Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

I appreciate that my hon. Friend is increasingly agitated about the implementation of aspects of the Bill; however, the consultation was not conclusive, and the stillbirths landscape has changed. Those issues have to be addressed if the Bill is to be introduced correctly.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

T5. According to a report produced by the National Audit Office last week, housing legal aid is out of reach for many people who are struggling to keep a roof over their head. Countless people facing the threat of eviction and repossession have recently contacted me for help. With the cost of living crisis and rising interest rates, it is crucial that people can access legal help with their housing issues. What is the Minister doing to ensure that housing legal aid is available to those who cannot afford legal help?

[Mike Freer]

We are investing an initial £10 million to make sure that legal aid is available for exactly those problems.

Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Bill

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 2nd December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) on introducing this important Bill. I thank Nacro for its campaigning work on this issue and the vital support it provides to prison leavers. As the hon. Member outlined, the Bill will allow the earlier release, by up to two days, of people in prison with high resettlement needs who are due to be released from prison on a Friday or the day before a bank holiday.

It will be no surprise to the Government that Labour supports the Bill wholeheartedly, not least because we tried to legislate for this last year. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) tabled an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that would have provided this much-needed flexibility for Friday releases, but the Government at the time refused to support it. I am glad that they have now seen sense and recognise the value in Labour’s proposals—because let’s us face it, these proposals are common sense.

As the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness explained, prisoners released on a Friday face an almost impossible race against the clock to get all the support that they need in place before the weekend. In many cases, they are simply unable to access the same support as those released earlier in the week, because many crucial resettlement agencies run a reduced service on Fridays and no service over the weekend.

That means that prison leavers might end up sleeping rough or in unsuitable housing. They may be left for the weekend, unable to access important medication and health support, such as in the case of M, who was released on Friday before a bank holiday weekend after serving a year in custody. He had an addiction to heroin but, when released, was not given the prescription charts from the prison that were needed to determine the dose of methadone he needed. He was also not given a bridging prescription. As it was late afternoon on Friday, the GP from the substance misuse service had left, and M and his resettlement broker were unable to get his medication. He was vulnerable and entitled to priority housing, but the local authority did not deem him to be in priority need because it was a Friday afternoon. He did not have time to gather the further evidence that was needed to prove what he had said before the weekend. He spent the weekend sleeping in a known drug house and ended up using heroin. As part of his licensed conditions, he was required to give a blood sample and, lo and behold, he tested positive for drug use. Had he been released earlier in the week, he would have accessed the housing and medical support that he needed to help in his resettlement.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) has noted previously in Committee, Members of this House will be especially familiar with this matter. I am sure that many of us have experienced the same difficulties in getting the necessary support for our constituents in need last thing on a Friday, just as agencies and services are closing for the weekend. Indeed, very recently, I went with a constituent in housing need to my local town hall just to ensure that they were given the services that they needed. From my earlier life as a criminal practitioner who both prosecuted and defended, I can tell Members of the cases that were heard on a Saturday in the emergency court of people who had been released from prison and were back in court again because they had nowhere else to go. It was better to commit a minor offence, be arrested and be kept in a prison cell where they at least had a warm bed and three square meals. That was a better option for them.

We know that around 400 people continue to be released from prison, every month, directly into homelessness. Only 30% of people receiving treatment services while in prison are successfully transferred to the community on release. I hope that the changes proposed in the Bill will contribute to improving those worrying numbers. There is a window of opportunity for people when they are released from prison. That is when they are keen to move on and rebuild their lives outside prison. We should be seizing that opportunity by making the transition as easy as possible to give them the best chance of success and thus decrease the likelihood of their reoffending as much as possible.

The Government conceded in the summer that, under the current system, Friday releases can end up with ex-offenders spending their first days on the streets with little in the way of support, increasing the likelihood that they will commit further crimes, and they committed to legislate when time allows. However, under this Government, reoffending rates have remained stubbornly high, and the refusal to legislate for this change until now, and doing so through a private Member’s Bill, is evidence of how far this has fallen down the priority list of the Ministry of Justice.

