Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims

Laura Trott Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I think we all agree today that we need to tackle the court backlog, but I think what we have mainly heard from Opposition Members are just attempts to cast blame rather than new solutions. Let us take the Opposition motion, in which the only solution offered is more Nightingale courts. Call me naive, which Members may, but I thought the purpose of an Opposition day was to oppose something that the Government were doing, rather than to support the innovation coming from this Government, which is Nightingale courts. There is no detail on where they should be, how many there should be, how they should be staffed or indeed how much we should spend on them. Nothing at all.

A Nightingale court has just opened in Kent, thanks to strong support from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) on the Front Bench, and also detailed support from the Department in terms of where it should be, exactly how we could get the right configuration of rooms so that we had the necessary custodial rooms and where we could find the staff for this important court. This kind of detailed, important work by the Department has led to us having 60 Nightingale courts, which will really make a difference and have an impact on speeding up justice in this country. That is in contrast to the Opposition’s motion today, which simply seeks to take credit for something that is an innovation from this Government.

I shall move on to other parts of the motion, having established that the first part is simply supporting the Government’s existing policy. Labour wants to introduce additional measures from the “Ending Violence against Women and Girls” Green Paper, which it produced. Some of those measures are constructive, and I think we should work together on them on a bipartisan basis, but I remember the debates during the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, and that was not bipartisan; there was a marked difference from the approach taken during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which was very different in tone and enabled us to pass a landmark piece of legislation. Claims of decriminalising rape are incredibly unhelpful and wrong. That is the opposite of the approach that we need to take to tackle this incredibly important issue.

The Government are doing a lot, as has been mentioned by many already. We have the Domestic Abuse Act, and the movement in the direction of pre-recorded cross-examinations will be incredibly important for helping the victims of rape and others, as will the ending of automatic halfway release for rapists, because I think the time that rapists spend in prison is important. There is also better protection for the victims of domestic violence. I urge Opposition Members to match their rhetoric with action. Bipartisan is definitely the way we need to go with this, but they cannot do that when they are making sensational claims on social media.