Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. It is fortuitous that the Lord Chancellor has just entered the Chamber, because in March he is hosting an important conference, with the Dutch, to discuss how further we can help and support the work of the ICC. Further, we have the work of the special tribunal that I mentioned, and we are providing a great deal of practical help on the ground in training Ukrainian judges and providing funding to help them to find evidence and to prosecute these crimes effectively.

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

5. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Crown Prosecution Service in tackling the backlog of cases in the criminal justice system.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

6. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Crown Prosecution Service in tackling the backlog of cases in the criminal justice system.

[The Solicitor General (Michael Tomlinson)]

First, I would like to pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) for his work as Solicitor General. From that work, he will know the significant amount of funding in the criminal justice system to help improve waiting times for victims. Both the Attorney General and I have seen that at first hand in our visits to regional Crown Prosecution Service areas.

[Edward Timpson]

I thank the Solicitor General for his answer. Further to the point raised by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), in the first three quarters of 2022 there have been 235 ineffective Crown court trials caused by prosecution absence—the highest annual total since 2014—compared with just 19 in 2019. The recent uplift to defence fees has meant there is now more money in defending than in prosecuting, and consequently the CPS is struggling to find enough prosecutors for trials. What timescales is my hon. and learned Friend working to in order to address this situation?

[The Solicitor General]

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for raising this point. Of course, I recognise the importance of ensuring that all those who work in the criminal justice system—both defence and prosecution—are paid and rewarded appropriately. He will have heard my answer earlier, and it is right that the Treasury has agreed to consider the CPS funding position. Discussions are ongoing, and I know that he will keep pressing.