Court Closures

Debate between William Wragg and Robert Neill

Thursday 24th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), and I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this important debate. I am pleased to speak in it, and I wish to speak up for the principle of local justice and the vital importance of the courthouse in Stockport for my constituents. I welcome last month’s decision by the Ministry of Justice to keep the Stockport courthouse open, particularly in the wake of my campaign with the Ministry of Justice and having had many productive conversations with the Minister.

As many hon. Members have said, a key principle of our justice system, one that underpins both the magistrates courts and Crown courts, is that justice should be delivered by one’s peers. By extension, that gives rise to the requirement for local justice to be administered by local people within the local area. Those principles have given rise to the patchwork of jurisdictions and local courts that make up the current structure of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. Those principles, under the current courts system, also give rise to the important practical benefits that help to deliver justice effectively. They provide a shorter distance to travel for the relevant parties in cases, including defendants, victims, and witnesses, many of whom are often accompanied by their families and friends to court, and for the magistrates, clerks and staff of the court. They also give rise to smaller benches having a local identity and a social or team aspect. Finally, the distribution of courts not only contributes to local communities, but serves as a catalyst to small micro-economies—we heard about the pies and pasties in Wakefield—and associated services, as well as to the legal professions that the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) mentioned.

Out of respect for those principles and practical benefits, I also opposed the proposed merger of the local justice area of Greater Manchester, which was considered in a public consultation by the Ministry of Justice at a similar time to the one on courthouses. I made the separate case to the Ministry that in the event of any changes to that local justice area, not all the business of any new merged LJA should be conducted in the Manchester city courts, but rather a significant proportion should still be conducted in courts across Greater Manchester, including that in Stockport.

I made the case some months ago to the Ministry of Justice to urge that Stockport’s court should remain open and retain at least a significant proportion of its current magistrates court and county court functions. Stockport court has 47 staff and was running at only 54% capacity in 2014, with annual running costs of £879,000. Please allow me to explain why I felt the way I did. The first reason was that those impacted by the proposed closure would be the court users, including victims and witnesses in the magistrates courts, and those involved in small claims, bankruptcy and evictions in the county court. All those are groups of vulnerable people who need the security and convenience of local services, at what is an already stressful time for them. The closure of Stockport courthouse could have severely restricted access to justice and may have ended up being a false economy by simply shifting the operating costs to other areas.

[Robert Neill]

I am glad to hear my hon. Friend mention that Stockport court is not to be closed. That was particularly welcomed by members of our Committee, because it also houses a very successful problem-solving court, which has been recognised by the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor as one area where we could do much more to combine jurisdictions and get a much more effective use of judicial capacity and better outcomes.

[William Wragg]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He raises an important point about the innovative work being carried out in the Stockport courthouse building, and I am grateful to him for drawing that to the House’s attention. The closure of the court would have left the town without a court and would have meant that my constituents would have had to travel to Manchester in the quest for justice. That would not only have seen them incurring additional expense, but it would have had potentially negative impacts on vulnerable people, and disabled people in particular. Any such closure could also increase the amount of defendants not turning up for hearings, thus wasting the resources of the court and meaning that more arrest warrants would be issued, with consequential impacts on police resources.

Moreover, from a local economic perspective, if the closure had gone ahead in its proposed form, all cases would have been heard in Manchester and there would no longer have been a magistrates court between Chesterfield and Manchester. The Chesterfield and Stockport case was something my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) mentioned. In addition, the closure of the Stockport court would have had an impact on not only the employees of the courthouse, but local businesses, particularly those in the legal profession.

I understand that in the context of the wider pressures on public finances some savings have to be made somewhere, and I acknowledge that the Minister has a very unenviable task in the difficult decision he is facing. I also have sympathy for other local courts in surrounding areas, many of which can equally apply these same arguments. Other local communities have strong allegiances to their local courts, and I am particularly sorry to hear that the courts at Bury, Oldham and Trafford are earmarked for closure. However, I think there was a stronger case in Stockport’s favour, in particular, because it is one of the most heavily used courts in the area. The stated aim of the reforms to the HMCTS estate is to reduce surplus capacity by closing courts that are unused or underused, or that are simply unsuitable for the services that we now need to provide in them. During the 2014-15 financial year, Stockport magistrates court was utilised at approximately 54% of its capacity—that was the highest level of occupancy of any of the Greater Manchester courts. In addition, Stockport courthouse is a high-quality building, only recently having been refurbished in 2010. I therefore cannot see how the closure of Stockport magistrates court could reasonably have been deemed as a cost-saving exercise.

The Government announcement that Stockport court will now not be closed is good news for people living in Stockport and the surrounding areas, including my constituency. I made a submission to the Ministry of Justice as part of the consultation process, and also attended meetings with the Minister, along with my neighbouring MP, the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), to whom I pay particular tribute for the amount of work that she did, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson). I am pleased that we were able to take this cross-party approach and work co-operatively with one another. I am pleased that our arguments were listened to by the Government, in what I felt—I know others may disagree—was a genuine consultation exercise, particularly given the Minister’s intervention in that process.

In summary, I feel that Stockport courthouse should remain open, and I am pleased that my view has been vindicated. Such a decision is important in order to preserve the long-standing principle of local justice being administered by local people within the local area; to provide practical benefits for both the parties in legal cases and the court staff; and to ensure that the court can continue to contribute to the local community and economy. It is also important because the court currently provides a relatively high level of occupancy compared with that of many other courts in Greater Manchester and surrounding districts.

I further urge that the continued operation of Stockport courthouse be incorporated into whichever future model of local justice area structure for Greater Manchester the Ministry of Justice decides to pursue. Can the Minister shed any further light on that matter today? I also welcome the fact that, as part of this reform package, the Government are investing more than £700 million over the next four years to update the court and tribunal estate, installing modern IT systems and making the justice system more efficient and effective for modern users.

As I said earlier, I have sympathy for other local courts in surrounding areas and other areas around the country, and I am glad that many colleagues have been here today to stand up for their local courts. Perhaps somewhat cheekily, may I say that in a week characterised by a refreshingly open attitude on the part of the Government to showing their listening mode, I hope that the Minister will be able to hear some of the important pleas of other right hon. and hon. Members here this afternoon?