Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Debate between Melanie Onn and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 17th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I reiterate my previous remarks on what has happened to Crown court sitting days, but I do not think it is helpful for me to speculate on who is ultimately responsible. It is clear that the concordat process has not worked as it should. As I said, the first process that I conduct as Lord Chancellor will not have those issues. An agreement was reached and it has to be stuck to. I am sure that all those in the system are worried about the impact on victims—they are the ones who will be waiting longer. As I said, although reports have suggested that up to 5,000 sitting days have been cancelled, the number is more like 1,600, and the changes we have announced today will free up capacity in the Crown courts.

I am very interested in the role that AI and other technology and digital solutions can play in increasing efficiency and productivity in the Crown court system and the court system more broadly. That is subject to discussions in relation to the Budget and the spending review. I hope to update the House in due course.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

I am very concerned to hear of the missed publication of Crown court backlog data. How can we hope to drive down the backlog if we do not know how big it is?

[Shabana Mahmood]

One of the reasons why I am determined to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong, and to ensure that all errors and accuracy issues are dealt with, is so that we have comprehensive data that we can rely upon. We know that the Crown court backlog is at historic levels. Sadly, I do not think that any assurance work on the data will suddenly bring that down—I suspect it is more likely to go up—but it is important to establish the true scale of that backlog, because this House needs to know exactly what it looks like so that it can hold the Government to account on their efforts to bring it down. We cannot do that unless we know its exact size. Sadly, I suspect it will remain at the historic levels that we have inherited—I do not think it will come down by much.

Prison Capacity

Debate between Melanie Onn and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

I welcome the Lord Chancellor and her team to their places on the Front Bench.

Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous), is expanding this scheme to include unfair indeterminate sentences not worth further consideration? That would provide an additional 2,700 potential early releases.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I welcome my hon. Friend back to her place. I am well aware of the issues around indeterminate sentences for public protection. I know that matter is of great interest to Members, as it was to me as a constituency Member of Parliament. I know this territory well. It would not be appropriate to make changes in relation to IPP prisoners, because there is a different order of public protection risk. I am determined to make more progress on IPP prisoners. As I say, we will build on the work done by the previous Government. We worked constructively with the previous Administration on sensible changes that could be made in the safest possible way for the public. Those changes were on the licence period and the action plan, which we will crack on with as a new Government. Any changes that we make to the regime for that type of sentence, which has been rightly abolished, must be done while balancing the public protection risk, which we would never take lightly.