Courts IT System

Nicholas Dakin Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

A number of people, such as the hon. Gentleman, have referred to court closures. In circumstances where 41% of our courts were used at less than half their available capacity last year, it is incumbent on a Government to look at where they should use their resources and where they should use their resources well. All money from court closures goes back into the courts system, and we ensure that the money is spent and spent well on our justice system.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

When the Government closed Scunthorpe magistrates and family courts, against the wishes of local people, much was made of the way in which digitisation would mitigate the risk of threats to access to justice. Given this shambles, what evaluation is being done of whether, where there have been court closures, access to justice is still being delivered effectively?

[Lucy Frazer]

It is vital that we continue to reform our courts and to take advantage of what technology offers us. We have had extremely positive reports from people who are using our online services, such as our online applications for probate, online applications for divorce and—I was in a social security tribunal this morning—online applications for social security tribunals. There is the fact that people can get updated on their social security hearing on their mobile phone, and the fact that we are now piloting the ability of a judge to email and liaise with a tribunal applicant before they get to court so that their hearing is ready, effective and useful when they get there. We of course evaluate this at each stage. Our systems are user-based and have been adapted because of the feedback we have had from users in the course of using them, but we will be evaluating the reform programme overall.