Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gideon Amos and Sarah Sackman(1 week, 5 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sarah Sackman
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to describe the situation as Conservative court chaos. Indeed, the full picture of the last Government’s terrible inheritance will become clear when we publish Crown court data later this week. Demand on the criminal courts is increasing at a faster rate than the actions we are able to take, and we must therefore go further. This Government understand the scale of the problem and are ready to confront it with the fundamental reforms that will be necessary.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
The Minister referred to court chaos. A tribunal judge and a court worker from my Taunton and Wellington constituency wrote to me. The tribunal judge said:
“tribunals are being cancelled every day as they say there are not enough judges to cover the cases. This is absolutely not the case,”
and
“People are waiting months for their benefit appeals in appalling poverty and again we cannot deal with the cases because of this limit”
on sitting days. What will the Minister do to increase sitting days in Taunton and Somerset courts?
Sarah Sackman
We are investing in increased court capacity and in the recruitment of 1,000 judges and tribunal members. As the Lord Chancellor said, we have increased the number of Crown court sitting days by 500, but it is not simply enough to increase court sitting days. We have to look at fundamental reform to address the serious backlogs we have inherited from the Conservative Government.