Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation

Debate between Sarah Sackman and Caroline Nokes

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)]

Let me start by echoing the thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) and for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for securing time for this important debate. I thank everybody across the House who has contributed so thoughtfully to it. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate and ensuring that time has been given for considering this vital subject. It is perhaps all too rare that cross-party consensus breaks out on such an issue, as it clearly has done at this slightly ungodly hour, but it is all the better for it.

Let us be clear: SLAPPs are an abuse of power and the legal system, designed to shut down scrutiny, not to seek justice. As we have heard, they are brought to harass, intimidate and wear down opponents through financial pressure and psychological strain. They are often brought by wealthy individuals or corporations to silence journalists, authors, publishers and academics, and, as we heard particularly powerfully from my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours), to silence ordinary individuals and to seek to exploit the power imbalance that exists in our society.

In this David and Goliath situation, it is not just individuals who lose out. This issue is corrosive to the principle in our society that respects the rule of law and says that everyone should be equal before the law. This is a media freedom issue, but it is not just that; it is about access to justice. When SLAPPs predominate, we all lose out. As we heard eloquently from my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake), they pose a threat to our democracy, because the purpose of SLAPPs is intimidation—to silence critics through fear and to deter public interest reporting through the threat of costly litigation.

As the Minister for Courts, I want to underline that the courts should always be a forum for justice, not a weapon of intimidation. The Government’s position is clear: freedom of expression and investigative journalism must never be undermined by abusive litigation. The calls that we have heard tonight from across the House for universal anti-SLAPP legislation are calls that the Government welcome. As others have pointed out, we have begun to take the stepping stones towards that universal framework.

I pay tribute to the previous Government, who put on the statute book the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, which this Government began to implement. It was designed to stop wealthy elites from effectively silencing critics, journalists and activists, but, as a number of Members have pointed out, that definition of SLAPPs—defined in statute for the first time to help courts to identify abusive claims—was confined narrowly to economic crime. As we have heard, SLAPPs are used in a far wider context. While it is a vital stepping stone, it is just that. As we have heard tonight, there is agreement that we need to go wider, because many alleged SLAPPs fall outside the current framework, including cases involving sexual abuse allegations, medical negligence concerns, academic research and consumer reviews. Such things are in the public interest, so we need a wider definition of SLAPPs that goes beyond economic crime and adopts an objective test of what is reasonable behaviour in the conduct of litigation. We recognise as a Government that the test needs to be simplified, so that we can deploy that early dismissal mechanism—that cost protection in the 2023 Act framework—in a more refined and effective way. I and the Government find an objective test attractive. A better definition of harassment, alarm or distress is needed, and we will look to work on that with those who bring forward the private Members’ Bills.

Other Members have spoken about the need not just for legislative action, but for a culture change in the legal profession and among our independent regulators. To be clear, the overwhelming majority of solicitors and legal professionals in this country and in this jurisdiction act with honesty, professionalism and a deep commitment to the rule of law. There is a reason why England and Wales is rightly regarded as world-leading when it comes to legal services and as a legal jurisdiction. Lawyers play a vital role in upholding justice and protecting rights, but that should not detract from the high standards that need to be demonstrated right across the profession, because maintaining public confidence requires recognising not just the profession’s strengths, but those cases where legal processes are being misused and abused by legal professionals. That is why I welcome the calls for further action and robustness from our independent regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

We need to look again at the SRA’s enforcement powers and whether it has the tools it needs to charge fines and place disciplinary sanctions on those lawyers who let down the reputation of the profession. That culture change is important, and it needs to be a cross-government initiative. Legislation is not worth the paper it is written on if it is not applied properly. That is why the initiative led by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, working with the National Committee for the Safety of Journalists—it brings together Government, the media, the legal profession and civil society—to track the use of SLAPPs and how journalists are being targeted is so important.

The hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) asked what work we are doing with the legal profession. I can assure her that I meet regularly with the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and that this matter is frequently a topic of discussion. She asked, rightly, about the Government’s position on the forthcoming private Member’s Bill from the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale). As he acknowledged, he and I are in constant contact. We are working together, because there is much common ground. We see that there can be a good way forward that gets the results that we need on the statute book, and that strikes a coherent balance between the right to access the courts—that must be maintained, so that people can protect their reputation and their right to privacy—and freedom of expression for journalists and individuals, which many have spoken about tonight. Our conversations have been constructive. We are working closely with one another, as well as with Baroness Stowell in the other place. I am confident that we can get a carefully balanced and proportionate approach that the Government can support, and I look forward to continuing that work with him.

