuming that it does progress, however, I am happy to write to him with an answer to those points, as they are pertinent.”––[Official Report, Secure 16 to 19 Academies Public Bill Committee, 2 July 2025; c. 6.]
I do not know whether such a letter has been sent but, if so, I have not seen the contents as I was not a Committee member. When the Minister responds in his usual helpful way, I hope that he will share his answer to my hon. Friend’s question. That is a relatively detailed point.
My greater concern about the Bill comes from being a great supporter of academies and what they have done to transform education provision in our country by removing that provision from the dead hand of so many local authorities. I speak as someone who, early in my political career, succeeded in persuading Margaret Thatcher to abolish the Inner London Education Authority, which was one of the great success stories of my campaigning.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 dealt with this issue and set out the secure 16-to-19 academies. I cannot understand whether it was an oversight that the legislation was not changed then to ensure that there was a guarantee of only two years’ funding. Under the Academies Act 2010, an academy was guaranteed seven years of funding after being set up, and if that was curtailed, there would essentially be compensation for the academy.
More importantly, setting up an academy is an expensive job, as I know from the setting up of what became Parkfield school as an academy in my constituency. It transferred from a free school that started in Bournemouth and did not have premises; it was basically on the third floor of an office block. It could not get planning permission because of hostility from the local education authority, which did not relish the prospect of competition. It then found some premises in my constituency that already had an educational use, because they were the training school for NATS—the national air traffic services—in Christchurch.
The cost of converting those facilities into a premises suitable for an academy was significant. It was time consuming, and critics of the academy system used the fact that so much money was being spent on this provision against the then Government. It was time consuming, and critics of the academy system used the fact that so much money was being spent on this provision against the then Government. However, it was made more secure by the fact that there was a guarantee that the academy could stay in place for seven years.
I am sorry to say that, at the end of this term, the academy known as Parkfield school will no longer exist, because the academy trust that took over the running of it has decided to pull out. The original notice was given a year ago, and last year the school dealt solely with people who are waiting to complete their GCSEs. The buildings there will now revert to the Department for Education. What will happen to them, who knows? The investment is there. Maybe it will be used by the local authority for alternative education provision. Maybe it will be used as a secure 16 to 19 academy.
The point is that an academy would never have been able to get started in the premises at Parkfield school had it been given only a two-year lease of life. Members of this House who were elected one year ago this month think that a five-year duration is pretty short. They cannot really get their feet under the table and invest to be fit for the future if they have a guaranteed existence of only up to five years. If we are talking about premises taking on staff, and everything that goes with that—even more so if we are talking about secured premises—I cannot understand why the minimum notice period under a funding arrangement will be reduced from seven years to two.
The argument put forward is that a two-year termination period will enable the Government to prioritise value for money for the taxpayer and have more flexibility, should there be a need to terminate a funding agreement with a secure school provider. That has not been expanded upon in any of the debates that I have heard or in the explanatory notes. It is just a statement, and a mere repetition of it cannot be a substitute for a justification of it. How will lowering the termination period to two years prioritise value for money? It may well mean that short-termism prevails because the academy says that it cannot do this or that, and invest for the future, because it has only a two-year potential lifespan.
In articulating the Government’s case, the hon. Member for Cramlington and Killingworth went on to say in Committee:
“Reducing it to two years strikes a balance between avoiding a lengthy exit period in which Government would be committed to continue funding the secure school longer than necessary”—
this is exactly the system for academies: if an academy fails, there has to be an exit period, as has happened in Parkfield school—
“while ensuring that secure school providers have the certainty of funding to avoid issues with recruiting and retaining the specialist staff required to work in this environment.”––[Official Report, Secure 16 to 19 Academies Public Bill Committee, 2 July 2025; c. 4.]
I would suggest that having only a two-year contract is hardly encouraging for potential members of staff. I do not think the number of people aspiring to be Members of Parliament would increase if the knowledge was that there would be an election every two years and they might find themselves retrospectively on a two-year contract.
The hon. Member for Cramlington and Killingworth then went on to justify the disapplication of section 9 of the Academies Act 2010 in this Bill. That was not the subject of an amendment from me, but she said that it would
“remove the requirement that the Secretary of State considers the impact of entering into a new academy funding agreement on other educational establishments in the area for secure 16 to 19 academies. Although it is important that secure schools are established as academies, in order to ensure they mirror best practice in the community, they are fundamentally different, as secure schools do not compete with other schools.”
They do not compete with other schools, but they could potentially compete with other organisations. The hon. Lady then said:
“As such, we do not expect them to have an impact on the viability of other local mainstream schools.”
