Courts and Tribunals Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Linsey Farnsworth and Joe Robertson

Committee stage
Wednesday 25th March 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Joe Robertson]

Q My point is that bar is already there. The Children Act starts with it—it is in section 1(1). I do not need to say this, but absolutely every death, particularly where the state has been involved and a court decision has been made, is a tragedy, but presumably you will agree that those tragedies will continue even with this change in the law if other things are not done within the family courts to deal with what are primarily safeguarding issues, rather than broad presumptions over children’s interests.

Farah Nazeer: Absolutely. The presumption is a really important first step because without the presumption, we will automatically default to the status quo. That is where the training and an understanding of domestic abuse and coercive control come in. As you can hear, we are not in a situation where safeguarding is applied consistently or domestic abuse or sexual violence are understood consistently. That is where the mandatory training piece has to come in to accompany the change to the law.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

Q Thank you so much for being here today. I am really interested in the victim’s perspective on fairness, the treatment of victims within the current criminal justice system and the changes being made.

As a former Crown prosecutor, one aspect of the criminal justice system that concerned me was the appeals process from the magistrates court to the Crown court. As you all know, if somebody is convicted in the magistrates court, they have an automatic right to a retrial at the Crown court without having to give any reasons, regardless of whether there was a fair trial in the magistrates court or otherwise. If the victims and witnesses want to continue the process, they have to give evidence all over again through that appeal, otherwise the appeal is successful.

The Bill seeks to get rid of that automatic right and put the process more in line with the Crown court appeals process. There will have to be grounds to suggest that the original trial was unfair. As victims and survivors who have had access to the criminal justice system, what is your view on the current system of retrials and appeals from the magistrates court in terms of fairness to victims and the likelihood of victims attending to give evidence and being re-traumatised? I am also interested in whether the automatic right to appeal and have a retrial is used as coercive control in the current justice system. There is a lot to unpack there, I grant you.

Charlotte Meijer: There are a lot of questions there. From my experience, we will never know whether my perpetrator picked a magistrates court because he knew that, if he was found guilty, he could have then dragged me on to a Crown court case—we do not know.

It is absolutely terrifying because, as we all know, going through a trial for the first time is horrific—it is something that I never want to do in my life again. I had the ability to go to court again for rape, and I declined it; if there had been an appeal and I had to go again to a Crown court, I probably would have dropped out. It is not something that I would want to experience twice.

There is also a really interesting thing there. What does that say about our magistrates courts? Are we basically saying that they cannot do what they should be doing? I think that changing the system strengthens the trials and credibility of magistrates courts—they should be credible, given that 90% of cases go there. It also shows that it is the final choice; the decision will be made there, unless more evidence comes forward.

On what you said about fairness to the victim, there is obviously no right to appeal for a victim if there is a not guilty verdict. I know there is a tiny bit of legislation to say that, if there is a huge amount of new evidence, they could reopen a case. However, that barely happens. You are basically told no, so how come a perpetrator can just appeal without any reason? From victims’ perspectives, and from my perspective, it is an absolute no-brainer.

Criminal Justice

Debate between Linsey Farnsworth and Joe Robertson

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)]

I, too, am a member of the Justice Committee. I am also a former prosecutor who worked in the criminal justice system.

Today is an opportunity not only to examine the Ministry of Justice’s estimates for the coming year, but to assess whether our criminal justice system is being resourced to meet the scale of the challenges it faces and to make our communities safer. I want to talk about the sentencing review and its impact on resourcing, especially for the Probation Service.

We inherited a system that was on the brink of collapse. The 2024 report on prison population growth revealed that England and Wales had the highest per capita prison population in western Europe. Our Government had to respond to that crisis immediately on entering into office. My right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary’s temporary early release scheme was a difficult but necessary decision to protect the justice system from breaking altogether, and to ensure that dangerous offenders were not turned away from the courts due to lack of space.

[Joe Robertson]

The hon. Member referred to the early release scheme as temporary. Is she 100% confident that it is a temporary scheme, and that the Government will not release more prisoners over the next few years?

[Linsey Farnsworth]

We inherited a particularly drastic situation, which will not be turned around overnight. The Minister will speak on behalf of the Government, but I expect the Government to make these difficult decisions until we are in a better position. That may have to be reviewed in due course. I do not speak for the Government, but I trust them to ensure that the public are safe and that there are places available, by whatever means, so that dangerous criminals can be put in jail.

We must move beyond crisis management. This mission-driven Labour Government are investing to deliver 14,000 new prison places by 2031. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Pam Cox) was right to point out that that contrasts starkly with the 500 prison places that the previous Government created in 14 years. However, it is clear that the solution to overcrowding cannot simply be to build more prisons, but instead lies in breaking the cycle of reoffending.