The chaos and ministerial musical chairs that has been going on across Government over the past number of years has meant that, in the intervening months, thousands more prisoners have been released on Fridays and have been set up to fail. We are glad that the changes are coming and are pleased to support them, but it is a shame that the Government took so long to listen and to act.

On a final note, the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who replied to the previous debate, made what I would call a really gratuitous political statement about how few Labour Members were present for today’s debates. The reason for that is that we agreed with the first Bill debated today and we agree with this Bill. The reason why there are so many Members on the Conservative Benches is that they are trying to talk out the last Bill that will be reached today. I do not think that Members should be making those comments.

[Shaun Bailey]

I agree with some of what the hon. Lady has said. However, on the point about participation, I get what she is saying, but, surely, if Labour Members were so enthusiastic, they would be here in the Chamber. The hon. Lady is here because she clearly supports the Bill. Where are her colleagues?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

My colleagues have no objections to these Bills. The reason that Government Members are taking so long on this issue is that they are trying to talk out the last Bill listed for today.

[Shaun Bailey]

rose—

[Yasmin Qureshi]

That is it. I will take no further interventions.

[Shaun Bailey]

I take real exception to what the hon. Lady is saying. I have seen at first hand the impact of this in my own community, and I have spoken to a number of charities. [Interruption.] Let me take the heat out of this. This is a common-sense Bill. We all agree on that. We have all seen the impact of this. Regardless of the back and forth—although, Mr Deputy Speaker, my contribution was not included—let us just agree that it is a great Bill; it makes sense, so let us just get on and support it. It is as simple as that. Does she not agree with that?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I agree. Indeed, I started off by saying that we support the Bill. Not only do we support it today, but we have been supporting it since last year, when we tabled an amendment on this.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Has the shadow Minister completed her speech?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

indicated assent.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

In which case, I call Mr Baynes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing that matter to the attention of the House. Of course, the Government have a range of responses to keep all women—not just BBC journalists—living their lives. It is absolutely right that we put in place the further protections that are contained in the Online Safety Bill. If he has further proposals, I ask him to bring them to me and I will be happy to look at them.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

10. What recent estimate he has made of the size of the backlog of criminal court cases in Bolton.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Johnson)]

The outstanding case load in the Crown court in Bolton was 528 at the end of June 2022. We are taking action across the criminal justice system to deliver swifter access to justice for victims and to reduce the backlog of cases. That includes the investment of £477 million into the criminal justice system over the next three financial years to maximise the capacity of the system.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

As a former prosecutor, a barrister in private practice and a shadow Justice Minister, I find sitting in this House and watching the Government oversee the managed decline of our legal system deeply concerning. In Bolton, as the Minister has said, the backlog stands at 500—more than 10% greater than six months ago. It includes 20 rape cases among other serious criminal cases. Can the Secretary of State for Justice inform me why the Government have effectively legalised criminal activity in Bolton, in Greater Manchester and throughout Britain?

[Gareth Johnson]

The hon. Lady is right to raise the issue of the backlog; it is a serious matter. That is why we have put in a catalogue of measures to help tackle it, including: introducing Nightingale courts, which will be sitting until 2024-25; increasing the cap on sitting days; and raising the retirement age for judges. We have done a lot and I hope the hon. Lady will be gracious enough to congratulate the Lord Chancellor on successfully negotiating an end to the Bar strike, which will help tackle this serious problem.

Draft Judicial Pensions and Fee-Paid Judges' Pension Schemes (Contributions) (amendment) Regulations 2020

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 General Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I can confirm that the Opposition are not seeking a Division on this particular statutory instrument. We accept the reason for it to be passed and, in fact, I attended a similar Committee last year for the relevant 2019 judicial pensions statutory instrument.

Taking on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), I want to ask the Government about when the McCloud judgment will be implemented. I heard the Minister say that it is a complicated matter and that he needs to work through this but, to be frank, this has been going on for some time now and it is important to remember what the McCloud judgment was all about.