That is fine—I do not expect that—but what about schools that are not mainstream? That is used as an argument to say that this Bill would
“disapply that duty for this particular type of school, to help any future secure schools open with minimal delay.”––[Official Report, Secure 16 to 19 Academies Public Bill Committee, 2 July 2025; c. 4.]
I come to this Bill in a slightly suspicious state of mind, because we know that the Government are not really enthusiastic about academies. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but if the academy programme—I will not call it an experiment, because it has succeeded —had been in a position to have been brought forward under a Labour Government, I do not think they would ever have done it. This Labour Government are reluctant and realise that they cannot really abolish academies, but I am concerned that what is proposed in this Bill may be the starting point of facilitating the making of academies less financially viable and their withering on the vine by removing that all-important seven-year guarantee of funding or indefinite funding with a seven-year notice, which has to be given under the legislation. Those are my concerns.
The fact that this Bill seems to have consensus across the House makes me even more concerned. When we look at lawmaking in this House, we see that many of the worst laws are those that were introduced with cross-party consensus.
The hon. Member for Cramlington and Killingworth refers to the issue of time. There is no constraint on us being able to debate this Bill today, which is what we are doing. This is the last sitting Friday that has been allocated by the Government, but I am assured by the Government Whip who deals with these things that this Session of Parliament is likely to continue well beyond the autumn and that there will doubtless be further sitting Fridays. If there are further sitting Fridays and some of the business on the Order Paper today is not reached, we will be able to reach it on the next sitting Friday chosen.
As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, although there is a limit of 13 days for private Members’ legislation, where a Session of Parliament has been extended significantly there has by convention been an addition of sitting Fridays to compensate for that—in the same way that additional time is provided for Opposition days by convention. Otherwise, strictly speaking, under the Standing Orders there would not be sufficient Opposition days.
I am not suggesting we go on debating this Bill into the next Friday, but I hope that when the Minister responds, he does not feel that he is inhibited by time constraints imposed by the Whips, because those time constraints are artificial in the extreme and can be altered. I look forward to having my concerns addressed. I am open to being reassured, and I look forward to the Minister pursuing such a course.
Courts (Remote Hearings) Bill
Christopher Chope Excerpts(2 days, 14 hours ago)
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Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 22, leave out subsection (4).
This amendment would exclude an amendment to paragraph 8(1A) of schedule 4 to the Local Government Finance Act 1992. It would reduce the Bill from covering four areas, to covering only section 47 of the Family Law Act 1996, section 9 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and section 43 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009.
Why am I concerned about removing provisions relating to local government? Well, I have been instrumental in discussing, in the House and elsewhere, the costs and burdens of council tax ever since it was introduced, consequent upon the failure of the legislation for community charges. I was privileged to help take through this House that legislation on the community charge in the late 1980s. I still meet people who think it was a big mistake to abandon the community charge, which would have ensured that everybody in receipt of local government services, if they were over 18, would have made a contribution. That is all history. It was changed. We introduced council tax, and with it council tax administration and enforcement regulations.
It is those regulations that would now be altered by clause 4 of the Bill. Instead of what is already set out on the ability of the courts to deal with council tax administrative and enforcement problems, it is suggested that those court hearings should be able to be held remotely. In other words, there would not be any proper ability for people to see what was going on. In my view, the deterrent value of such hearings would be lost, because they would be remote hearings, rather than in-person hearings in the local magistrates court.
Let me also mention the extent of the problem we already have with the enforcement of council tax arrears. They are now in the order of £6 billion, as the Minister will know—some £6 billion in council tax arrears. I think almost 10% of that total is attributable to just four local authorities. It will not surprise hon. Members to know that those local authorities are Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Brent. Between them, those four local authorities are responsible for more than 10% of the £6 billion in council tax arrears at the moment.
What are we doing? Why are we trying to reduce the pressure on council tax payment miscreants by enabling them to hide behind remote hearings instead of having to face the music in a proper court of law, where justice can not only be done but be seen to be done? Why should a council tax debtor not be required to attend a court hearing in person? The court can then make inquiries about the person and discuss means of payment. It can all be done with witnesses. The magistrates can see aspects of the demeanour of the defendant in person and take those into account. Most importantly of all, they can ensure that the court process acts as a deterrent against people thinking that paying their council tax is essentially a voluntary activity.
A real debt crisis is building in this country, and not just on council tax. I serve on the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee; we have heard evidence that the arrears on energy payments are now £4 billion or more. Why are we seeking in this Bill to reduce the pressure on people who almost make paying council tax seem voluntary? Why do we not put more pressure on the local authorities responsible for a lot of the council tax arrears?
