James Cartlidge
Main Page: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)Department Debates - View all James Cartlidge's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)
As part of the Department for Transport’s longer-term and wider work on road safety, road traffic offences are kept under review to ensure that irresponsible driving and the risk it poses to others are appropriately punished. In the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, we are increasing the maximum penalties for causing death by dangerous driving and by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs, and we are introducing a new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving.
Mr Bradshaw
Businessman Hassan Nasser al-Thani, who killed retired railway worker Charles Roberts while driving his Rolls-Royce at nearly twice the speed limit, was given a short driving ban and fined last month because prosecutors accepted that he was driving carelessly, not dangerously. That is just the latest example of a road criminal receiving a ridiculously light sentence while their victim’s loved ones are left grieving for the rest of their lives. It has been nearly eight years since the Conservative then Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), promised
“a full review of all driving offences and penalties”—[Official Report, 6 May 2014; Vol. 580, c. 17.]
Where is it?
James Cartlidge
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who I recognise has been very vocal on these issues for a long time. I obviously cannot comment on the specific case; sentencing and decisions of the courts are a matter for our independent judiciary, as he knows. However, we had a review in 2014 that looked at driving offences and penalties, which led to the consultation in 2016 and to the new measures that were debated in the House of Lords yesterday. Those measures significantly strengthen the penalties for the two offences that I mentioned, not least because the maximum penalty will increase from 14 years to life. I think that sends a strong signal about our overall position on these very serious matters.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)
We are already seeing the results of our efforts to tackle the impact that the pandemic has had on our justice system, and the number of outstanding cases in magistrates courts has dropped by around 80,000 since its peak in July 2020. I am pleased to say that the spending review provides an extra £477 million for the criminal justice system, which will allow us to reduce Crown court backlogs caused by the pandemic from 60,000 today to an estimated 53,000 by March 2025.
Liz Twist
The Government try to blame covid-19 for the backlog, but the Crown court backlog had already increased by 23% in the year leading up to the pandemic. Does the Minister regret the decision to slash sitting days in 2019?
James Cartlidge
I say to the hon. Lady with the greatest respect that it is quite extraordinary that anybody in this place should try to pretend that the pandemic has nothing to do with the backlog. If she visits a Crown court, she will see extraordinary measures having to be used to ensure that, with a jury present and potentially multiple defendants, a case can be disposed of while upholding the rules that we brought in for public health. It would be very welcome if the Opposition recognised that the best part of £500 million of investment to clear the backlog is a very significant step and a positive way forward.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Last week, the Justice Committee visited the Crown court in Manchester and met the recorder, His Honour Judge Dean QC, and the rest of the judiciary. We also met court staff and practitioners there. I hope my right hon. Friend will join me in paying tribute to the hard work that they are all doing to try to keep the show of the jury trial on the road in these exceptional circumstances. Does he agree that it is extremely difficult to deal with jury trials when social distancing is required, and that we have to be realistic about that? Will he also note that the magistrates courts are now, as he observed, dealing with cases in a timely fashion? Is it perhaps worth looking again at the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 in relation to the powers of magistrates, because a lot of lower-level offences could be disposed of in magistrates courts?
James Cartlidge
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I also had the pleasure of visiting Manchester Crown court and saw the brand-new super court, put in place at a cost of £2.5 million to the Treasury to deal with multi-handed cases. I am pleased to say that today we have opened another in Loughborough. On the matter of magistrates, he will know that in the Judicial Review and Courts Bill that is before the House—in fact, we have just been in Bill Committee—we will increase the number of cases that are remitted from the Crown court to magistrates, saving 400 days in the Crown court to hear serious backlog cases such as rape and other indictable charges.
James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend makes a good point and has significant experience as a lawyer himself. I can confirm that there is extra resource for the CPS in the spending review, and the Home Office and our Department work closely together on that question and will be looking at what more we can do to improve those processes.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
On 5 October, the Secretary of State said it would take up to 12 months to get the backlog down to pre-pandemic levels. Yet we know now, according to the Ministry of Justice’s own analysis, that the backlog may not return to those levels until 2025. Just this morning, he said it could take up to eight years. Was he mistaken when he said it would only take a year, or has it taken him a little longer to get on top of the Department?