The Fire Brigades Union and the judiciary were able to hold this particular legislation as unlawful because the tribunal found that the provisions were discriminatory, in that younger judges were more often women and members of the black and minority ethnic community, while it also had ageist effects. It is important that this matter is addressed sooner rather than later, because we have a big shortage of judges and especially High Court judges. In the latter case, a number of senior lawyers and members of the judiciary are not applying for these jobs because of the changes in the pension regulations, while other judges’ positions are also not being filled. One of the reasons holding people back from applying is that, ultimately, they do not know what their pensions will be.

I know things are complicated, but it is not that complicated to work things out so as to come to a resolution. The Court passed a judgment years ago and the Ministry needs to get its skates on and deal with this particular long-standing issue, and I urge the Ministry to direct its mind to this matter seriously in order to resolve it. In the meantime, we are not calling for a Division on the statutory instrument itself because it is clearly necessary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend raises a very important issue. Domestic abuse has a devastating impact on children and young people, which is why the Government have provided £8 million over the last two years for services designed to support children who are affected by it. We are also supporting the roll-out of Operation Encompass, which ensures that information is shared between the police and local schools when children have been exposed to domestic abuse. Following last year’s children in need review, we have committed ourselves to further action to improve the way in which that service is delivered.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

At the moment, the justice system is failing the most vulnerable victims. Far too often, domestic abusers are using the family and criminal courts to publicly re-traumatise their victims. Will the Minister ensure that no woman is callously and unjustly cross-examined by her abuser, and will he ensure that these provisions are in place by the end of this year at the latest?

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady is right to raise the perpetuation of abuse through the court system. That is why the provisions in the domestic abuse Bill relating to the prohibition of cross-examination by perpetrators are so important, and they will remain in the Bill when it is reintroduced. She will remember welcoming it last time. I can assure her that the special measures that we have already taken in the criminal courts, which she knows about, will be replicated in other forums to offer maximum protection and support to victims who get abused in that way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

May I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Speaker, not just as a neighbouring constituency MP, but as a man who is making Chorley very famous? Normally, it is famous for the Frederick’s ice cream parlour, but with you becoming the Speaker Chorley is now even more well known.

The fire sale of our courts and deep cuts to our justice system have created a perfect storm as courts are left sitting empty even while sitting days are cut. The Government’s own statistics show that on average serious cases in the Crown court are taking 133 days longer to move from the offence to completion than in 2010, leaving victims waiting months and months more for their day in court. That is not good enough. Will the Minister commit to providing proper investment in courts and court staff and promise to end the reckless closure programme?

[Chris Philp]

I had not heard of the fame of the Chorley ice cream parlour, but perhaps I should add it to my list of recess destinations. [Interruption.] The Lord Chancellor says he is going to come along as well.

On the question of Crown courts sitting, we need to bear in mind that, as reported by the crime survey, the most reliable measure of criminal offending, over the past nine years there has been a significant reduction in the total number of criminal offences, from about 9.5 million offences in 2010 to about 6.5 million offences today. That is a very welcome 30% reduction under this Conservative Government, so of course, bearing in mind the reduction in the number of criminal offences, one would expect to have fewer sitting days. However, we keep the question of Crown court sitting days under continual review. Just a few weeks ago, my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor increased the number of Crown court sitting days in this current financial year by 700 to ensure that we keep working through the outstanding case load. The outstanding case load is at its lowest level since 2001. We will of course keep the question of Crown court sitting days under review for the next financial year—the one starting in a few weeks— and, if necessary, we will of course increase Crown court sitting days.

Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments (Civil and Family) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 General Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank the Minister for outlining the proposed changes. The fact is that we would not be in this mess if the Government had anticipated and made allowances for those rules.