I am lucky enough to live in the New Forest district council area; it is 286th in the council tax arrears league table; that amounts to about £69 per council tax payer. By contrast, in Liverpool the arrears are £194,721,000, which means that for every council tax dwelling £869 is owing. What is being done to put pressure on Liverpool city council to do something about the situation? The same applies to other councils, including in the area that I am privileged to represent. BCP council is 109th in the league table with more than £45 million of council arrears, amounting to £249 per council tax dwelling. Dorset council, in the other half of my constituency, has £53 million in council tax arrears, amounting to £290 per council tax dwelling. I have tabled the amendment to ask the Minister this: why we are proposing to facilitate remote hearings for issues relating to council tax?
The council tax administration and enforcement regulations enable a council to issue a reminder notice and a final notice. If the debt remains unpaid for more than 14 days after a reminder notice is sent, the council can apply to the magistrates court for a liability order. There will then be a hearing, and if the magistrate finds that the taxpayer has failed to pay council tax, they will order the taxpayer to pay the outstanding sum as well as the council’s costs—that is set out in regulation 34. Once a liability order is granted, the council can use several different enforcement methods to collect the debt. It can instruct an employer to deduct money under an attachment of earnings order, it can make deductions from benefits, it can take control of goods, or it can issue a charging order. In extremis, the council can even initiate bankruptcy proceedings, and ultimately, it can apply to commit the taxpayer to prison if bailiffs have been unable to find goods belonging to the taxpayer that cover the debt.
Given that local authorities possess all those powers under the council tax administration and enforcement regulations, why are they not being used effectively? Why do we think that creating remote hearings is going to improve matters? That seems absolutely ludicrous to me. If ever there were a good use of a magistrates court’s time, it is to ensure that conscientious payers of council tax in the area covered by that court do not have to subsidise people who do not pay their council tax, resulting in the enormous arrears to which I have referred. That is why I am concerned about this proposal.
Remote hearings were introduced during the pandemic and have been used in other circumstances, but the consequence of a remote hearing is that the press and the public are in the dark. One of the best deterrents to council tax non-payment would be for people who are in receipt of liability orders in the local magistrates court to have their names and addresses published in the local paper. That is going to be made much more difficult if the Bill contains references to council tax when it becomes law, so on behalf of all those people who are suffering as a result of the more than £6 billion owed in council tax, I urge the Government not to proceed with this particular part of the Bill. That is why I have tabled my amendment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Sir Nicholas Dakin)
The hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) raises important concerns, but this Bill is not about reducing the pressure on miscreants—it is about dealing with them as effectively and efficiently as possible. The Bill does not mandate the use of video; it allows the courts flexibility. Instead of the police being used as taxi drivers, moving people around when they should be dealing with other miscreants, cases will be able to be dealt with in a much more effective way when a magistrate or a judge needs to be found at short notice. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that this measure will benefit justice, and will assist in dealing with the miscreants that he and I are both concerned about. The current situation makes it more difficult to do that.
Sir Christopher Chope
I thank the Minister for his response. Perhaps the logic of what he says is that, instead of my amendment to remove the provisions relating to council tax, we should add to the Bill a provision about shoplifters and fraudsters, so that they are subject to remote hearings, on the basis that this will assist in the administration of justice. I was too slow to table amendments to such an effect in order to draw out the Minister further, but it is implicit in what I have said that I do not accept the explanation he has given. Were that explanation to be correct, I urge him to add categories to the Bill when it reaches the Lords, so that justice can be done, as he would see it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Third Reading
Sir Christopher Chope
Madam Deputy Speaker, it will not surprise you that, in the light of the Minister’s response to my amendment, I am very unhappy about the Bill. Unamended, it incorporates the provisions on local government non-payers that I described on Report. I cannot get my head round the argument put forward by the Minister, and it is replicated in the explanatory notes on the Bill, which say:
“This Bill creates a more efficient process for handling these matters, removing the need to move people from police cells to courts and for judges/magistrates to travel to attend courts in person to hear the cases at the weekend or public holidays.”
That certainly does not refer to cases involving local government debts. It may well apply to some cases relating to other aspects of the Bill.
The explanatory notes also say:
“The use of remote link in Criminal proceedings is relatively common and has delivered significant benefits. It is also common in Civil and Family proceedings. In those proceedings, the appearance of a defendant by remote link is permitted at the direction of the court, including cases of far greater sensitivity or gravity.”
