Mike Freer
Main Page: Mike Freer (Conservative - Finchley and Golders Green)Department Debates - View all Mike Freer's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
The number of young people in custody is at an historic low, with the number of under-18s in custody having fallen by 77% over the past decade. The Ministry of Justice does not, however, collate information on whether a prosecution or conviction for any crime was also one of joint enterprise. We are considering whether such data could be collected as part of the Common Platform programme.
Mr Sheerman
The campaign group JENGbA—Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association—estimates that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of young people under 18 in prison under parasitic accessorial liability, a novel form of joint enterprise that was supposedly overturned in 2016. People convicted under PAL have no true route to appeal because of the high bar used by the Court of Appeal. Will the Minister consider my Criminal Appeal (Amendment) Bill, which is going through the House of Commons at the moment? It is desperately needed for those young people, who should not be in prison.
Mike Freer
I am aware of the court case to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and I am always happy to engage with him on his private Member’s Bill.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
On 30 November 2022, we published our full response to the criminal legal aid independent review and a consultation on policy proposals. We are boosting the system with up-front investments to address the most urgent concerns, including uplifts of 15% for most legal aid fee schemes. We have also launched a review of civil legal aid to identify options that inform our long-term strategy of improving the sustainability of the civil legal aid system. In March 2022, we published a detailed consultation on legal aid means testing arrangements. The consultation proposes changes that should mean that legal aid is available to 2 million more people in civil cases and 3.5 million more people in magistrates courts.
Kate Osamor
I thank the Minister for his response. My office regularly refers constituents to the local law centre for housing issues relating to disrepair. The law centre is concerned that it is largely not covered by legal aid on damages for clients. Law centres are also not recognised as exempt professional firms so they are unable to purchase after-the-event insurance, meaning that clients are exposed to costs if they lose their case. Will the Minister consider extending access to legal aid in housing cases and recognising law centres as exempt professional firms?
Mike Freer
On the exemption issue, if the hon. Lady would like to write to me, I will certainly investigate that. She will be pleased to know that in the last two months we have invested an additional £10 million to boost the amount of legal aid available on housing matters.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Legal aid is the backbone of our criminal justice system, and it is running on empty. In England and Wales, 54 constituencies have no legal aid providers at all, and 80% of the population do not have access to welfare legal aid providers in their local authority. The current legal aid system is not just a postcode lottery but a regional lottery. The Government have kicked the civil legal aid review into the long grass and are still not following Bellamy’s recommendations. When will the Lord Chancellor meet Bellamy’s recommendations in full?
Mike Freer
I do not recognise spending more than £2 billion a year as “running on empty”. Spending an extra £4 million on section 28 fees, an extra £10 million on housing legal aid, an extra £5.6 million on special guardianship legal aid, and an extra £3.3 million on special and wasted preparation legal aid is not “running on empty”. In terms of representation across the UK, the Legal Aid Agency regularly ensures that all areas of the UK are covered by duty solicitors and legal aid firms.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
During yesterday’s debate on the Illegal Migration Bill, I sought clarity on how people impacted by the Bill will be able to secure access to legal advice and legal aid. Those people—be they an Afghan fighter pilot or an LGBT person who has fled Uganda—will have just eight days to make an application and seven days to appeal against removal on the grounds of serious and irreversible harm, and all that will happen while they are in immigration detention. So let me try again: how will access to legal advice be secured for such people, and will legal aid be available to them?
Mike Freer
If I may, as it is such a technical issue, I will happily meet the hon. Gentleman or write with a detailed answer.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
Drawn-out court proceedings can have a damaging impact on parents and children. We have published a consultation on proposals for a funded mandatory mediation and co-parenting programme before court to enable more families to resolve disputes out of court. We have also invested a further £15 million in the family mediation voucher scheme, which will help about 28,000 more separating families over the next two years. By freeing up stretched court resources, those changes will help families whose cases need to be heard by a court, such as those involved in domestic abuse.
Daniel Kawczynski
Does my hon. Friend agree that this Government have taken the necessary steps to prevent perpetrators of domestic violence from being able to question their victims in family court proceedings, and that the family court should never again be a place where victims can be subjected to further abuse from their perpetrators?
Mike Freer
My hon. Friend raises a very important point. In July 2022, a landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 measure came into force, prohibiting domestic abuse perpetrators and victims from cross-examining each other in person during certain family and civil proceedings. Family and civil courts can now engage a court-funded qualified legal representative to conduct cross-examinations in these cases. That scheme is very popular, and hundreds of qualified legal representatives have registered for it. This will ensure that those people in court are protected from such cross-examination.
