Court Reporting Data

Debate between Sarah Sackman and Jess Brown-Fuller

Tuesday 10th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for setting out the data protection issues that have been identified with Courtsdesk, but can she explain why her Department ignored the 16 letters written by Courtsdesk asking for dialogue before deciding to do away with the system? As was pointed out by the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), it is the only centralised tool for justice reporting. Reporters have described the MOJ’s own data as fragmented, incomplete and impractical to navigate, and according to HM Courts & Tribunals Service, its own records on court listings were accurate just 4% of the time. It is those gaps that Courtsdesk was designed to fill by providing clear and accurate information for reporters.

Doing away with this platform will naturally add to the feeling that the MOJ is avoiding difficult questions and dodging accountability by undermining journalism. Will the Minister suspend the deletion of the archive until the Information Commissioner’s Office has looked into these issues and drawn its own conclusions? If she insists on going ahead with the deletion in the coming days, will she please give an indication of a timeline within which we can expect a platform that will serve the same purpose?

[Sarah Sackman]

I want to make it absolutely clear that accredited journalists continue—as they have throughout—to have access to court information that they need, directly from individual magistrates courts and tribunal services, via either the court and tribunal hearings service, which is a new digital system, or the gov.uk website. I do recognise the utility of what Courtsdesk provided, but the company was clearly not acting in a responsible way. When we approached its representatives about the breach of its agreement with HMCTS, they accepted that they had breached it and then threatened the MOJ with litigation, which is not an appropriate way to behave if one is trying to co-operate and get things on to a sound and steady footing.

Let me also be absolutely clear about the timeline. All magistrates and court lists, and the accompanying case summarisation data, will be available from the court and tribunal hearings service from the end of March 2026. I want to put this on a stable footing so that journalists have ready access, because I accept that the information must be made easily available to them, in a responsible but properly licensed fashion. As I have said, that work will be made public and the licences made available from March.

We have to do this in a responsible way. We have to balance the very real needs of open justice—which I readily accept, and to which the Government are committed—with data protection, particularly when it comes to the vulnerable victims who are at the heart of this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sarah Sackman and Jess Brown-Fuller

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

Andrew Turner has been fighting on behalf of parents of disabled children across the country who cannot access their children’s trust fund when their child turns 18, even though that money could provide support for the additional cost of living that comes from being a profoundly disabled young adult. Andrew has seen 10 Justice Ministers come and go since he started his campaign. Will the Minister assure me that the current Minister will be the last one Andrew has to meet before the situation is remedied?

[Sarah Sackman]

I met Andrew Turner, who is a tireless campaigner; we were embarking on the work that is necessary to support families like his, and those that he represents. I have personally undertaken to ensure that this work continues, irrespective of which person is sitting in the chair. I will follow up not just with Andrew, but with his very dedicated MP, the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne).

Restriction of Jury Trials

Debate between Sarah Sackman and Jess Brown-Fuller

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats agree that under the current system victims and survivors of rape are being failed and far too few see justice served. However, for those victims who do decide to proceed through the justice system, fewer than 10% withdraw after a charge has been made, so the Deputy Prime Minister’s standing in the Chamber and using an assessment of the data to justify his reasoning for removing jury trials does not hold up to scrutiny.

It seems that a number of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Back Benchers, including the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), agree with the Liberal Democrats that the delays that plague our system will not be addressed by reducing jury trials, with the Government neither diagnosing the cause of the crisis nor providing the solutions to the record backlog. How do the Government justify restricting jury trials when backlog issues are caused by court mismanagement and broken private contracts rather than the jury system, as identified and confirmed by those working in the system from all sides? Will the Minister confirm which stakeholders, including victim support organisations and legal professionals, have been consulted on the reforms? What feedback has she received?

[Sarah Sackman]

I will answer the hon. Member’s last question first. All the bodies that she referred to—victim support, victims’ organisations, the legal community, the Bar Council and the Law Society—have engaged over many months, first with the independent review of criminal courts led by Sir Brian Leveson, and indeed now with the Ministry of Justice. That engagement is happening all the time.

On those who represent victims, the incoming Victims’ Commissioner has said that the system is broken and there is need for bold reform. The bold reform recommended by Sir Brian Leveson’s review is precisely the proportionate reform—radical, yes; and necessary, yes—that we are going to pursue.

On the hon. Member’s comment about victims and the significant figure of 60% of rape victims pulling out of cases, there are many reasons that victims pull out. It is difficult to know exactly what is going on in a victim’s head at any one time, but we all know how lengthy the delays are in our courts, and everyone is aware how retraumatising the court process can be. We know from Rape Crisis, for example, that one in three sexual offence trials is the subject of adjournment, so there is not just delay but victims thinking they have a trial date only for that to be put off. No one can say that that is defensible. For many, the fact that their case might not come to court for years is key to their withdrawing from the process, at whatever stage, so it is material to the context. That is why action needs to be taken.

As the Crown Prosecution Service data discussed at the Justice Committee has brought forward, one striking statistic shows the need for action: there were more than 4,000 cases that could have been heard in the magistrates court, but our current system privileges the defendant’s right to insist on a jury trial with the greater length of time that that takes. As a result, the person who has stolen a bottle of whisky or a bunch of flowers—a low-value item—has every right to insist on a jury trial, and is then stuck in the same queue as serious crimes such as rape, murder and kidnapping. That is exactly how this works. And that is exactly why, on Sir Brian’s expert recommendation, we are seeking to remove such cases from the queue and reassign them to where they can be better and more swiftly dealt with in the system, so that we can come to the most serious cases more swiftly.

Right to Trial by Jury

Debate between Sarah Sackman and Jess Brown-Fuller

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

The leaked memo from the Ministry of Justice, which reveals plans to rip up our criminal justice system, is particularly surprising, given that the Deputy Prime Minister himself has stated that “Jury trials are fundamental”. In a report that he wrote, he called jury trials

“a success story of our justice system”.

Juries are not the cause of the court backlog; that was complacency from the former Government and a failure to grip the issue by this Government, totally failing the victims who are currently waiting. Will the Minister clarify whether this MOJ proposal is a suggested temporary emergency measure or a permanent erosion of our criminal justice system? Does she share my concern that the Office for Budget Responsibility is showing a real-terms cut of 3% a year to the MOJ’s capital budget after the Budget yesterday? Does she agree with the Deputy Prime Minister’s diagnosis from opposition that the Government should

“pull their finger out and acquire empty public buildings across the country”

in order to clear the backlog?

[Sarah Sackman]

As the hon. Member heard me say a moment ago, the constitutional right that we guarantee every citizen in this country who comes before our criminal courts is the right to a fair trial. When victims are waiting for years for their day in court, right now justice is not being served. When the Secretary of State made those comments, it was obviously in a very different context, not one where the Conservatives had allowed the backlogs to run out of control. As I said clearly earlier, the right to a jury trial and the jury trial will always be a cornerstone of the British justice system. That will not change. It does not change in Sir Brian’s report, in which he recommends the restriction of jury trials in certain cases, and it will not change in the plans that the Government are bringing out. She is right that we need a combination of structural reform and investment and, indeed, we are making that investment. We have increased capital investment in court maintenance and buildings to £148.5 million. We are opening new criminal courts, for example in central London, in Blackpool and in other parts of the country. We have to build system capacity, with more judges, more lawyers and more staff to man those cases, but ultimately we must be laser-focused on the need to deliver swifter justice for victims. In order to do that, we will, in due course, in response to Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations, bring forward very careful plans that protect people’s rights, including that right to a fair trial.