Of course, family proceedings are in camera anyway, so Joe Public of the local Daily Echo will not get access to that. I am not suggesting that they should, but if they cannot access information about who is in council tax arrears and is being brought before the court, that will become much more difficult.
The explanatory notes go on to say:
“The lack of legal power to order that these cases are heard by remote link means that all arrested defendants must be transported from the police station to court”.
Earlier, I went through all the stages that people have to go through before they find themselves threatened with imprisonment for debt. If they go through all those stages, surely it is important that they should be brought to court, and we should not be concerned about the fact that they will have to be transported from the police station to court or that the judge may have to travel to court. Of course, all that has been made more difficult because we have closed so many magistrates courts that the travelling distances are longer.
Sir Christopher Chope
I see that the Minister agrees. We have so few courts now compared with before that people have to travel further, with all the inconvenience that that leads to.
The explanatory notes continue:
“This leads to delay in dealing with the case and is not an effective way of using resources.”
I just do not think that that applies in the case of the council tax provisions. If there were a sunset clause, and we could see whether putting more pressure on councils to take action against those who do not pay council tax reduced overall arrears, then we might be getting somewhere.
Oliver Ryan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his considered contribution to the debate. I will be brief. He is making some reasonable points, but he is answering his own question. We currently have a bottleneck in the court system, and by being against the measures in the Bill, he is, probably inadvertently, making it easier for these people not to be seen by the court system. The Bill is reasonable and small, as I have said. If we can release some pressure in that bottleneck—the points he made about council tax debtors and others are quite right—more debt will be recovered and more miscreants will be seen in the criminal justice system, and that is always a good thing. He is making reasonable points, but he is answering his own question through the explanatory notes.
Sir Christopher Chope
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, but I am not sure that I agree. In essence, the criminal justice system is there to ensure that there is a level playing field, that everybody is equal under the law and that the rule of law applies. The figures that I have given show that the rule of law is not being consistently applied across the country when it comes to the duty to pay council tax, and quite a lot of enforcement authorities seem to be rather cavalier about enforcement.
I just do not think that allowing remote hearings will suddenly rectify a situation in which council tax arrears in Birmingham and three other authorities amount to well over £1 billion. Indeed, some of the areas where council tax arrears are highest are the areas where we have seen complete failures of administration, Birmingham city council being one such example. As a direct result of Birmingham city council’s failure to operate effectively, the Government had to intervene, put the council into special measures and essentially allow the council to increase council taxes far in excess of the 5% threshold that normally applies. The same is true in Croydon and Thurrock.
If the hon. Member for Burnley (Oliver Ryan) looks at my list of local authorities and council tax arrears, he will see that failures to deal with council tax arrears are a very good indicator of a local authority’s failure, although I have yet to do the work on linking that proposition with the salaries that the chief executives of those local authorities pay themselves. I do not believe that those large, inflexible authorities will be motivated by the Bill to have remote hearings when they are not even prepared to use the existing structures.
It may well be—this point supports the hon. Gentleman—that small councils like New Forest district council are quick on those who do not pay their council tax or do not pay it promptly. The possibility of having remote hearings instead of those councils having to issue court summonses might save administrative costs and save the burden. However, in my submission, that potential small benefit is more than outweighed by the problems I have been describing. It would have been so easy for the Government to put forward this Bill on the basis that it would not apply to council tax.
Having said that, section 47(7)(a) of the Family Law Act 1996 requires that a person in breach of an occupation order, where that order contains a power of arrest, must be brought before a court within 24 hours of the arrest. That is why the argument is made that courts have to be available over the weekend and so on. As is so often the case when we are faced with legislation like this, it would perhaps be sensible to change that provision, so that the person does not need to be brought before a court within 24 hours of arrest if that period includes a Saturday or Sunday. That would be a much more direct way of dealing with this issue, in my submission.
Again, it is an easy cop-out for the Government to say that because the person has to be brought before a court within 24 hours, we have to go for remote hearings. If we did away with the need to bring the person in within 24 hours if it was the weekend, we would not need this Bill. Section 47(10) of the Family Law Act states that the court can remand a person in breach of a non-molestation order who has been brought before a court pursuant to a warrant for arrest, and the matter is not disposed of forthwith. That is another example of where this situation applies.
Section 9 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 requires that a person arrested following a breach of an antisocial behaviour injunction, where that injunction contains a power of arrest, must be brought before a court within 24 hours of arrest. Why are we not amending section 9 of that Act to ensure that in the circumstances that the arrest takes place over a weekend, the 24 hour timeframe does not apply? Similarly, section 43 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009 requires that a person arrested following a breach of a gang-related violence or drug-dealing injunction must be brought before a court within 24 hours of arrest. Again, that could easily be amended to avoid the need for these remote hearings, which is what we are concentrating on in this Bill.
