Draft Administrative Court (Recording and Broadcasting) and Court of Appeal (Recording and Broadcasting) (Amendment) Order 2026
Draft Magistrates’ Courts (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2026
(1 day, 22 hours ago)
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The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Administrative Court (Recording and Broadcasting) and Court of Appeal (Recording and Broadcasting) (Amendment) Order 2026.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Magistrates’ Courts (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2026.
Sarah Sackman
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec.
The two orders before the Committee today are all about open justice. Taken together, they extend the broadcasting regime that already operates successfully in our courts. Specifically, they remove the prohibitions on recording in three areas: first, proceedings in the administrative court which is part of the High Court; secondly, proceedings involving litigants in person in the Court of Appeal; and thirdly, the magistrates court, to enable the recording and broadcasting of sentencing remarks delivered by the chief magistrate in open court.
The filming and sound recording of court proceedings is generally prohibited by section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 and section 9 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, but the Supreme Court has allowed filming since it was established in 2009, and a small number of further exceptions are set out in secondary legislation. Orders specifying the circumstances in which those prohibitions may be lifted can be made with the concurrence of the Lady Chief Justice.
Broadcasting of court proceedings has been expanded carefully and incrementally over time, and has been a successful and important route to increasing public access to, and understanding of, our justice system. Following the example of the Supreme Court, filming was extended to the Court of Appeal in 2013, and then to sentencing remarks in the Crown court, where the first broadcast took place in July 2022.
There is clear public interest in understanding more about what happens in our courts, and growing expectations that we should take advantage of technology to expand access to courts, allowing for greater flexibility and transparency. The two instruments before the Committee will build on that success by extending broadcasting further, supporting wider public access to our justice system. In all circumstances, the final decision on whether filming is permitted will rest with a judge. That will ensure that there is always in each case a judicial assessment of the extent to which broadcasting is appropriate.
The two orders take broadly the same legislative approach as earlier instruments made under section 32(1) of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Consistent with previous practice, each court has a separate recording and broadcasting order. The judiciary supports these policy changes. The extension of broadcasting to the administrative court was specifically recommended by the judiciary-led Transparency and Open Justice Board. The Lady Chief Justice, whose agreement is required under section 32 of the 2013 Act, has indicated that she is content with the draft orders.
Extending broadcasting to the administrative court will increase public access to proceedings that frequently determine matters of significant public importance, including challenges to public authorities’ decisions through judicial review. I might add, on a personal note, that I thought it would take getting elected to Parliament for my mum to watch me on telly. Had I known that broadcasting of judicial reviews in the administrative court was going to be enabled, I could have stayed there. Well, there is always hope for life after Parliament, isn’t there?
This order will allow the recording and broadcasting of proceedings taking place in open court, including submissions to the judge and any exchanges arising from them, and the judge giving or summarising their judgment. The first order also removes the existing restriction on broadcasting proceedings in the Court of Appeal that involve litigants in person. That restriction was originally intended to protect unrepresented parties and to avoid broadcasting only one side of the case, which could offer a distorted view of proceedings.
The current framework prevents the recording and broadcasting of all proceedings involving a litigant in person, except for the court giving judgment. Our experience since broadcasting was first introduced into the Court of Appeal in 2013 is that this blanket approach is disproportionate and no longer appropriate. In practice, litigants in person very rarely appear in the Court of Appeal, and those who do are often legally trained. The change will therefore allow submissions and exchanges with the court to be filmed in cases involving litigants in person, subject as always to judicial permission.
The second order will allow the broadcasting of sentencing remarks delivered by the chief magistrate in open court. Building on the existing approach in the Crown court, that represents a careful and measured first step into the magistrates court, focusing on some of the most high-profile cases. Allowing the public to see and hear the judge explain a sentencing decision, rather than simply learning the outcome, will help to improve understanding of how and why sentences are imposed.
Filming will be strictly limited to the chief magistrate passing sentence, and will not include victims, witnesses, defendants or other court users, or indeed any other part of the proceedings. The chief magistrate will be able to refuse permission or impose further conditions alongside reporting restrictions, including where remarks contain particularly sensitive details, to protect the victims of crime.
