Kim Johnson
Main Page: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)Department Debates - View all Kim Johnson's debates with the Ministry of Justice
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Sarah Sackman
The right hon. Lady is right that we need to increase capacity. That is why, since we replaced her party in government, we have increased the number of sitting days by over 5,000—we have record sitting days. The fact is, however, that we must build system capacity; we need enough judges, enough prosecutors, enough court ushers, enough court translators. We need more magistrates, and we are embarking on an ambitious programme to recruit more of them. All that must happen. Unlike her party, we are investing in the system and looking to bring more courtrooms back into use, but ultimately, as Sir Brian Leveson reminds us time and again, spending our way out of trouble will not, on its own, fix the system. Former Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk —one of the Conservatives’ own—said that the system would become “irrecoverable” unless we act, and, unlike the Conservatives, I am prepared to do so.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
The 2017 Lammy review found jury trials to be the only part of the justice system consistently free from racial bias. With only 12% of judges being from ethnic minority backgrounds, these proposals risk deepening disproportionality and undermining confidence in the justice system. Can the Minister explain how the public and ethnic minorities can have trust in this new Crown court division, when there is no evidence that it will even work to address the backlog?
Sarah Sackman
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the racial disparities right across our criminal justice system. Sadly, there is nothing new about that issue, which runs from issues with policing to prosecutorial practices, and of course, our courts are not entirely free of that. The principle of equality before the law is fundamental to public confidence in our justice system, and any differential treatment on the grounds of race or ethnicity is unacceptable. Regardless of which options we take forward to tackle the crisis, that principle—equality before the law—will run through them; I can assure her of that.