Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans his Department has to introduce Jade's Law.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Government is committed to implementing Section 18 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, which introduces an automatic restriction on the exercise of parental responsibility where one parent has been convicted and sentenced for the murder or voluntary manslaughter of the other. The provision will come into force on a day appointed via regulations made by the Secretary of State, following the development of the necessary procedural and legislative frameworks to support its effective delivery.
Officials are working with key delivery partners including Local Authorities, the Crown Prosecution Service, the National Police Chiefs Council and HMCTS across the criminal and family justice systems, to ensure effective implementation. This includes considering potential consequential amendments to the Family Procedure Rules 2010 and Criminal Procedure Rules 2020, as well as supporting Practice Directions and statutory guidance.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the answer received to question 87406 on the 11th November 2025 on Legal Aid Scheme: Housing and Immigration, whether the uplift will be backdated, once the system is back up and running, to a date when the uplift would otherwise have been implemented.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
As stated in our consultation response ‘Civil legal aid: Towards a sustainable future’, published in July 2025, we will implement the fee uplifts as soon as operationally possible. We will not backdate the fee uplifts.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his planned timeline is for the implementation of the uplift of (a) housing and (b) immigration legal aid.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government announced in July this year that legal aid fees for housing and immigration legal aid will be uplifted.
Following the criminal attack on the Legal Aid Agency’s digital systems, the Government’s priority has been to maintain access to justice through the rapid implementation of contingency measures and the restoration of critical systems.
We remain fully committed to introducing the fee uplifts as soon as it is operationally feasible.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department plans to compensate providers for additional work created by the cyber security incident at the Legal Aid Agency.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We acknowledge and appreciate the constructive way that providers have worked with us following the serious criminal attack on the Legal Aid Agency’s (LAA) digital systems. They have continued to do vital work in challenging circumstances.
Time spent on communication with the LAA on specific cases is generally claimable at hourly rates, subject to the provisions of the relevant Contract and the LAA’s published Cost Assessment Guidance.
There is a pre-existing route for making claims for compensation, details of which are on gov.uk. We do not plan to put in place a separate compensation route specific to this incident. Providers will be paid for the work undertaken on legal aid cases in the relevant period.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of judicial vacancies on the timeliness of hearings in the Crown Court.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on timeliness and ineffective trials (including judge/magistrate availability) at the criminal courts is available here: Criminal court statistics quarterly: January to March 2025 - GOV.UK.
There is no evidence to suggest that judicial vacancies have a significant impact on the timeliness of hearings in the Crown Court.
The Ministry of Justice, working in partnership with HMCTS and the judiciary, continuously monitor judicial capacity across the justice system. We are continuing to invest in regular judicial recruitment of around 1,000 judges and tribunal members each year across all jurisdictions.
There is no evidence that sitting days were lost due to judicial or recorder shortage in the last 12 months.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to (a) recruit and (b) retain court staff.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
To support HM Courts & Tribunals Service's (HMCTS) ability to recruit, we have invested in programmes to reach a diverse demographic and increase our ability to fill critical roles. We use marketing platforms to help reach more candidates for harder to fill positions, this h has had positive results against critical roles such as Legal Advisors. We have taken a strategic approach to legal recruitment, running annual campaigns to target trainee Legal Advisors with career pathways to improve retention of talent.
We have established a dedicated HMCTS jobs microsite, with focused content designed to reach more wider audiences. This compliments our centralised recruitment model, which aids our ability to successfully recruit by placing resourcing experts at the centre, leading and developing recruitment strategy, and resourced to enable us to run recruitment at pace. This has had a direct positive impact on average time to hire (ATTH). HMCTS’ ATTH is currently amongst the lowest in government, with a 12-month average of 50 working days.
