Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I will give it a go, Mr Speaker. The question was ingenious, and I commend the hon. Member for it. Capacity is critically important—absolutely—and I want to stress, because people will be listening to this, that in 90% of the cases that take place in magistrates courts there are not those difficulties. However, it is true that we are expanding capacity, which is why there are more judges and there are 24 Nightingale courts. List officers are ensuring that we are getting through some of these most sensitive cases as quickly as possible, and the backlog in the Crown court—the case load in the Crown court—is coming down. We are seeing progress, and it is going to accelerate.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Getting back to SLAPPs, they are, as the Secretary of State has accepted, closing down public debate and public exposure of corruption. They are also being used against people who work for the enforcement agencies, such as the Serious Fraud Office, where individuals have been targeted. The Secretary of State has said that he intends to legislate, but can he tell us when he is likely to do that, because the Government have been making these noises for a very long time and what we need is action?

[Alex Chalk]

Absolutely. The position is that we will do so at the earliest opportunity. As I said before, we are even considering this in legislation before the House at the moment, so I hope that that gives the hon. Member an indication of the urgency. However, the point to note is that it is very easy to say “anti-SLAPPs legislation”, but if we look at other jurisdictions, we see that that can be in the form of costs orders that can have unintended consequences in respect of the law of defamation. I am not suggesting that is any reason not to move quickly—we are going to move quickly—but we have to move quickly and with care. If we do not, we risk undermining the very policy objective we want to deliver.