Courts and Tribunals: Sitting Days

Warinder Juss Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right. All the mechanisms at our disposal to reduce the cost of people going to court should be on the table, and we have already been acting to try to amplify the availability of mediation and other ways in which issues can be resolved. Going to court is always very expensive, sometimes for the individuals involved and often for the taxpayer, and it is important that we keep bearing down on those costs.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

I thank the Lord Chancellor for her honesty in setting out so clearly the difficult situation that we have inherited from the Conservative party, and I welcome the measures that she has proposed: the record investment in the justice system, and the measures taken to reduce the number of cases going to the Crown courts.

[Robert Jenrick]

It is getting worse.

[Warinder Juss]

It has got worse, because of the Conservative party.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as well as focusing on the measures that she has already proposed, we should continue to focus on reducing crime in the first place, and pursue our policies for tackling youth crime, knife crime and violence against women and girls?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is right. In order to deal with all the problems in the criminal justice system relating to policing, prosecutors and the situation in the Crown courts, we need a system-wide approach. That means taking action on the crimes that affect neighbourhoods up and down the country, which is why the Home Secretary’s recent Crime and Policing Bill is such a landmark piece of legislation. We must all play our part, because the criminal justice system has been left in a truly terrible state by the last Administration, and this Government are getting on with the job of sorting it out.