Kate Hollern
Main Page: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)Department Debates - View all Kate Hollern's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Mike Freer
My hon. Friend is spot on: it is not acceptable that his area is going backwards. I have commissioned officials to report in detail on the exact problems affecting his area, and I will report to him in the next four to six weeks.
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
We have rolled out the Common Platform at 173 criminal courts in England and Wales and 76% of courts are now live. It has improved the format and timeliness of outcomes of hearings generated and shared with our criminal justice partner agencies and removed the need for staff to re-key information across different IT systems. If we are to reform the criminal justice system, we need to press ahead and reform the IT that underpins it.
Kate Hollern
The Common Platform has been nothing short of a disaster—one quarter of a billion wasted on a project that was fundamentally flawed from the start and designed primarily to slash thousands of highly skilled legal jobs. Even the Lord Chief Justice has raised serious concerns recently to the Justice Committee. Is it not time the Minister held up his hands, admitted this was a mistake and told His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service to build a better system that focuses on delivering justice instead of wasting money in such a damaging and short-sighted way?