As a current European Union member state, the United Kingdom applies the Brussels I regulation to legal disputes of a civil or commercial nature. That set of rules has made proceedings much easier, be they domestic or disputes in other European Union countries. The current system creates an affordable and effective process for the recognition and enforcement of intra-European Union judgments. Small traders or consumers can easily take their cases to their domestic courts using local lawyers, and the domestic judgment is then recognised across the whole of the European Union. That is a considerable and useful advantage to many people of limited means.

Big companies can fight litigations, but small businesses, employers and those fighting family dispute matters will have to go to different courts to exercise their rights, which will make things much more complicated for them. We believe that the Government should have anticipated those matters and put in place a mechanism to deal with them. The Opposition will abstain in a vote on the provisions because we believe that the Government have not done enough to protect people’s rights—the provisions have been introduced at the last minute, but they are not good enough.

The Government should have worked much harder to anticipate and deal with this matter to ensure that people’s civil rights are protected, be they for employees against employers, in family disputes or in small-business and commercial disputes. The Government are introducing legislation at the last minute to avoid the inevitable chaos of exiting the EU without a deal. Essentially, the Government should have anticipated this and done more to protect workers’ rights and the rights of the individual, to make life easier for everyone. On that basis, we will abstain.

Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 General Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the Minister for outlining the purpose of this particular provision. He set out what the fund does and the important work it has carried out in the last number of years and that it will continue to carry out.

During an earlier Statutory Instrument Committee, I told the Minister that I wanted clarification on a number of questions. We are concerned about regulation 4, which states that

“the Secretary of State may grant and provide financial assistance”.

Regulation 4(2) states:

“Financial assistance may be provided in such form and on such terms as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”

The wording of those two sentences suggests an element of discretion and that the Secretary of State or Minister may not follow this through properly. For example, if somebody has already been awarded money and has received only some of it, the question is whether they will be entitled to the rest of it, or whether that will be reliant on the fact that the Secretary of State “may” grant it, as opposed to “should” grant it, if certain criteria are fulfilled.

We have a number of other questions. If we exit without a deal, what happens if A has applied for a grant but has not yet received a decision? Would that mean that that application had finished? Alternatively, if the EU decided to agree to the application, who would pay that funding? Will the European Union still be allowed to consider applications that have not taken place once the exit has been done? As we know, the fund runs until 2020. If someone makes an application after we exit without a deal, will the European Union have the power to look at it, and, if it grants funding, is it the Government or the European Union that would pay?

If B applies after exit without a deal but before December 2020, are they still allowed to apply? If we exit with a deal, during the transition period will funding that has not yet been granted be paid by the European Union or by our Government, and who will pay for applications that are under consideration or have been successful? Will the payment be guaranteed, because regulation 4(1) states that the Secretary of State “may” rather than “will” grant? Finally, will the Minister confirm that the Government guarantee to award funding to programmes within the scheme?

Procedure for Appointing Judges

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on securing this debate.

It is fair to say that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, some Government Members and even Ministers began to call for the reformation of the judicial appointments system. That tells us that some of those people—often those with very hard Brexiteer points of view—are not interested in parliamentary sovereignty or judicial independence, and they do not respect our traditions or our democracy. As the Chair of the Select Committee on Justice, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) said earlier, the attack on the judiciary by the media was disgraceful, but, sadly, so were some of the words used and the comments made by Members of this House.

It should be said repeatedly and clearly that the selection hearings of the US system have no place in our democracy, and nor do the highly political workings of the US justices. In the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Attorney General seemed to suggest that Parliament would need to look at a judicial appointments system, although I am pleased to hear that he has rowed back on those comments since making them. Those calling for an American-style process rather than a Supreme Court-style one have little interest in the constitutional frameworks that have been essential to government in this country for centuries.

Although these arguments will not be new to anyone, they perhaps deserve reiteration. The US system is beset with practical problems. It allows the President to nominate judges on an explicitly political basis, and even if we accept that idea—which we do not—the power to nominate is not equally distributed. Instead, the make-up of the US Supreme Court is determined by whoever is President when judges become unable to continue in their role. The make-up of the most powerful court in the land is political and dangerously random, and the result is neither stable nor fair. That holds especially true when an Executive like the USA’s current one chooses not to respect conventions or tradition. As the Chair of the Justice Committee also said eloquently, we have only recently seen the unedifying spectacle of a USA-style confirmation hearing.

