Desmond Swayne
Main Page: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)Department Debates - View all Desmond Swayne's debates with the Ministry of Justice
Restriction of Jury Trials
Desmond Swayne Excerpts(1 day, 10 hours ago)
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Sarah Sackman
I am very sorry to hear about my hon. Friend’s cases, which graphically highlight precisely why reform is needed and the grave crisis in our criminal justice system, which, as Sir Brian has told us, is on the brink of collapse. We need a holistic approach: reform, significant investment and modernisation. On the earlier question about efficiencies, do we need to improve the time that it takes to bring prisoners from prison to court? Yes, we do. Do we need to improve things such as listing, and look at whether they can be done more efficiently? Do we need to look at productivity in our courts? Absolutely. That is why we have asked the independent review of the criminal courts to conduct part two of its review, and it is why we are looking at these issues very intently with the MOJ. There is no silver bullet, and her constituents’ case illustrates the mountain that we have to climb. Such stories motivate me to work every day to get these reforms through and deliver swifter justice for victims.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
My maths teacher always required us to show our workings. Last week, the Secretary of State told us that only 3% of prosecutions proceed to jury trials. How can marginally reducing such a small proportion produce the savings that have been identified? Will the Minister publish the modelling?
Sarah Sackman
We have the IRCC—Sir Brian Leveson’s review. Over 388 pages of careful analysis, he sets out how his package of reforms will begin to bear down on the backlog. As I have said, an impact assessment will of course be provided in the ordinary way, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman and assure the rest of the House that unless we were confident that the package of reform and investment that we are bringing forward was capable of bringing down the backlog, we would not be pursuing it. Of course, that is exactly what we are aiming at: to see the backlog coming down by the end of this Parliament, so that we can deliver swifter justice for victims.