Criminal Justice System: Equality of Access

Oliver Heald Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)]

I join the welcome to you in the Chair, Mr Gapes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) on securing this debate on an important subject.

Access to justice is at the heart of everything we do in the Ministry of Justice. The sad thing about the hon. Gentleman’s remarks—of course he is entitled to point to areas where things are unsatisfactory—is that he did not talk about the context. The context is that there are far fewer cases and that, because of that, in some parts of the country courts sit for only a quarter of the time they could sit. Therefore, we are working against a changing picture, and not least against the background of the Government spending £1 billion to modernise our courts and tribunals. Every time one introduces modernisation, one has fewer unnecessary directions hearings; and one enables witnesses to give evidence by video link. Any of these changes affect the sort of court estate we need and issues of access to justice, but in a positive way. It is clear that he has concerns about access to justice and I hope that I can reassure him.

We are still spending a great deal of money on legal aid. The changes the hon. Gentleman referred to were made by the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), to concentrate legal aid on matters of most importance to individuals—for example, when a home was a risk, where someone’s livelihood was at risk because of the threat of imprisonment in a criminal case, or where someone might lose their children in a care case involving domestic violence. I think most of us would agree that my right hon. and learned Friend concentrated the effort where it was most needed. I do not think it is seriously arguable that he did not.

A review by March 2018 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offences Act 2012 was promised; it has to be completed by a particular date in March 2018. We have only just entered the period in which the review might have started, so it is not as though we have been dragging our feet for years. The review will go ahead.

To say that in this country we do not have debt and housing advice is incorrect. What is the citizens advice bureaux network doing? It is providing just that. On Friday, I opened a new bureau in Letchworth, where the debt and housing advice from Citizens Advice is well regarded. Shelter, which has a contract with the Legal Aid Agency, is a fantastic organisation giving advice about housing matters. The Department for Work and Pensions puts a great deal of effort and time into welfare benefit advice and giving people information.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that there were legal aid advice deserts for housing law. That is not so. Every part of the country has housing advice available. The point about housing advice is that in some areas of the country there are many more housing cases in which people might lose their homes than there are in others, so the provision is not exactly the same in each place, but it is national. The fact that there is one provider with a number of offices in one place does not mean that there is no advice. There is advice from that provider, and often the provider is very expert. If we said that that area had to have two firms, we would reduce the amount of work available to the provider that has the expertise, so it is not as simple a question as the hon. Gentleman suggested.

I was glad that the hon. Gentleman mentioned Sir Ivan Lawrence. I do not remember the occasion in question, but I pay tribute to his contribution in this place over many years before his retirement.

Turning to access to justice more generally, I think it is true to say that our courts and tribunals are open to everyone, regardless of their circumstances and location. As my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and the Senior President of Tribunals made clear in their joint statement in September, a modernised Courts and Tribunals Service must be just, proportionate and accessible. It would be undermined if it were not. However, the services that our courts provide at the moment do not always accommodate our citizens’ busy lives or meet customers’ accessibility needs. Access to justice is not just about how close people are to a court. Our programme will reduce the need for many customers to attend court. Modern technologies offer significant benefits in that respect, and we intend to explore every opportunity to use those technologies to make access to justice easier.

[Holly Lynch]

To return to my point about the courts in my constituency having closed, I completely buy the notion, if we are starting from a position of what is best practice in supporting vulnerable victims and witnesses through the court process, that having old-fashioned buildings was not necessarily the best practice that we would like to see, but nothing—no technology, digitalisation or modernisation of the justice system—has come in to replace the courts in my constituency. Can the Minister give me any information on what might be happening?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I am of course happy to look into the situation in Halifax and write to the hon. Lady, but I will make this point to her. Because our courts are used for only about 50% of the time, we are trying to use them more fully and to have courts that are more modern and have modern communications—wi-fi, video links and so on—so we are closing some courts and investing the money in improving the remaining ones. That is the overall plan.

The Lord Chief Justice gave this example—a Welsh example—the other day to the Select Committee on Justice. Wales is mountainous in parts and has road issues and so on, but in Dolgellau, where the court was closed, a video link has been established so that it is easier for local residents to give evidence and they do not have to travel to Caernarfon, for example. There are areas where such changes have already been made. There are some areas where we are proposing to make suitable alternative arrangements, and we have a more general programme of considering questions such as whether it is possible to sit a court for a particular case in, say, the town hall or another public building. Such courts have been characterised as pop-up courts. We also have that initiative, which we are working on at the moment. Attempts are being made, but I will of course write to the hon. Lady about Halifax.

A significant amount of the work of magistrates courts will be conducted online. That will of course mean less attendance at courtrooms. It will increase the speed of the process, save money and remove the need for defendants to attend court at all. Our ambition is for attendance at a court building to be reserved for the more serious cases, in which there is to be a trial or there is a serious issue of sentencing.

We are making a lot of progress. The common platform programme has already introduced the ability to plead guilty online for certain traffic offences, as part of the single justice procedure whereby one magistrate deals with the cases. We have introduced wi-fi into all criminal courts, and the programme will continue so that we get an end-to-end digital process. The police will build a digital file, which will go to the CPS, which will put it into the right condition for court. Then, once it is going to court, all the users of the system will be able to draw down that information, that case file. The judge will be able to give directions online. We will have far fewer ineffective hearings and hearings that it would be possible to avoid by using technology.

Many vulnerable people come into contact with the courts, and it is important, through the changes, to ensure that they are helped to access digital services. We are currently consulting on how to improve their access to the digital process, as part of the announcement that was made in September.

The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney represents a constituency in south Wales. He will know that, during the consideration of court closures in that area, particular efforts were made to find suitable alternative provision; we have discussed places such as Dolgellau. I appreciate that some individuals may find themselves in difficult circumstances when needing to attend court. Anyone who has a concern about travelling to court on the same transport as the person they are accusing or anything of that sort should make it clear to the police and the CPS that they have that concern. Arrangements will always be made to ensure that witnesses can get to court in a satisfactory way.

It is right to thank the hon. Gentleman for initiating the debate. It is important to recognise that we are in a period in which crime is falling, the number of cases is falling and the way in which we do the work is changing, so he is right to say that, when it comes to legal aid for criminal cases, there is a case for discussion and seeing whether it is possible to improve the two main legal aid schemes: the advocates scheme and the litigators scheme. I can assure him that the Ministry of Justice is in productive discussions with both parts of the profession—the Bar and solicitors—to see whether we can find legal aid schemes for their work that are more attuned to modern needs, but that also fit in with career progression and all those things that are of concern to the Bar and solicitors. We are doing that actively at the moment; we are in discussions with them.

The hon. Gentleman recalled some remarks that were made at the time suggesting that judicial review would be dead following the changes made by the then Lord Chancellor, who is now my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport. In fact, more than 4,500 cases were started the following year, so I think he is right to feel that that did not happen after all.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the review of employment tribunal fees. I cannot tell him the outcome yet, because we are still doing it, but I think it is good that the Government are prepared to review that issue, just as we are also reviewing the immigration fees at the moment. I do not think that should be criticised; I think the hon. Gentleman should welcome it.

Question put and agreed to.