Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown highlights the record backlog of 73,000 in the Crown courts and that rape cases are not being prosecuted for three or four years and asks what the Justice Secretary is doing to speed up the whole system.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)
12. When her Department expects the Crown court backlog to decrease. (902424)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)
The last Government left us with a record and rising backlog. Cases are taking years to be heard, and the number of victims dropping out at police stage has nearly doubled. We have taken steps to deliver swifter justice by increasing sitting days to a 10-year high and extending magistrates courts’ sentencing powers, but we must go further. That is why I have commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to conduct a review of the courts, asking him to propose once-in-a-generation reform.
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Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
The Justice Secretary has said that she agrees with the old legal maxim that justice delayed is justice denied. We currently have a record backlog of 73,000 in the Crown courts; rape cases are not being prosecuted for three or four years; and, in particular, on any one day 25% of cases do not take place, for a variety of reasons. What is the Justice Secretary doing to speed up the whole system?
Shabana Mahmood
I agree with the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee that the backlog is far too high. He will know that, no matter what we do in terms of system efficiency and capacity, that backlog is projected to rise, because the demand coming into the system is particularly high and is itself rising. That is why I have asked Sir Brian Leveson to consider once-in-a-generation policy reform, so that we can make the legislative changes necessary to bring the backlog down. That is the change that is required, alongside system-wide efficiency and productivity.