I am a lawyer by background, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker. When I was at university doing my law degree—or my jurisprudence degree, to be precise—I can remember our law class going to the local assizes when a rape trial was taking place. As one might imagine, there was a lot of interest from these embryo lawyers in what was happening. In that rape trial—I remember it to this day—the defending counsel got up and asked, essentially, that the House do sit in private. The High Court judge put his feet up on the bench in front of him and said—really, he was speaking to the law students, who he knew were in the gallery—that, “Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done.” That was a message that I learned very early on as a law student, and I still think it applies.
Remote hearings could be justified during the covid crisis—fine—but now they are being used as an excuse. We already have some examples of where they are permitted, but the Bill goes too far in extending that. The hon. Member for Burnley, who introduced the Bill, may feel it is rather sad that it is being picked at by Members of the House—
Oliver Ryan
The hon. Gentleman has made some reasonable points throughout the debate. When I did my graduate diploma in law, we did a similar exercise and went to court to see big trials, but that is not what the Bill would cover. It is for small, mass cases that, as has been mentioned, deal with things like council tax arrears.
As the hon. Gentleman is aware, we are short on time, so I will quietly throw myself on his mercy and ask him whether we can get to the end of this before half-past 2. The Bill would be of great benefit to the legal system. He will know from his days as a lawyer in the system that some modernisation is required. It is not always a good thing, but I believe that this is a measured approach. If we can please get through to the end of the debate by half-past 2, we can make some progress.
Sir Christopher Chope
The hon. Gentleman has a disarming smile and approach—dare I say, it is almost seductive? May I put to him an alternative proposition? He is in a position to influence the Government Whips to ensure that extra sitting Fridays are provided. Because his Bill is on its Third Reading, assuming that its Third Reading is not completed today, it would take priority over other Bills when additional sitting Fridays are put on.
The fact is that we have not yet even had an announcement about the sitting days for next year. A year ago, after the general election, the Leader of the House gave us the sitting days for the whole period through to the end of this July, and I congratulated her on that at the time. She has not done that in relation to next year, but I understand it is likely that this first Session will go on, perhaps even beyond Christmas. In the meantime, we could have another sitting Friday where the hon. Gentleman’s Bill could be dealt with on Third Reading.
The question now arises as to whether I should reflect on the points that the hon. Gentleman made in his intervention or just rely on the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) on the Opposition Front Bench to put in their three-pennyworth. I recognise that unfortunately we are always time-limited and regret that so many of the Report stage Fridays were taken up with one Bill. We are dealing with the consequences of that today. We are now debating the fourth Bill of the day on Report, which, if one looks at the records, is a pretty good strike rate for a Report stage Friday.
We are now in the middle of debating this important Bill, which would affect lots of people. I do not see any reason at all why this important debate should not be able to continue on the next sitting Friday. One has very little power in this place as a Back Bencher, but one thing one does have is power over the time.
We want to come on to another important Bill about controlled drugs. I am sure the powers that be will know that if we are to get on and discuss the hon. Member for Burnley’s Bill and the Controlled Drugs (Procedure for Specification) Bill, we will need an additional sitting Friday. At the same time, we would then be able to deal with the Bill on homelessness by the chairman of the 1922 committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), which went through unopposed at Second Reading, but has been blocked by the Government ever since. That is intolerable—
Courts and Tribunals: Sitting Days
Christopher Chope Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right. In order to deal with all the problems in the criminal justice system relating to policing, prosecutors and the situation in the Crown courts, we need a system-wide approach. That means taking action on the crimes that affect neighbourhoods up and down the country, which is why the Home Secretary’s recent Crime and Policing Bill is such a landmark piece of legislation. We must all play our part, because the criminal justice system has been left in a truly terrible state by the last Administration, and this Government are getting on with the job of sorting it out.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
This announcement is small beer, is it not? The extra £92 million offered for criminal legal aid is exceeded twentyfold by the subsidies given to offshore wind, which amounted to £1.9 billion last year alone. Why do the Government have such perverse priorities, and when will they put the criminal justice system above the interests of offshore wind operators?
Shabana Mahmood
We are talking about the highest ever funded allocation in the Crown courts, and 110,000 sitting days, which is a record. The hon. Gentleman says that is small beer; I wonder whether he had been imbibing something before getting to his feet.