Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair challenge. However, he should ignore the pleadings from those on his Front Bench and support this Bill, because, overall, as well as dealing with judicial review, with the reform agenda that we are putting through the criminal courts we will free up a substantial number of Crown court days a year—I think it is 400. That will mean, on top of the other efforts such as the Nightingale courts, the super-court in Manchester and the virtual courtrooms, that we will be able to free up further court time and space. He raised a very good point but it is a reason—an argument—for supporting the Bill.

I turn next to courts and tribunals, which, as the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) fairly says, have been severely impacted by the covid-19 pandemic. Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to the judges, coroners, clerks, barristers and solicitors who have worked so hard to keep the wheels of justice turning. We should take pride in the fact that, looking right around the world, our jurisdiction was the first to restart jury trials after the pandemic began.

On the point that the hon. Gentleman made, we also recognise the backlog created by the pandemic. Let me reassure him, and the House, that we are taking every measure and straining every sinew to bear down on it as swiftly as possible. As well as the super-court and the Nightingale courts, we have the new technology that will help us to reduce the backlog and pioneer other innovative procedural reforms. We are using technology to deliver better services for victims, and indeed for users and citizens, allowing vulnerable victims to pre-record their cross-examination evidence rather than have to go through the distress of giving it in court in front of an assailant. Likewise, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, once it is commenced, will mean that all complainants of domestic abuse can give evidence during a trial from outside the court through a virtual link.

This is not confined to the criminal courts. In the civil courts, our reforms to probate mean that grieving relatives can make their applications from their own home, while the digitisation of the divorce service has reduced the time for users to complete the process by almost three months compared with the paper track. Now, as a result of this Bill, we will ensure that we are using technology to build the system around the people who actually use it, who invariably want to see justice done more swiftly and more conveniently for them, given their busy schedules, whether in work or life.

The Bill makes provision for a completely new online procedure rules committee for civil and family proceedings and tribunals. That committee will create new rules for online services consistent across all the jurisdictions. Let me give just one illustration of how the average citizen will benefit. For a self-employed person, say a plumber or a carpenter, chasing an unpaid invoice, the rules will enable these online services to be straightforward and easy to follow, dispensing swifter justice more convenient for the average working citizen as a user of the justice system. I think we should be pushing and pressing in that direction. The Bill will transfer responsibility for employment tribunal rules from the Business Secretary to the tribunal procedure committee. It will also make the committee responsible for rules in the employment appeals tribunal. While this is a rather technical change, transferring these powers to an independent judge-led committee will align the employment tribunals more closely with the wider tribunal system and promote broader consistency and efficiency.

In the criminal courts, the Bill will introduce measures that use new technology to streamline procedures to strip out unnecessary in-person hearings and create more efficient processes for allocation of cases in the Crown court and the magistrates court. That will enable swifter resolution of low-level offences such as travelling on a train without a ticket or fishing without a licensed rod without the need for the time and expense of attending court, allowing people to do it online instead, delivering a common-sense approach to our justice system.

The Bill will streamline procedures in the use of remote hearings in coroners’ courts, which will speed up and simplify the inquest process and reduce the distress for bereaved families.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

When my constituents Andy and Amanda lost their daughter Colette, who was in the care of the state, they had an awful experience with the coroner service and had to crowdfund money for their legal representation. They just wanted lessons to be learned after their daughter’s awful death. Surely they should have the right to the same legal representation as the state, and providing publicly funded legal representation would improve this. What would the Minister say to that?

[Dominic Raab]

We have addressed that issue in response to the report that the Select Committee put out. Our position has not changed. What I would say to the hon. Lady is that I am mindful of the ordeal her constituents went through. One reason we are taking forward these procedures is to reduce that anguish and stress and to ensure that the coroners’ courts in the process deliver a better outcome for the bereaved and others relying on that service.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Foxcroft]

Just to reiterate the point about Colette, Andy and Amanda, and the pain they are going through after losing their daughter, they then have to crowdfund money to try to make sure that lessons are learnt. We must ensure we have a legal aid system in place that protects them. On the Labour Benches, I believe the shadow Secretary of State will be saying just that.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend’s championing of these issues is so important. The cupboard has been stripped bare and a real crisis is emerging, with vast legal aid deserts across the country. You cannot level up the country if people cannot get access to advice. That is the point and she is right to make it.

The Secretary of State made much of my youthful endeavours at the Dispatch Box 17 years ago. I said to him from a sedentary position that, on reflection, I was young and naïve. I say very gently to the Secretary of State that he is a younger man than I am. He needs to reflect on that. I did table an ouster clause to the asylum Bill at that time, but I listened, reflected and removed it before it could be enacted. The question today is this: will he do the same? Will he be the big man we know he is capable of being and remove this clause from the Bill, as he is being encouraged to do by such a senior colleague as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden?

The Bill is unnecessary and unwanted at a time of crisis in the justice system: it robs citizens of effective remedies when they have been wronged by the state; it would leave some of the most vulnerable people in society without a last defence against unlawful Government action; and it could act as a prelude to a wider assault on the rights and protections of individuals. I ask the Lord Chancellor, when the Government should be tackling the backlogs in the Crown courts, the magistrates and the employment tribunals, when they should be trying to repair their appalling record on prosecutions and convictions for rape and serious sexual assault, when they should be fixing the staffing crisis in prisons and probation, why have they chosen to protect themselves? Labour will be voting against the Bill today. I ask Members on both sides of the House to do the same.