Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

I know the hon. Lady takes this issue very seriously, and I want to assure her that it is at the top of the agenda in my regular meetings with the senior management of the Courts and Tribunals Service. A lot is happening, however, not all of which gets into the public domain. For example, we are reducing reliance on paper bundles in the criminal courts, and the digital case system in Southwark Crown court now holds over 94,000 pages of information that would otherwise have been printed in triplicate. Also, the new national automated rota system for magistrates, which is now live for 2,500 magistrates, has eliminated a complex and error-prone manual process.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I welcome the upgrading of technology in the traditional court setting—for example, for civil claims, the Rolls Building now takes claims on line—but will the Secretary of State also be implementing the more radical proposals of the Civil Justice Council to include an online dispute resolution service for low-value claims?

[Mr Vara]

We are keen to have the most up-to-date and modern courts system in the world—one fit for the 21st century—and we are ruling nothing out.