Question to the Ministry of Justice:

What steps he is taking to help ensure that BAME communities have confidence in the criminal justice system.

The overall changes we are making to the system are designed to give all communities and victims of crime increased confidence.

Ensuring the trust of Black and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system is critical to its effectiveness. We have responded positively to previous reviews on this subject and look forward to welcoming the conclusions of the independent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

We are committed to increasing the diversity of people working in the CJS to represent the communities they serve, making it more transparent in the data on ethnicity it produces, and we are making progress on this.