Trials: Timeliness

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point. I can understand why it could be seen that the responses to the riots had been prioritised, but there are many reasons why those prosecutions took place very quickly. The first is that many of the cases were straightforward and could be dealt with in a magistrates’ court; the second is that, in relation to many of them, the evidence was very strong and people pleaded guilty; and the third is that the decisions involved were made by the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the independent judiciary. The Government made sure that they had the resources if they needed them, but no pressure was put on them to decide how to do it.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

Recent data from the Criminal Bar Association shows substantial regional variations in trial delays. What specific steps are being taken to reduce these geographic disparities in trial delays?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. It is an interesting point. For example, the delays are much worse in central London than they are in Wales. There can be all kinds of reasons for that. I have already said that a trial, as the noble Lord knows, is a complicated factor. There are difficulties because you cannot just, for example, ship cases out to somewhere else; we cannot send a whole lot of London’s cases out to Cardiff because of the effect on victims, witnesses and defendants and the movement around of people within the prison estate. But it is important to look to see where lessons can be learned from other parts of the country and to see whether they are doing things that could be imported to other parts of the country so that we can do better there.