Lambeth County Court

Debate between Neil Coyle and Helen Hayes

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of the proposed closure of Lambeth County Court.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. Lambeth county court serves residents across Lambeth and Southwark. I am pleased to be joined here today by hon. Friends whose constituents will also be deeply impacted by the planned closure of that court and to have the opportunity to raise our concerns about the impact on our constituents, on the staff who work at the court, on the lawyers who represent people there and on a wide range of other public sector staff who regularly attend the court, including housing officers and social workers.

Lambeth county court is the busiest housing court in the country, effectively making it a specialist court, and it is situated in an area with one of the highest concentrations of social housing in the country. In addition to housing possession claims, the other types of work undertaken at Lambeth county court are cases concerning children, domestic violence and money claims. The proposal on which the Government consulted was to close Lambeth county court and move all of its business to Wandsworth county court in Putney. That is almost five miles away as the crow flies, but it is a complicated journey on several buses for residents on low incomes who cannot afford the train or tube. East-west journeys in south London are invariably more difficult than journeys into and out of central London.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and thank the Chair for chairing? For my constituents in Rotherhithe, it will take a minimum of two hours on three different buses just to get to court. The four-hour journey that is potentially being imposed will deter people from attending court and will result in higher appeals.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I will make the point later in my speech that the impact of the court’s closure on travel time is, indeed, worse than the impact of court closures proposed in many rural areas of the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle]

I think the words I was looking for before were “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship,” Mr Gray—I got that wrong earlier.

My hon. Friend is talking about the assessment that was made of Camberwell. In her discussions with the legal professionals in Southwark and Lambeth, did they also express concern that the assessment of Lambeth’s use was inaccurate? It was undertaken at a time when at least one judge was away and it did not take into account all the rooms that are used in preparation for court hearings.

[Helen Hayes]

Concerns have absolutely been raised that the figures used to underpin the consultation relating to usage levels at Lambeth county court were not, in fact, accurate at all.

On the move to Camberwell, it is not clear whether the administrative functions of Lambeth county court in relation to housing possession cases will now be based at Camberwell magistrates court, or whether they will move to Putney and only possession hearings will take place at Camberwell. If the administrative functions move to Putney, there is concern that some vulnerable residents facing eviction will still have to travel to Putney to initiate administrative processes that require attendance in person, such as applying for a stay of eviction. If the administrative functions move to Camberwell, it is imperative that Camberwell does not become overloaded. We know what overloaded courts look like: everyone I have met who has had any experience of the Central London county court since it moved to the royal courts of justice describes it as being like the Chancery Court in Dickens’ novel, “Bleak House”, such are the delays and inefficiencies there.

The detail is important here, and I ask the Minister to respond to the following points in his reply: how many judges will move to Camberwell? How many hearings will transfer to Camberwell? What physical space will be made available at Camberwell? Where will the judges at Camberwell be based when they are not sitting in hearings?

Finally, there is concern that even with housing possession hearings staying closer to the site of the current Lambeth county court, moving the remaining functions to Putney will mean that many vulnerable residents—victims of domestic violence, parents attending custody hearings, residents who are in financial difficulties—will have to travel a long distance on a complicated public transport route to access the justice that they deserve.

I come back to where I began. Lambeth county court is the busiest housing court in the country. Those who deal with it on a regular basis report that it works well in respect of housing and the other work that takes place there. Although there may be theoretical short-term savings to be achieved from its closure, there are very great risks that, as a consequence, justice will become less efficient and less easy to access, particularly for vulnerable residents on low incomes. The consequence of that will only be additional costs to the public sector in the long term.

I would be grateful for the Minister’s response to the concerns that I and my hon. Friends have raised. Fundamentally, I believe that this closure will have disastrous consequences for my constituents, and I urge him to reconsider it.