Court Closures (Yorkshire)

Joe Benton Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Benton, for allowing me my first Westminster Hall debate on an issue that is of particular importance to my constituents in Goole.

Before I go any further, I just want to say that I understand many of the pressures on Her Majesty’s Courts Service, particularly given the fact that in the last three years of the previous Government, magistrates services received a 7.5% funding cut in the—[Interruption.]

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

Order. Would Members leave Westminster Hall quietly, please?

[Andrew Percy]

As I was saying, Mr Benton, there was a 7.5% cut in magistrates budgets, which occurred for each of the three years before the general election. There is also a massive backlog in refurbishment and capital projects, which built up in HMCS in the previous few years. In Goole, that backlog stands at £80,000. I could make some comments about the fact that it was a shame that in the run-up to the general election, when Labour Ministers were heading to my constituency with all sorts of blank cheques, they did not offer a blank cheque on court services.

I want to confine most of my comments this afternoon to the proposal to deal with the court at Goole. As I have made clear to the Speaker’s Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) will, with your permission, Mr Benton, take some of my allotted time to speak about the closures in Selby. There is a proposal to close the county court in Goole and to merge the local justice areas, but that proposal is less controversial, and indeed it is something that the magistrates in the Goole area do not oppose.

There are a number of reasons why the magistrates service in Goole should continue. Those reasons relate to the efficiency of the court, which was shown by a review just 10 years ago, and to the cost implications for my constituents in the Goole area if the court should close. Goole magistrates court is administered within the Humber and South Yorkshire region, which consists of the courts in the East Riding of Yorkshire, northern Lincolnshire and south Yorkshire. There is evidence that the throughput of work at Goole is the second most efficient in the Humber and South Yorkshire grouping of magistrates courts. There is a very low ineffective trial rate at Goole, and trials at Goole are listed much more quickly than in larger courts. The proposal is to move the work from Goole to a much larger court at Beverley. Breaches of court orders can be dealt with very quickly at Goole. My own personal view—and what I hoped was the view of the new Government—is that bigger is not always better when it comes to the delivery of services.

The courts building at Goole is fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which is made clear in the consultation document about the proposed closure. There is a peppercorn rent for the facilities in Goole, and there is a 125-year lease for the building that will not expire until 2130, so there will be no problems in relation to those running costs in the next few years. There is also a modern prison and vulnerable witness link in place, and the court building itself is situated right next to the police station, with adjoining access to modern and recently refurbished cells.

The utilisation rate in the two courts at Goole would be at 80% but for the fact that a number of meetings and other hearings are held in court two. That utilisation rate compares with what we are told in the consultation document is a relatively low utilisation rate of the courts at Beverley. I would like an assurance from the Minister that the court at Goole is not being closed simply to solve that under-utilisation problem.

Of course, there is also a huge issue relating to localism. As a coalition, we are committed to a localism agenda and I am increasingly concerned that, if we should lose the court in Goole along with the magistrates court in Selby, we will effectively be left with a justice “black hole” in our part of the country. Our court in Goole deals with a number of family matters, which are best dealt with locally. As I said a few moments ago, the courthouse in Goole is situated next to the local police station, which itself was recently renovated at a cost of £2 million. The cells at the police station were also recently refurbished, at a substantial cost to the local police authority.

A review was undertaken of the court services in the East Riding of Yorkshire about 10 years ago. At that time, our county lost the magistrates courts at Howden, Pocklington, Brough, Driffield and Withernsea. We were left with the court in Beverley—anyone who knows the geography of the East Riding of Yorkshire, as I hope hon. Members do, will know that Beverley is roughly in the centre of the East Riding—and courts at the two extremes of the East Riding. One is in the east at Bridlington and the other is in Goole, in the western part of the East Riding. Of course, we also have the magistrates court in the large city of Hull.

Little has changed in Goole or indeed in much of the East Riding since that review was undertaken, except that we have had an influx of immigration from eastern Europe, which—I must be careful with my wording—has presented the courts with certain issues. I would suggest that that actually strengthens the case in favour of retaining our court in Goole. After the review 10 years ago, the rural parts of the East Riding were left with courts at Beverley, Bridlington and Goole. The arguments that are being used to close the court at Goole now are exactly the same arguments that could be used in relation to the court at Bridlington, although there are no proposals to change what is happening there—and I am not suggesting that we should save the court at Goole and sacrifice the court at Bridlington. There is a strong case to keep both courts.

The consultation document makes it very clear that the court in Goole is administered from Beverley and that legal advisers travel from Beverley to attend the court in Goole. The same administrative unit also covers the magistrates courts in Beverley and Bridlington. We in the Goole area are therefore a little confused as to why the area is being treated differently from Bridlington, which is 22.5 miles away from Beverley, compared to Goole, which is 28 miles away from Beverley.

If the closure of the court at Goole goes ahead, there will be massive cost issues. Goole is one of the most deprived areas in the East Riding, and on certain measures it is among the 10 most deprived areas in England. A high proportion of our residents are on low incomes or in receipt of benefits, so I have a huge concern about the transport costs involved in getting to Goole from Beverley if the closure goes ahead. There are not just the costs of witnesses to consider, but the costs of family members who may wish to go and support people in court.

There are no direct buses to Beverley from Goole. To get to Beverley from Goole, someone would have to take a public bus to Hull, in the process almost going past the magistrates court in Hull, before changing bus to continue the journey up to Beverley. That journey would be close to 40 miles in total, so the distance of 28 miles that was quoted in the consultation document only applies to those who have access to a vehicle. There is a train service from Goole to Beverley but, equally bizarrely, the train service, too, passes through Hull before going on to Beverley. The cost of a return train journey is £11.90 and travelling by bus from Goole to Beverley would take a minimum of 1 hour and 25 minutes, involving the change in Hull that I have just mentioned, so there would be huge costs for anybody who wants to travel to Beverley from Goole via public transport. Furthermore, Beverley has some of the highest parking charges in the East Riding for anybody who wished to drive there.

We must also consider the historical value of the court building at Goole. We are trying to build up awareness of the history and heritage of the town. The court building is a late Victorian building, and one of the oldest buildings in Goole. Although its historical value may not be much of an argument in the rationalisation of HMCS, its closure would have a huge impact on the regeneration of Goole. The building is particularly beautiful, and we are concerned about what would happen to it should we lose the court.

I would like the Minister to tell us whether we can have a full breakdown of the running costs in 2009-10 of the court at Goole. Some broad figures are given in the consultation document, none of which tell us a great deal. I want to know how those running costs were quantified and how they compare with the running costs of the court at Bridlington. Can the Minister also give us an assessment of the likely costs for justices of the peace and witnesses to travel to Beverley, and say what consideration has been given to diversifying work at Goole? I am not in favour of someone being against something unless they have other solutions. Has any work been undertaken on bringing other services into the court at Goole, such as the tribunal service?

The new coalition Government have made a commitment to localism. I hope that in the 10 minutes in which I have spoken, I have made a strong case for why we in the Goole area, on the edge of the East Riding, deserve to be treated a little differently in the closure programme. The East Riding is the biggest unitary authority in the country and the decisions made 10 years ago were made for very sensible reasons: to maintain one service in the centre and two on the extremes either side of the East Riding. With your permission, Mr Benton, I shall hand over to my hon. Friend and colleague the Member for Selby and Ainsty, who will no doubt wish to speak about the issues affecting Selby.