James Cartlidge
On the contrary, I can confirm that what my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor actually said was that cases would start to stabilise. They are stabilising now, at around a 60,000 backlog, but we accept that that is still significant. I think what matters to our constituents, though, is not the size of the number of cases outstanding—though that is important—but how long their case is going to take. On timeliness, we are seeing a very significant improvement, because we are working at full capacity. In July, the Crown courts in this country sat more days and disposed of more cases in a single month than at any time since November 2018. We are making significant progress, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will welcome the additional investment in the spending review, which will ensure we can go even further.
Mr Lammy
I am glad to see the Minister come to the aid of the Secretary of State, but he has not answered whether it is a year, eight years or 2025. The Secretary of State told Sky News today that he did not recognise that there was a workforce crisis in the criminal justice system. The Lord Chancellor has got to get real. The workforce is beyond crisis: it is in end times. Criminal solicitors and barristers are leaving in droves, cases are up right across the country, they are stalled right across the country and nobody is available to take them. The Criminal Bar Association is threatening to strike. How does the Lord Chancellor expect to reduce the backlog if there is no one available to take on the cases? Holiday time is over. It is time to act, or let the system collapse.
James Cartlidge
It is quite extraordinary: 43 minutes ago in Bill Committee, the Labour party voted to keep clogging up our courts with immigration and asylum cases with almost no chance of success. Quite extraordinary. Those cases take up 180 days of court time. That means a High Court judge, and that is precious resource. That is why we are taking that measure. It just proves that when it comes to the backlog in the courts, Labour says one thing and does another.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)
The Bill had its Second Reading in this House on 26 October. As the hon. Lady knows, it is now in Committee—she is part of that Committee. The Bill fixes inefficient processes that cause delay in our justice system and gives judges more flexibility to resolve judicial reviews in a practical way. The Secretary of State discusses these matters with Cabinet colleagues, and we are confident that the package of reforms in the Bill is proportionate and effective.
Angela Crawley
Judicial independence is under threat across Europe, so given the Minister’s recent chilling comments that the UK Parliament should correct decisions of the judiciary that Ministers disagree with, can he see the concerns that this raises for the principle of the separation of powers? How can the UK credibly join other countries who threaten the independence of judges?
James Cartlidge
We have been debating these matters at length. The Bill is a very good one. It strengthens judicial review in relation to quashing orders with the new remedies. Far from what the hon. Lady said, those new remedies—for example, being able to suspend a quashing order—will bring great benefit to our constituents and support better public administration.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Bill has a whole chapter on coroners yet entirely neglects the key issue of giving bereaved families a fair hearing at inquests. Victims’ families have no right to legal aid, even when many state institutions are represented at public expense. At one inquest, 18 public bodies were represented but families had to fight to be heard. Will the Minister commit, now, to non-means-tested funding for bereaved families when the state is represented, and table amendments to the Bill to achieve that?
James Cartlidge
I am pleased to confirm to the House that we are currently drafting the measures that will ensure that we remove the means test on exceptional case funding for such matters. Furthermore, I can confirm that the changes should be implemented early next year.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
There has been much gnashing of teeth in the past week over MPs who breach standards and their right to appeal—natural justice, I think they call it. Why, then, do the Government propose to remove a vital last line of defence for ordinary people by removing Cart and Eba-type judicial reviews—the type used by the most vulnerable and the least powerful?
James Cartlidge
We have just debated this issue at great length in the Bill Committee and I understand that the hon. Lady feels strongly about it but, as we have explained, in those cases there are—we keep using this phrase—three bites at the cherry, whereas in almost all other areas of law there are only two, so the Bill is fair in that sense.
I am bound to say that it is incumbent on the Government to look at resource. When we have a backlog like we have, we have to ask whether using up 180 days of court time for cases that have a tiny chance of success is the best use of that resource. We have a backlog of very serious cases to deal with; that is our Government’s priority and where we are focused.