The legislation allows for filming to take place via livestreaming, which is managed by the court itself, and broadcasting, which involves third-party media organisations, but to begin with, we intend filming in the administrative court and the magistrates court to be broadcast. That will build on established court broadcasting arrangements, working with experienced broadcasters who have been filming proceedings in our courts for many years.
As under the existing Crown court and Court of Appeal arrangements, broadcasters, rather than His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, will meet the cost of filming. Where broadcasting is live, a short delay will allow transmission to be stopped if an unexpected incident occurs or sensitive information is disclosed. That provides an important additional safeguard to protect the proper administration of justice.
The extent and territorial application of these instruments is England and Wales. I assure hon. Members that these statutory instruments will increase public access to court proceedings while preserving judicial discretion, protecting the interests of victims and other court users, and ensuring that the effective administration of justice and the dignity of the court are upheld.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec.
As the Minister has outlined, these two orders make changes to the rules on recording and broadcasting court proceedings, and we support them. The previous Conservative Government took a number of steps to improve the transparency of the courts and to help the public to understand better how judicial decisions are made. Those steps included allowing proceedings in the Court of Appeal to be broadcast and, from 2022, allowing judges’ sentencing remarks in the Crown court to be filmed and broadcast. The aim was straightforward: people should be able to see and better understand how our courts work, while victims, witnesses and defendants continue to receive appropriate protection. These orders build on that approach.
It is important to note, as the Minister said, that this is not an unrestricted right to film proceedings. Recording and broadcasting will remain subject to the written permission of the court and to any conditions that the court considers appropriate in the interests of justice.
The first order also changes the arrangements in the Court of Appeal. At present, where a party is not legally represented, the ability to record and broadcast proceedings is limited. The order removes that restriction, meaning that submissions by litigants in person may also be recorded and broadcast—again, where the court gives permission and considers it appropriate. There is no obvious reason why the fact that somebody is representing themselves should automatically prevent proceedings from being broadcast, although there will inevitably be more sensitive matters for the judge to consider with unrepresented individuals.
The second order concerns magistrates courts, allowing sentencing remarks delivered by the chief magistrate in open court to be recorded and broadcast. Again, this is a relatively narrow measure. It does not introduce general broadcasting of magistrates court proceedings; recording is limited to the chief magistrate delivering sentencing remarks, in a way familiar to us from other courts. The defendant, witnesses and other participants will not be filmed, and existing reporting restrictions will continue to apply.
Allowing the public to hear directly from the judge why a particular sentence has been imposed may improve understanding of sentencing decisions. That is particularly important in serious or high-profile cases, where a headline reporting the length of a sentence may not explain the aggravating and mitigating factors that led the court to its decision. There is, therefore, a clear public interest in greater transparency when it can be achieved without compromising the rights and safety of those involved.
However, I would like to raise with the Minister the related topic of improving the transparency of sentencing remarks, which at the moment are published intermittently. Even I, a shadow Justice Minister, can find it difficult to get hold of the sentencing remarks when a case is reported in the news—very often they will not have been broadcast—and the same is certainly true of court transcripts. Can the Minister update us on giving shadow Ministers greater access to court remarks in high-profile cases, whether sentencing remarks or otherwise, to enable us to do our jobs better?
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec.
The Liberal Democrats support these orders. As the Minister outlined, they build on existing broadcasting practices across the judicial system to expand the broadcasting framework for the Court of Appeal and to permit recording and broadcasting in the administrative court, and in the magistrates court for the most high-profile magistrates cases.
The UK Supreme Court has been broadcast since 2009, the Court of Appeal since 2013 and Crown court sentencing remarks since 2020, with the first Crown court broadcast in July 2022. Transparency in the criminal justice system is essential for public trust. It is crucial that justice is not just done, but seen to be done. These orders will support open justice and make the administration of justice and the rule of law more accessible.
I have just a couple of questions for the Minister. First, following the power outage of the Google cloud network that caused chaos across the court system on 20 October, does the Minister know of any evidence that the broadcasting of proceedings has ever caused delays in our court system? Does she have any concerns that expanding the use of digital technology the system could delay proceedings?