Caroline Ansell
In one of my last advice surgeries, a parent described to me their toxic experience of family court. The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service has highlighted the harm posed to children from drawn-out court proceedings. What further measures is the Minister taking to enhance and promote mediation where appropriate, so that the impact of separation is not exacerbated by legal proceedings?
Mike Freer
My hon. Friend raises a very important and sensitive issue. The Government are reviewing all aspects of family law, particularly in terms of how to ensure that families stay out of court. The extra £15 million for mediation vouchers will help to keep people out of that adversarial situation. It is also about the use of language, to ensure that children are not scarred by the adversarial process. A wraparound process that is family-friendly, with mediation, should address the concerns she has raised.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
Over three years, one of my constituents was dragged back to the family court by their ex-partner 25 times. Despite having the bravery to leave an abusive relationship, they faced further trauma as a result of an ex-partner who was able to use the family court system to further control and manipulate them and their child. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the family courts cannot be abused in this way?
Mike Freer
The hon. Lady raises a point that has been raised before. The Department is reviewing how we can ensure that people caught up in the family court system are protected from such abuse.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The best support that families could get is representation, but the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 virtually abolished private law family legal aid. Saturday will be the 10th anniversary of that Act coming into effect, and since then, legal aid expenditure has been cut by a third, advice is given in three quarters of a million fewer cases and applications for full legal aid have halved, as has the number of providers. In the light of that, does the Minister think that LASPO has been good or bad for access to justice?
Mike Freer
What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that we have spent over £813 million on civil legal aid. In fact, the means-testing review is expected to widen civil legal aid availability to an extra 2 million people, so I do not accept the premise that we are failing families or the civil legal aid system, because of the investment we are making.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
Despite the increased volume of applications received during and after the covid-19 pandemic, the average length of time taken for a grant of probate once all required documents are received has been maintained at between four and seven weeks, with the average response being almost one week faster in the third quarter of 2022 than the yearly average for 2020 and 2021.
Priti Patel
A number of my constituents have been experiencing significant delays in their probate applications—some have been waiting for over 10 weeks—and have had difficulties in accessing staff through the contact centre and the hotline. What message does the Minister have for my constituents who are stuck waiting for answers, and what is he doing to improve the application process? At the end of the day, bereaved families are having to deal with the estates of deceased relatives, and this is a deeply painful time for so many constituents up and down the country.
Mike Freer
My right hon. Friend raises a case that I have taken some time to unpick. I can reassure her that wait times for calls to the helpline have dropped from an hour to between five and 10 minutes. In terms of the number of what are called stops, when we have to ask for additional information, we are looking at why the form causes that, to see whether it is user-friendly. We are also recruiting additional caseworkers to ensure that complex cases are speeded through the system.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The probate service was part of the reform programme, which has now been paused following a National Audit Office report, so could the Minister say who is responsible for this shambolic waste of public money, and what the next steps are?
Mike Freer
I have to say to the right hon. Lady that that is an interesting take on a pause. I do not think that taking extra time to ensure that a new system beds down correctly and listening to the concerns of the staff, which many Opposition Members have been asking for for many weeks, is shambolic. Many of the issues in the probate system are caused by the sheer volume of cases coming in with the increased death rate, but they are also about ensuring that we have enough staff on site with the right skills. That is why we are recruiting people to deal with the volume of cases.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
Legal aid is granted only to individuals. There are specific regulations that set out the position relating to multi-party applications. Following changes made in 2012, legal aid may be granted to participants in MPAs only where each individual has a cause of action and will directly benefit from proceedings. This is a way of dealing with a collection of cases more efficiently by identifying a lead case. In addition, under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, any judicial review must have the potential to produce a benefit for the individual applicant, a member of their family, or the environment.
Mr Robertson
I thank the Minister for that response and I welcome the changes that have been made, but it still seems to be the case that sometimes, legal aid or connected taxpayers’ money can be used to challenge decisions that have been democratically arrived at and would, in fact, benefit communities.
Mike Freer
I am aware of the concern that Members have about the use of legal aid in such cases, but I can reassure my hon. Friend that the Legal Aid Agency reviews all cases to ensure that the funding decisions are necessary before they are agreed.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that legal aid availability is a very important part of the justice system, but it is equally important that the wider community becomes aware of the cost of repeated cases of legal aid for the same application, so that there is full transparency among the wider public about what they are paying for?