Anne McLaughlin
We have just spent a considerable amount of time arguing about that issue in Committee, so let me turn to another part of the Bill. The presumption in favour of prospective quashing orders will mean that this Government will be able to treat ordinary people unlawfully, safe in the knowledge that even if the courts say they have done so, there will be no redress or compensation, and there will even be time for the Government to change the law so that the unlawful thing becomes lawful. I wonder what it is about the wealthy, powerful friends of this Government that makes their right to so-called natural justice so much more compelling than the right of the ordinary man or woman on the street.
James Cartlidge
The hon. Lady knows that that is a wholly erroneous interpretation of the presumption clause, which is there simply to ensure that we expedite the accumulation of jurisprudence.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend; these are sensitive matters. We remain clear that allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation must be thoroughly and properly investigated by police. Since Alexis Jay’s report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, significant improvements have been made in how local authorities and the police safeguard children both in Rotherham and across the country. However, we know that there is further to go, and we continue to drive improvement in response to actions set out in the “Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy”. We are also bringing forward measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that will ensure that an additional cohort of serious and sexual offenders will now serve two thirds of their sentence in custody, instead of half.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Two and a half years ago, practitioners were promised that the criminal legal aid review would be published in summer 2020. We are still waiting. The all-party parliamentary group on legal aid conducted an inquiry into the sustainability of legal aid, and the report was published last month. We heard compelling evidence from practitioners about the impact of inadequate legal aid rates. The consequent crisis in recruitment and retention is feeding directly into the courts backlog. Does the Minister agree that there is no route through tackling the courts backlog that does not also deal with the crisis of inadequate legal aid rates?
James Cartlidge
I pay tribute to the hon. Lady in her role as chair of the APPG. It is precisely because I see the importance of legal aid that I went to the meeting at which she launched the report. I very much enjoyed it; colleagues from both sides of the House were there. Key to this is the criminal legal aid independent review under Sir Christopher Bellamy QC. Of course, we are still waiting for him to publish that, but we look forward to seeing it as soon as possible.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Law Society of Scotland has explained in detail why clause 2 of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill requires the Scottish Parliament’s legislative consent—it is basically because judicial review is a devolved matter. When I raised that with the Minister on Second Reading, he said that he would write to me addressing the Law Society’s detailed arguments. When should I expect to receive that letter?
James Cartlidge
Without wishing to sound like one of the famous online shopping alerts that we receive by email, I confirm that it has been dispatched and that the hon. and learned Lady will receive it imminently.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
The main reason for my call for a Rotherham-style inquiry into child sexual exploitation in the Bradford district is to bring justice to the victims of these offences and help ensure the safety of children across my constituency. Will my hon. Friend join me in that call so that we can tackle the issue once and for all?
James Cartlidge
I absolutely recognise the trauma endured by victims and survivors and their need for answers. The Government continue to be clear that it is for local authorities in individual areas, which are responsible for delivering services, to commission local inquiries. However, we expect Bradford Council to take the most thoroughgoing approach to ensuring that all lessons have been learned and that local partners are doing everything possible to identify offending and protect children from harm.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
As a veterinary surgeon I really welcome the fact that the Government have listened to the calls that have been made and are introducing a new pet abduction law. Sadly, in rural areas such as Penrith and The Border, other animals are frequently stolen, including farm animal livestock, horses and ponies. Will my hon. Friend look to expand the legislation from pets to encompass all animal abduction offences, including those involving farm animal livestock and horses, so that we can put an end to the horrific and distressing crime of animal theft?
James Cartlidge
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I do see the point he makes. As he knows, the focus has been on dogs and other pets that we keep in the home, but I am happy to speak to colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and to get back to him about what we think of his suggestion.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The Justice Secretary is working with the Law Commission on bringing forward a new corporate offence of failure to prevent economic crime. There are concerns that the offences will be downgraded to regulatory offences, rather than those involving criminal sanctions. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there must be criminal sanctions if we are to have a true deterrent against this terrible crime?