Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

My hon. Friend might want to take up the question of an older persons commissioner with the Prime Minister because I suspect that is well above my pay grade. On access for grandparents, I will double-check this but am pretty sure that we recently extended the ability to get legal aid to special guardianship orders, which may well be accessible for grandparents to secure rights of access.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

9. What assessment he has made of the potential for improvements in the efficiency and economy of trial processes.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)]

We are committed to working closely with the judiciary and other partners to improve the efficiency of the criminal courts and family courts, and this includes the judicial-led cross-system Crown court improvement group, which improves ways of working with the Crown court. But across the whole system we are looking at increasing digitisation so that the cost of access to justice is also reduced, and that is an addition to all the measures mentioned in response to other questions to ensure the capacity of our system is robust.

[John Penrose]

I thank the Minister for those examples. Does he agree that those reductions in the costs, delays and complexity of resolving disputes and enforcing the law are good not just for victims and plaintiffs but for consumers and taxpayers, and are also examples of how red tape can be cut without compromising the quality of British justice? So will he keep going on this crusade, and perhaps persuade other Government Departments to apply the same energy and rigour in their portfolios?

[Mike Freer]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For instance, for online civil money claims the times for issuing, responding and hearing dates are down to 9.4 days from 25 days, while damages claims are down from 11.4 days to one day and financial remedy consent orders are down to four weeks rather than many months, all making access to justice faster, more efficient and cheaper for those who need it.