Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

If he will bring forward a strategy to support victims affected by court delays as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

If he will bring forward a strategy to support victims affected by court delays as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

We continue to make significant progress on criminal courts’ recovery. Since August, magistrates courts have consistently completed more cases than they are receiving. In the Crown court, millions of pounds have been invested in perspex screens, technology and Nightingale courts to enable thousands of hearings to be listed each week. Significant progress, too, has been made to accelerate the roll-out of the section 28 pre-recorded cross-examination service to support alleged victims to give their best evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rushanara Ali]

I hope the Minister will meet with me as well to discuss this matter. The delays, as my colleagues have already said, have meant that victims of serious violent crime, such as rape, sexual abuse and other kinds of crime, are facing a double threat: first of the crime and then of the delay. That is causing huge trauma. In the context of half a million unheard cases, can the Minister specifically state how many of the 200 additional court venues have been provided and how much additional funding has been provided to deal with the additional crisis caused by coronavirus?

[Alex Chalk]

Let me deal with this point about courts. Because so much money has gone into providing perspex and so on, the number of courtrooms available for trials is higher than the baseline. That is important. Even before this pandemic, we had increased by 50% the amount of funding that was going into rape support centres, because we recognised the importance of providing that support. We will continue to support individuals through independent sexual violence advisers and through providing that capacity in our court system so that victims can get the justice they deserve.