Secondly, justice is obviously made more accessible by the provision of court transcripts to victims, which we have discussed many times. Many victims are unable to attend the entirety of hearings or trials, and court proceedings can be very complex and difficult to follow, especially when it comes to sentencing decisions. Although we welcome the progress made in the Sentencing Act 2026 on providing Crown court sentencing remarks free of charge, the Government must go further. I know that the Minister is keen on that, so will she outline what more she hopes to do in respect of court transcripts to ensure that justice is done and seen to be done?
Sarah Sackman
I am very grateful for the contributions to this debate. It is fantastic that we have consensus and support for both orders, which, as others have said, are concerned with open justice and with demystifying what happens in our courts. As the Liberal Democrat spokesman put so well, this is about justice being seen to be done, not just being done. The orders will enable that, building responsibly and incrementally on past reforms, and I believe that all of this can only improve public confidence in our justice system.
On the questions about the availability of transcripts, the hon. Gentleman will know that our ambition is to extend their availability, enabled by the rapid developments in technology that are allowing real-time transcription. However, we must be mindful of the costs, not least because transcription involves appropriate safeguards, such as redacting some of the remarks. Nevertheless, we took significant steps in the Sentencing Act, as the hon. Member for Chichester rightly acknowledged, to make transcripts of sentencing remarks available to victims. That is a big step forward.
We are looking to make transcription more widely available, not just in the criminal jurisdiction but in other jurisdictions as well. That is why we have made real headway in the immigration chamber. At the same time, we must be mindful of doing this properly and in a phased way that balances the very real cost to the system with other competing priorities, of which we are all very much aware, particularly when it comes to backlogs in our courts.
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle has raised the issue of access to sentencing remarks with me before, and I understand where he is coming from. However, he will know that he can apply to the court in the usual way to access sentencing remarks, and it is a matter for the judge. I know that he, like other hon. Members, takes an interest in particular cases, but we cannot privilege access for Members of Parliament; it is ultimately a matter for judicial discretion.
Dr Mullan
If the Minister sees a case that she is interested in and wants to gain a better understanding by seeing the sentencing remarks—this is separate from victims—does she get told that she has to apply as an MP would? I am asking not as an MP, but as a shadow Minister with particular responsibilities as part of His Majesty’s Opposition.
Sarah Sackman
The Government have to apply in the same way. If they are not a party to the case, they have to ask to get the remarks from the court. We have to preserve the court and the judge as the gatekeeper of the process. If access to the remarks is justified, they will no doubt be made available.
A question was asked about the outage experienced not just by our courts, but by other private and public sector bodies. In a week when fridges in different parts of Europe have been damaged by cyber-attacks, and systems have gone down, we have had a reminder that although we want to open up, digitise and modernise systems, it is important that we provide for contingencies when they fail.
When the Google platform went down, it showed that the systems in HMCTS were actually relatively robust, and the courts carried on working. Obviously, although the intention was for people to be able to view proceedings, that was temporarily unavailable, but it did not mean that court cases could not go ahead. As people will know, there was a series of pretty high-profile cases—there always are, particularly in some of our criminal courts—that were being closely followed by the media, many of whom would have been present in court. The question of what delays can be caused by such things is therefore apt. It depends on particular circumstances. In the Google example, there were not really any delays. In the vast majority of courts around the country, proceedings could go ahead, but when evidence is being given remotely, one can imagine circumstances where the systems going down present a problem. We want to encourage remote hearings because that is often the most efficient way for proceedings to go ahead.
I know that operational colleagues in HMCTS are ensuring that, as we continue to modernise our courts—as we must—we do so in a way that ensures that there are back-up systems, so that when problems like the Google cloud outage occur, there is back-up so that proceedings can go ahead even if they are not broadcast. It is preferable that they are, which is what the measures allow, but a judge managing a court has to balance competing considerations: do we want the case to go ahead on time even without the broadcast, or do we want to wait for another day because it is so important that the world can see this being done? It is right that we leave those sorts of decisions to our judges, who are well positioned to take them.
I hope that hon. Members agree that the orders are necessary and a good thing, and I commend both of them to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Magistrates’ Courts (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2026
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Magistrates’ Courts (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2026.—(Sarah Sackman.)