Mike Freer
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The Legal Aid Agency will always monitor cases where we get repeat applications for funding to ensure that any application is warranted before being agreed.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
We have taken steps to mitigate the risk that social media poses to court cases following a call for evidence in 2019. Arrangements are in place with social media companies to ensure that relevant material is flagged and removed, and we are working to improve the enforcement of anonymity laws. Courts will take appropriate action against those who misuse social media, and they may be found in contempt of court, resulting in a fine and up to two years in prison.
Simon Fell
In May 2020, just as we entered the first lockdown, a young woman from my constituency posted false allegations on Facebook claiming that she was the victim of an Asian grooming gang, and that she had been raped, trafficked and beaten. The images accompanying that post were absolutely horrific. As the House might imagine, the post went global and it went viral, and in the lockdown world, it was all people were talking about. Hundreds of thousands of messages were being shared on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and others. The environment made it increasingly difficult for the police to do their job gathering evidence, and it even risked the viability of a trial going ahead at all. Traditional media carry reporting restrictions for such cases. Will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss whether we can look at applying the same conditions to social media channels?
Mike Freer
I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend. I can reassure him that contempt of court and reporting restrictions apply to social media as well as mainstream media. We continually look at what more we can do to strengthen the law in this area, and that is why we have asked the Law Commission to consider the issue as part of a wide-ranging review of the law on contempt of court. Two new offences in the Online Safety Bill will criminalise the type of behaviour we have seen in the Eleanor Williams case. The false communications offence will criminalise communications where a person sends information that they know to be false with the intention of causing harm. As I say, I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Ind)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
The outstanding case load has reduced across the UK. I do not have specific numbers for my hon. Friend’s constituency, as we do not calculate them by constituency. We are taking action across the criminal justice system to bring backlogs down and improve waiting times for those who use our courts.
Andrew Bridgen
My hon. Friend will be aware of the saying that justice delayed is justice denied. What steps is he taking to ensure that the courts sit for as long as possible to try to get the backlog down?
Mike Freer
I can reassure my hon. Friend that we have removed the limit on sitting days in the Crown court for the second financial year in a row, and that means that courts will continue to work at full capacity. We are also continuing with the use of 24 Nightingale courtrooms into the 2023-24 financial year, and are recruiting 1,000 new members of the judiciary to ensure that we get the backlog under control.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Victims of crime are having to wait up to four and a half years for their day in court. Since 2010, 50% of magistrates courts have been closed. Do the Secretary of State and the Minister believe that is a coincidence?
Mike Freer
In terms of the efficiency of the courts estate, I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that I am less hung up about the availability of buildings in every town and city and more hung up about whether we have sitting days and judges to ensure that our criminal justice system is swift and fair.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Minister would have us believe that all was well and great progress was being made in tackling the courts backlog. Then we got the damning National Audit Office report into the reform programme. The catalogue of problems is too extensive to detail here, from the ailing common platform to the hundreds of failing processes within the 46 projects yet to operate in the way they were intended. I therefore pose the same questions as the NAO: when will Ministers be able to quantify the now decreasing benefits of the programme and demonstrate that it has improved access to justice?
Mike Freer
I appreciate that the shadow Minister has a somewhat luddite approach to implementing new systems. I also say to him that the Opposition have been calling for us to listen to the staff using the common platform, which is what we have done. In fact, when I go out and about and talk to courts staff, including listing clerks and clerks in magistrates courts, the benefits of the common platform are understood, but the implementation does need some work, which is why we are pausing it. However, the alternative is to return to legacy systems, which were on the verge of collapse and for which support will be withdrawn in the near future. If that is his future, he is welcome to it.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend will know, my private Member’s Bill reforming the process of creating lasting power of attorney passed through this place two weeks ago and is now in the other place. Assuming all goes well, when does he expect it to receive Royal Assent?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
While I cannot determine the date of Royal Assent, I reassure my hon. Friend that once the Bill passes through the other House, we would expect it to complete its passage here before the end of the Session.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
Too many families are being failed by our broken courts system, including my constituents. With poor handling of domestic abuse allegations, the disregarding of children’s voices, and an obsessive pro-contact culture that puts unfit parents’ demands ahead of the children’s best interests, we need urgent reform. What steps is the Justice Secretary taking to protect vulnerable children and ensure justice for victims?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Has the Minister made an assessment of the number of wills and estates that are disputed over assets each year in the United Kingdom? What discussions has he had with the devolved Assemblies about the timescales for solving such issues?
Mike Freer
I am not aware of any particular statistics on the number of wills that are contested, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman and ensure that we liaise with the devolved Assemblies.