Oral Answers to Questions

Steff Aquarone Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones]

First, let me congratulate my hon. Friend on succeeding me as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on perpetrators of domestic abuse. It is a vital APPG and I know that she will do sterling working as its chair.

To confirm, we have excluded from SDS40 certain offences that are frequently connected to domestic abuse, such as stalking and controlling or coercive behaviour. The victim contact scheme is available to all victims of a sexual, violent or terrorist offence where the offender is sentenced to 12 months or more in custody. We are working with the sector and others to consider how to improve communication with victims about an offender following a conviction.

[Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)]

T6. The latest figures show that the court backlog sits at nearly 68,000. Every one of those cases means yet another individual victim or family waiting for justice. Despite that, the Government plan to cap the number of sitting days in our courts at a lower number than last year, losing 2,000 sitting days, which has drawn criticism from many, including the Bar Council. Could the Secretary of State tell me why those waiting for justice, including many in North Norfolk, are being forced to wait even longer?

[Heidi Alexander]

As I have said, the Crown court will sit for more than 105,000 days this financial year—an increase of 28% on the year before the pandemic. That means that there is more capacity in the Crown court this year than in six of the past seven years. We have inherited a criminal justice system on life support as a result of the previous Government, and we have a broken economy. Everyone can see the state of the public finances, and justice is not immune from that.