Regarding HMCTS’ ability to retain staff, the HMCTS Strategic Plan for 2025-2030 sets out our commitment to our people to invest in them to perform at their best.Our retention strategies will look to develop and continuously improve management and leadership training programmes and continuously improve our training offer for colleagues to ensure organisational capability can meet business needs, developing career pathways for our roles, with opportunities for continuous professional development.
We know that pay is a constraint on retention. As an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Justice, HMCTS has the same terms and conditions as Ministry of Justice staff. The 2025 Pay Offer provided uplifts to all pay range minima and maxima, enabling the majority of employees (98%) to receive an award equivalent to 3.75% or more of their salary; targeting the offer at Admin Assistant to Admin Officer grades to ensure a higher than headline award for staff in these grades and improving the position of the lowest paid of between 4% and 6.1%.
This award continues to improve the competitiveness of the department’s pay ranges with other government departments. The 2025 Pay Offer recognised the unique challenges associated with Bailiff and Bailiff Manager roles, with an allowance increase that doubled to £2,000 for Bailiffs and an increase to £1,000 for Bailiff Managers.
Our future pay strategy will continue to address pay and reward, and will seek to establish a modern, sustainable and competitive pay and benefits offer to attract and retain the best people that improves colleague satisfaction, underpinned by a higher retention rate for our skilled workforce.
All this work is having a positive impact on our attrition rates. HMCTS overall attrition has decreased steadily over the past 12 months. September 2024 saw overall attrition at 12.6%, since then there has been a month-on-month reduction to 10.5% in July 2025. Across core operational grades AA/AO we have also seen a steady reduction in attrition over the last year, 15% in September 2024 down to 12.2% in July 2025.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Crown Court sitting days were lost due to a shortage of (a) judges and (b) recorders in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on timeliness and ineffective trials (including judge/magistrate availability) at the criminal courts is available here: Criminal court statistics quarterly: January to March 2025 - GOV.UK.
There is no evidence to suggest that judicial vacancies have a significant impact on the timeliness of hearings in the Crown Court.
The Ministry of Justice, working in partnership with HMCTS and the judiciary, continuously monitor judicial capacity across the justice system. We are continuing to invest in regular judicial recruitment of around 1,000 judges and tribunal members each year across all jurisdictions.
There is no evidence that sitting days were lost due to judicial or recorder shortage in the last 12 months.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of the number of hearings that were adjourned due to a shortage of court (a) clerks, (b) ushers and (c) administrative staff in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data on trial effectiveness at the criminal courts is available here: Criminal court statistics quarterly: January to March 2025 - GOV.UK
While HMCTS and the Ministry of Justice records and publishes data on reasons for ineffective hearings, including reasons where the court is responsible, there is no data on staff shortages (clerks, ushers, or administrative staff) contributing to trial ineffectiveness.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of staffing levels in HM Courts and Tribunals Service.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
All courts and tribunals budgets are set as a consequence of the annual Concordat process through which Ministers and the independent judiciary agree key decisions on funding and operational capacity of HM Courts and Tribunals Service. This process is supported by analysis that aims to ensure that funding is used efficiently and that all areas of resourcing, including for staffing, are sufficient to support operational capacity at the agreed level.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to expand the use of virtual hearings for short matters.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We recognise the importance of utilising technology to improve the efficiency of criminal and civil court proceedings. That is why, in May 2025, HM Courts & Tribunals Service published its Remote Participation Approach, setting out its principles for enabling remote attendance at hearings where appropriate: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmcts-remote-participation-approach/hmcts-remote-participation-approach.
Additionally, as part of the second phase of the Independent Review of Criminal Courts, Sir Brian Leveson is reviewing court processes to consider how both new and established technologies could be used to enhance productivity and efficiency in the criminal courts. We expect Sir Brian to finalise his report later this year. Virtual hearings are extensively used in civil courts as well. For example, as part of the Virtual Region initiative judges with spare capacity from outside of the London and Southeast remotely hear cases from London and Southeast helping reduce pressure on judiciary in those regions and enable cases to be determined quicker.