There is a great deal to be proud of in our judiciary. Our commercial courts are widely recognised as some of the best in the world; every year, a huge number of international litigators choose to come to the UK because they know they can rely on fair treatment. Last year, our legal sector alone contributed around £26 billion of trade to the UK. Even in our tragically undervalued criminal courts, on the back of yet another week of courts being unnecessarily shut, the judiciary is soldiering on impressively.

I admire the durability and professionalism of our judges, along with the rest of the court staff. They deserve significant credit for propping up a system that I am afraid the Government have done little to support, as shown by those court closures. Only recently, I have received emails from some judges—especially recorders—who say that they are expected to attend different courts in the UK at the last minute. They sometimes cannot do so because of their own work commitments, but they are effectively told that if they do not, their chances of being confirmed as judges may well be impacted. There is evidence, even from the Ministry of Justice’s figures, that the time it takes for court cases to come to trial has recently grown longer, while courtrooms are sitting empty and shut. Despite that, our judges, recorders and magistrates continue to work really hard to support our system, and I commend and thank them for all their efforts.

Despite attempts by some people to find political intent in the recent Supreme Court ruling, the decision was a powerful demonstration of the vital power of a genuinely independent, apolitical judiciary. It ruled without fear or favour, and in doing so it protected our democracy. The judiciary in this country has a long and noble tradition, and it is best that we respect that.

Balanced, learned and direct, Baroness Hale is in many ways the best of that British tradition, but the barriers that she has faced are illustrative of how uneven our justice system still is. For far too long, justices have been predominantly people of privilege with wealthy backgrounds, predominantly men and predominantly educated at private schools. Baroness Hale was only the second woman to be appointed to the Court of Appeal. She is the first female Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and the first female President of the Supreme Court. It should worry us all that women still have to break the glass ceiling. A century on from the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, we are still yet to achieve real proportional equality in our public bodies and institutions. The Law Society also agrees that our current system for the appointment of judges should be maintained and not changed.

I hope we can all agree that the US system is clearly a bad one, but perhaps today is an opportunity to focus the debate on how we can alter our judicial appointments system not to make it political, but perhaps to make it more representative. As a young barrister, I saw many hugely talented people who did not fit the accepted demographic of a judge. Some struggled their way to the top; too many did not. There have been encouraging steps as the number of female judges has risen. However, it is important that we do not fall into the trap that many businesses do and focus exclusively on comparing numbers without looking at seniority. Although it is heartening to know that the percentage of female tribunal judges is nearing 50%, that falls to 32% for court judges, and for high court judges the figure is well under 30%.

The issue is even more glaring in the case of black and ethnic minority members of the judiciary. Reading through the judicial diversity statistics this year, I see that the Ministry of Justice reports that 11% of new judges in the court were BAME, compared with 6% of those leaving. That is a paltry rate of change that will leave our judiciary disproportionately unrepresentative. The judicial mentoring scheme and the pre-application judicial education programme are good initiatives, but they are nowhere near enough. In a judiciary that continues to display systemic problems, well-intentioned mentoring schemes are unlikely to go far enough.

Worryingly, a metric seems to have crept in that rarely appears in official Government documents in any other Department. For several years in a row, the annual judicial diversity statistics have qualified their admission that the number of BAME judges remained low by comparing the ratio of BAME judges with the ratio of people within a certain age bracket. We are told that

“BAME representation among tribunal judges was similar or higher than that of the general population at all age bands from 40 and over.”

That might seem reasonable at first reading, but it deserves further attention. Where else in Government documents are disparities justified by cherry-picking age groups for comparison? That is done to match proportions that are decades out of date. Our judiciary should not be representative of people over 50, or even 40; it should be representative of our nation as a whole at every stage. Everyone who passes through our justice system should feel that it genuinely represents them. Between 2014 and 2019, the proportion of BAME court judges increased by 2%, which takes us to 7% of court judges. The Government need to move faster.