To conclude, our focus is on tackling all SLAPPs. This abusive litigation is used to intimidate and silence public participation. It is necessary to tackle it for the integrity of our legal system, to protect freedom of expression and to protect democracy itself. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley once again for his championing of this critical issue. I thank not just those in the Chamber, but all those ordinary individuals and brave investigative journalists who determinedly campaign against the abuse of our legal system and for freedom of speech, for bringing these matters to the nation’s attention.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Alex Sobel to wind up the debate, briefly.

Home Office and Ministry of Justice

Debate between Sarah Sackman and Caroline Nokes

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

Prison education is vital, and I have seen some fantastic examples of it, in particular on a recent visit to High Down. Prison education can take many forms, such as vocational training and education in a conventional sense. In some senses, the bigger question is how do we make our prisons safe? There is no point in having outstanding education—I agree with the hon. Member that it is important; I do not think we disagree on this—if drones are bringing drugs and contraband into prisons, as he pointed out, and if prisons are overcrowded. If that is the case, it is almost impossible to deliver and see the benefit of that education. The fact that this Government are prioritising, through a £40 million investment, a drone prevention programme, that we are building new prisons that are fit for people to live in and receive that education, is a choice that makes sense and that, as I said, prevents so much of the problem.

Violence reduction units, the prison reform Bill, and the workforce plan that the Home Office has put forward are all part of the choice—I return to that theme—that the Government make, whether on policing, courts, prisons, or probation. We choose to fix the mess, and when we see a problem we make the choices required to fix it. Investment, modernisation and reform: the contrast between that and the choices that Opposition Members made when in government could not be starker. We must now give the plan a chance to work.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown to wind up the debate briefly.

Court Reporting Data

Debate between Sarah Sackman and Caroline Nokes

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

I am afraid that the bombast we have just heard is not just inaccurate but dangerous, because it suggests that there is anything like a restriction on open justice. Let me be absolutely clear: there has been no deletion of any court lists. [Interruption.] Excuse me. There has been no deletion of any court lists, which is the nature of the data that has been provided.

Let us be absolutely clear: we had an arrangement with Courtsdesk, which we accept provides a useful service. [Interruption.] What Courtsdesk did, which the shadow Minister does not seem to think is a problem, is to pass that information on in breach of the agreement—no doubt for commercial purposes—to an AI company. That information included defendants’ addresses and dates of birth. I do not think anyone in this House would think that such things should be provided to anybody other than accredited journalists, yet they were provided to an AI company.

We then asked Courtsdesk to delete the information that it held. As of yesterday, I understand that it still has not done so. It accepts that it has acted in breach of its agreement. It threatened the Ministry of Justice with legal action, which it has not chosen to take forward. We are saying that when a company acts in breach of an agreement, putting vulnerable people and parties at risk, it is very serious. I take data protection seriously, but there has been no obstruction to journalists being able to access through the usual channels the lists that we are talking about. That access remains open today, and it remains open to journalists to contact HMCTS.

Indeed, we want to put this system on a securer footing with the necessary guardrails. [Interruption.] I will repeat, because the shadow Minister is muttering through my entire response, that no one has deleted any court records. Everything that he refers to in relation to serious sexual historic crimes remains accessible. Case law remains accessible, and the court lists remain accessible.

Open justice is vital, but I will not have a wild west of private companies acting in breach of agreements with Government and passing sensitive data on to third-party AI companies. That will not do, and the shadow Minister knows that if he were in my position, it would not have been acceptable to him either.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

It is a pity that the shadow Minister is reducing this issue to one of his conspiracy theories, because I know that the Minister is an advocate of open justice, and the Government are doing a lot on open justice by televising the family courts, publishing transcripts and other means.

Courtsdesk gave evidence to the Select Committee in its 2022 inquiry into open justice, and it is, I think, the only centralised source of information for journalists. It is an important tool, because court reporting and local journalism have suffered greatly over the past years. We do need a service of this kind, so when can the Minister tell us what will replace it? In the meantime, will she continue to talk to Courtsdesk, notwithstanding what she has said today, to ensure that the information can be provided for journalists in a legitimate and legal way?