Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has had recent discussions with criminal barristers on the adequacy of the Common Platform.

HMCTS is accountable to, and regularly engages with, the Lord Chancellor on Common Platform. The Lord Chancellor sees court reform as a top departmental priority, and is fully committed to engaging with the legal profession on all the department’s priorities, including Common Platform. He is looking forward to meeting with representatives of the Criminal Bar Association in mid-July to discuss the priorities that they wish to engage on.

Throughout the rollout of Common Platform, we have engaged extensively with the defence community on the wider reform landscape and the design of Common Platform functionality. We have done this through a range of formal engagement groups with representatives from the defence community. The feedback we have received has been extremely valuable and provided a wealth of information that has been fed into our designs. Defence practitioner input is particularly important for informing the next phase of implementation which will bring significant changes and improved functionality for the judiciary, counsel, and other parties in the Crown Court.