In the Lammy review, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) stated:

“The government should set a clear, national target to achieve a representative judiciary and magistracy by 2025. It should then report to Parliament with progress against this target biennially.”

It was a bold aspiration with an ambitious deadline. It was an opportunity to facilitate a change, but the Government have missed the opportunity. Despite some positive noises, we have not seen any real changes, and that leads us to the inevitable conclusion that a wealth of talent in the BAME community is ignored.

The fact that more than half of those currently held within the youth estate are BAME shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system. Although improving judicial diversity is not a panacea for the wide variety of self-inflicted ills that harm our justice system, it would certainly be a significant step. Our judges should be representative of our country and should be diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity and, crucially, socio-economic background. We should also provide more support for those who are not barristers moving into the judiciary. Solicitors continue to form a small minority of judges, closing the profession off from other highly talented practitioners.

The Law Society has suggested some practical steps to ensure representation of solicitor judges: for example, ensuring that solicitors’ experience is given the same due weight as barristers applying for the Bar; ensuring that solicitor judges are involved in the selection process; considering the development of judicial career paths; promoting cross-deployment of judges from tribunals to court; and providing access to shadowing and mentoring opportunities for existing judges. That could apply to women, to members of the BAME community and to those from poor financial backgrounds; children from working-class backgrounds are very under-represented in our system.

Far too often, the Government treat representation as a cosmetic issue that can be changed with minor tinkering. They fail to recognise that the disparities come from histories of inequality that require fundamental reform to remedy. Rather than simply analysing data retrospectively, the Ministry of Justice should set clear deadlines and put plans in place. The public have a right to a judiciary that represents them in all their diversity.

With that in mind, will the Government accept that their judicial appointments system is not sufficient and adopt the approach laid out by the Lammy review? Will the Minister clarify what moneys will be set aside to ensure that judicial diversity is a central objective, rather than just a buzzword? That is essential not only on a moral basis, but on a practical one. A judiciary that is not perceived as representative will have difficulty in maintaining its legitimacy in the long term, particularly for communities who do not see themselves reflected at the most senior level of our justice system. We can fix the problem. It will require funding, long-term commitment and clearer strategic planning, which the Government appear not to offer at the moment. The Government need to go beyond expressing sympathy and set proper deadlines. I hope that when the Minister responds, he will be able to give us some deadlines and suggestions for what they can achieve.

Finally, I want to emphasise that my observations about the representation of ethnic minorities, women and working-class people have no bearing on my belief that our judiciary is the best in the world. No one should ever attack its credibility. Our judges are the best in the world, and they decide things on law, not on politics. The press and Members in this House should appreciate that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point, which was touched on by Members under Question 3. It is vital that we help victims of these terrible crimes to pursue the case right through the court system, rather than dropping it after reporting the crime, and there is a lot more to do there. The provisions in the Domestic Abuse Bill, introduced for its Second Reading last week, will help that, as will the increased funding to support victims of these terrible crimes, to which I referred earlier.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The Government have undertaken an unprecedented sale of courts, which has made giving evidence in court far more difficult for the many victims of crime who now have to travel much further to have their day in court. As the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) said, the fact is that victims of sexual and other physical abuse are already reluctant to come to court, and this plays into that even more. Will the Minister agree to an independent assessment of the impact of these court closures and commit to no further closures unless it can be proved that they are not having a detrimental impact on access to justice?

[Chris Philp]

Of course, access-to-justice considerations are extremely important. Before any court is earmarked for closure, there is an extremely thorough consultation process, and if any courts are due to close in the future, a similarly thorough consultation process will be gone through. I would point out that in the cohort of courts consulted on in 2015 that were subsequently closed, on average their utilisation rates were about one third. We need to balance a reasonable approach to the court estate with the access-to-justice considerations that the hon. Lady quite rightly raises.