Oral Answers to Questions

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

What progress he has made on tackling backlogs in HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

What progress he has made on tackling backlogs in HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of court cases that has accumulated as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

As the hon. Gentleman says, 16 nightingale courts are up and running, and the Ministry of Justice has secured a total of just over £110 million in additional funding from the Treasury, to support not just those nightingale courts, but many others as well. We intend to open further nightingale courts in the future. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the use of the Lowry theatre—we all do—and as I said, up to 260 Crown Court jury rooms are now open and operational, which is more than we had before the pandemic.

[Seema Malhotra]

The backlog for individual cases in employment tribunals has already passed the post-2008 financial crisis record, with 37,000 workers in the queue. Analysis by Citizens Advice suggests that if that continues to grow at the current rate, the number of outstanding claims could pass 500,000 by spring. When will the Minister take action at the scale necessary, and stop the Chancellor’s jobs crisis becoming a justice crisis, by targeting much needed support to employment tribunals?

[Chris Philp]

As I said, we are putting a great deal of extra resources into the justice system, including employment tribunals, to ensure that we recover from coronavirus. There is £110 million in total extra this year, and a further 1,600 staff of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service across the entire system. The hon. Lady mentions employment tribunals, and I am pleased to report to the House that since the beginning of October, disposal rates in the employment tribunals have been running at 740 a week. That is higher than the level of disposals pre-pandemic, which was 718 a week. We hope and expect that that recovery will continue.