Criminal Justice

Kim Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)]

I thank my good friend, the Chair of the Justice Committee, for his excellent speech and for securing this debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in it and I declare my interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for miscarriages of justice. I welcome the estimate and the commitment in the spending review, but I want to focus my remarks on an area of grave concern: Ministry of Justice spending on criminal justice—and, more specifically, the adequate prevention and correction of miscarriages of justice.

What is the value of justice if innocent people are still being convicted, imprisoned and left to rot in our criminal justice system? The sad truth is that for all the billions we debate today, the Ministry is failing in one of its most fundamental duties: ensuring that innocent people are protected from wrongful conviction and supported when the system fails them. Miscarriages of justice are not theoretical; they are real and ongoing, and they destroy lives.

Andrew Malkinson was wrongfully imprisoned for 17 years for a crime he did not commit. He was exonerated last year, but only after a tortuous journey through a system that was more interested in protecting itself than uncovering the truth. Peter Sullivan, wrongfully convicted of murder, spent 38 years in prison before being exonerated only last month. He is a victim of the longest miscarriage of justice involving a living prisoner in British legal history. These cases expose deep systemic flaws and happened in plain sight, but across the country individuals are experiencing criminalisation and injustice without proper recourse. Their names do not always make the headlines, but their stories are no less important. Miscarriages of justice are not rare accidents; sadly, they are now an inevitable consequence of a failing system stripped of its checks and balances.

At the heart of that system is the Criminal Cases Review Commission—a body that was designed to be the safety net, to identify where the system had gone wrong and to help innocent people find justice. Yet the CCRC is in crisis. In May, the Justice Committee published a damning indictment of its leadership and performance. It stated that the CCRC had shown

“a remarkable inability to learn from its own mistakes”

and that it had “deteriorated significantly” in its ability to fulfil its vital function. The Committee concluded that “root and branch reform” is required, and it is found in the clearest possible terms that it was untenable for the current chief executive Karen Kneller to remain in post. That is not political rhetoric; it is a cross-party Committee of this House carrying out its scrutiny function and reaching deeply troubling conclusions.

The CCRC’s failures come at a terrible cost, not only to those wrongfully convicted but to public confidence in the rule of law. Every year that it fails to identify miscarriages, innocent people remain behind bars, their lives on hold or, worse, permanently destroyed. But I also want to acknowledge a step in the right direction. I welcome the appointment of Dame Vera Baird KC as the interim chair of the CCRC. Dame Vera has a long and respected record of championing justice and accountability. I hope her leadership marks a turning point, and I look forward to seeing real progress, not just in leadership, but in culture, performance and independence. For that to happen, the Government must take these responsibilities seriously. Reform cannot come on the cheap. The CCRC must be properly resourced and empowered to do the job it was created to do, because until we properly fund our safeguard, miscarriages of justice will continue, the human cost will remain unbearable and the financial cost unsustainable.

I also want to touch on two areas critical to justice: legal aid and forensic sciences. Since 2010, funding has been slashed by hundreds of millions of pounds, and access to justice and representation is now a postcode lottery. We are seeing the collapse of criminal defence provision across England and Wales. There are now entire areas with no local legal aid solicitors, which disproportionately affects those from marginalised groups—those most vulnerable to miscarriages of justice.

Forensic science, which was once the gold standard, has been fragmented and degraded. A three-year inquiry into forensics set up by the APPG for miscarriages of justice recently concluded that the sector is in a “graveyard spiral”, leading to poor police investigations, increasing numbers of unsolved crimes and more wrongful convictions. Evidence shows that our system continues to fail to ensure not only the prevention of miscarriages of justice, but their speedy identification and resolution when they do occur. We support calls for a full national audit of forensic provision to access the urgent support needed to prevent further decline and to protect future investigations and trials from preventable failure.

Let me turn to prisons and the chronic underfunding that is failing staff and those in custody. At the justice unions parliamentary group yesterday, I heard at first hand about the crisis in prison education. According to Ofsted, 82% of prisons and young offender institutions are rated “inadequate” or “requires improvement” for education, skills and work provision. Prison educators are paid less than their counterparts in the wider further education sector. The Education Committee warned in 2022 that poor pay, unsafe working environments and a lack of respect have driven a recruitment and retention crisis. That is unacceptable. Education is one of the most powerful tools for rehabilitation, yet we are underfunding and undervaluing the very people delivering it.

The same is true of prison maintenance. Privatisation has been a costly failure. Basic repairs remain undone, squalor is widespread and the maintenance backlog is estimated to cost nearly £2 billion. I support the POA’s “Bring it Back” campaign for insourcing prison maintenance. The promised biggest wave of insourcing in a generation must start here. In our crumbling prisons, where contracts have failed, conditions are decaying and dangerous for both staff and prisoners. I also support the POA’s campaign on retirement age. Asking officers to work until they are 68 in such a high-stress, high-risk environment is simply unsustainable. Sixty-eight is simply too late.

We are debating how to spend £18 billion in the Ministry of Justice, but money alone is not the issue; it is about priorities. If the very foundations of justice are crumbling, every other investment is undermined. The criminal justice system continues to fail innocent people. Chronic underfunding has rendered safeguards weak and ineffective. Leadership has been absent where it was most needed, and time and again the system refuses to admit it when it gets things wrong.

Miscarriages of justice are not tragic accidents. They are the inevitable consequence of a system that is under-resourced, poorly led and structurally resistant to scrutiny. Every wrongful conviction is not just a personal tragedy, but a betrayal of our legal system and the values it claims to uphold. Justice denied to one is justice denied to all.

Let us invest not just in buildings, but in truth; not just in processes, but in people. Above all, let us put real justice—not convenience or cost-cutting—at the heart of everything the Ministry of Justice does.