Sentencing Bill

Monica Harding Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

Indeed.

The new clauses under debate highlight a wider principle that is driving much of the public frustration with the democratic process: the sense of people voting and then seeing decisions that they do not feel were on the ballot paper. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings was right that this is not just an issue with this Government; the Government in which I served were guilty of this. Too many decisions were outsourced to quangos. There are lessons to be learned from that, as today’s debate has highlighted well.

Let me turn to two new clauses on which the House will divide. New clause 19 applies to something that unites the House: the horror at the murder of a police officer or prison officer. This is particularly pertinent to me, as I have the privilege of representing a constituency that contains a maximum security prison, HMP Whitemoor, where the safety of prison officers is paramount. The new clause is also important because we all benefit from the safeguarding provided by the police—in my case, Cambridgeshire police. What message do Ministers think is being sent not just to police and prison officers, but to their families, if they decide to vote against new clause 19? It is not enough just to tweet after events to say how sorry they are. The Government have an opportunity to vote to do something, and we will see in the Lobby how they vote.

Finally, I turn new clause 20. I do not think that I was alone in being deeply moved by the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant). It is most effective when Members across the House, regardless of which party they are in, speak from their own deep professional expertise about issues that transcend party politics. Anyone hearing about Tony’s case cannot help but feel revulsion, horror and shame about the offence committed, and my hon. Friend spoke with such passion to highlight it.

As a former Minister who has sat where the Minister now sits, let me say that I hope he reflects on the case put forward in new clause 20. I do not believe that any Members want to see loopholes exploited—to see people move around the country to evade accountability and the tracking of any future offences. When someone speaks with the sort of professional expertise with which my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling spoke, to raise very practical concerns, it is important that Ministers take those concerns on board.

The concern raised through new clause 20 is shared across the House. There is a defective element in this Bill, and Members have an opportunity to address it. The expectation is that there will be a vote on new clause 20. It is not about people’s words, but how they vote, that will determine the response. I hope that Members across the House will respond to new clause 20, bearing in mind the case of Tony, which was highlighted to the House, and that they will do the right thing.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

I speak today to new clause 42, which is in my name. It would require the Secretary of State to undertake an assessment of the potential merits of removing the cap on sitting days in the Crown court and to lay a report before Parliament.

I am pleased to bring this issue before the House. Our criminal courts are crippled under the weight of their caseloads. A system once respected for its fairness and efficiency is now struggling to deliver timely justice. One major cause is the limit imposed on the number of sitting days available to judges. In effect, we are deliberately rationing justice.

Successive Governments have chosen to restrict Crown court sitting days. The previous Conservative Administration cut them drastically up to 2020, and then reintroduced a cap in 2021. The current Labour Government, disappointingly, have continued that practice, fixing the number of sitting days for 2024-25 at 108,500. That figure, announced only in December, was thousands below what the courts had planned for, and nearly 5,000 days short of the 113,000 days that His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service advised were needed to meet basic operational capacity. Even 113,000 sitting days would not open every courtroom; as Sir Brian Leveson’s review made clear, we would need at least 130,000 sitting days to bring all courtrooms fully into use. Anything less is a conscious choice to leave some courtrooms dark, some judges idle and thousands of victims waiting.

Meanwhile, the backlog grows. The Crown court caseload has reached historic highs, with more than 73,000 outstanding cases, and it is only growing. In the first quarter of 2025, 2,000 more cases were received than were disposed of. One in four open cases has been waiting for over a year, and in some instances trials are not being listed until 2029.

I saw the impact at first hand when I visited my local Kingston upon Thames Crown court. It is one of many courts across the London region that suffer as the region sees its backlog increase by 25%. Staff spoke of the frustration of empty courtrooms, which could be hearing trials but are instead shuttered by bureaucracy. For my constituents in Esher and Walton, that means longer waits for justice for victims of assault, of burglary and of sexual violence, who are left to relive their trauma every time that their trial is postponed. Witnesses lose faith, memories fade, and confidence in justice evaporates.

Caps on Crown court sitting days are not a matter of efficiency, but a false economy. We are paying for court buildings, for security, for staff and for judges, yet we prevent them from working to full capacity, and the consequences are severe. Victims and witnesses wait months or even years for closure, and defendants on bail remain in limbo, their futures in the balance. Some guilty defendants plead not guilty in the hope that delay will work in their favour.

In the process, public faith in the criminal justice system and politics deteriorates. Justice delayed is justice denied. Each time a case is adjourned or pushed back, a victim’s faith in justice dies a little more. Communities lose confidence that the system will protect them, and that loss of trust is corrosive—it undermines everything from police co-operation to jury participation. It is deeply disappointing that the Government have not attached a money motion to this Bill, meaning that Parliament cannot directly remove the cap today. However, new clause 42 offers a constructive step forward. It would require the Government to confront the evidence and to assess, transparently and publicly, whether the cap serves justice or undermines it.

We cannot continue to ignore a crisis that every practitioner, every victim and every judge can see unfolding before their eyes. Removing the cap would not solve every problem in our courts, but it would allow them to function at their full capacity; it would mean fewer empty rooms, more trials heard, and faster justice for those who need it most. New clause 42 is a vital amendment that shines a light on the cost of capping justice and would begin the work of restoring confidence in our criminal courts. Justice delayed is justice denied, and it is time to stop denying justice to the people we serve.

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Much of this Bill does not apply to my constituents, because in the main it does not apply to Northern Ireland. However, there is a key component of the Bill that is supposed to apply to Northern Ireland, because the extent clause says that part 4 applies—that is the part of the Bill that deals with the very important issue of deporting foreign criminals. My question to this House tonight is whether it will, in fact, apply to Northern Ireland.

Yes, this is said to be the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is therefore said that when this Parliament decides something, it is decided; when it applies a law to citizens of the United Kingdom, that is the end of the story. Sadly, though, I know—and this House needs to know, and needs to act upon that knowledge—that three times, this House has passed Bills that it said applied to the whole United Kingdom, and three times, the courts in this land overruled Parliament and disapplied parts of those Bills from applying to my constituents and my part of the United Kingdom. Those were the Rwanda Act, the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and the soon-to-be-defunct legacy Act.

How can it be that this sovereign Parliament decides that it is legislating on issues affecting constituents across this United Kingdom and passing laws that it says applies to them all, but it turns out that they do not? The answer, sadly, is article 2 of the Windsor framework, because article 2 purports to trump this sovereign Parliament. In respect of Northern Ireland, it says that where there are EU laws—laws not made by this House, but in a foreign jurisdiction; laws that we do not make and cannot change—that bestow on citizens or those in Northern Ireland rights that are different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom, those rights will trump this sovereign Parliament. That is a frightening reality that this House has been running away from ever since it agreed to the withdrawal agreement and the protocol that is now called the Windsor framework. It comprises a fundamental assault upon not just the sovereignty of this House, but the legitimate expectations of my constituents that they will be subject to the equal citizenship that is supposed to come from being a part of this United Kingdom. Paragraph 1 of article 2 of the Windsor framework states that protections

“enshrined in the provisions of Union law”—

that is European Union law—are “listed in Annex 1”. Many of those provisions are about rights.