Courts and Tribunals Bill

Sarah Sackman Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)]

It is my pleasure to deliver the closing speech for this Second Reading of the Courts and Tribunals Bill. I thank right hon. and hon. Members for all their contributions. A consensus has broken out across this Chamber that the acute backlog in our criminal courts represents an injustice. We have a record and rising backlog of 80,000 cases, and behind each and every one is a victim and somebody accused of a crime. Lives are put on hold, immiserated by the fact that today we are seeing trials listed in 2030.

A consensus has broken out that we cannot sit idly by and do nothing. We have to act based on pragmatism, on what works and on the principle of fairness to ensure that every citizen in this country has the right to a fair trial. Whether someone is a defendant or a victim, it is deeply unfair to make them wait years for justice. Victims’ lives are put on hold, and witnesses’ memories fade. People are pulling out of trials, allowing perpetrators to walk away. That is not justice at all. That is what we mean when we say justice delayed is justice denied, and we have to act.

How do we frame these principles? We make a choice. Traditionally, our justice system has had two central parties: on the one hand, the prosecution; on the other, the defence. Victims have only a walk-on part. That will change, because the measures in this Bill place victims at their heart, and I pay tribute to them today. Again, consensus reigns in endorsing the fine speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball), who paid tribute to her constituent Claire Throssell for her campaign. The measures in the Bill repeal the presumption of parental contact.

We have heard powerful speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet), for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) and for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack). Their voices have been added to those of the countless victims I have met throughout this process, who have implored me to act and to challenge the injustices in our court, the delays and the nature of the justice process, which means that so often they feel they have been put on trial. That is why, as part of the reforms that we are bringing forward, we have centred victims by delivering a package of over half a billion pounds to support victims’ services. Today we have announced that there will be independent legal advisers for rape victims and that we are changing the law on the rules of evidence, which means that rape myths will be busted in our courts. Of course, as the Victims’ Commissioner has said, there is a need to address the delays.

We are being asked to vote on a reasoned amendment, and before I turn to the remarks made by other hon. Members—

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Sackman]

The right hon. Member has not been here for the entire debate, so I am afraid that I am not going to address his comments.

The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) moved a reasoned amendment that would drive a coach and horses through this Bill. Politics is about choices, and to govern is to choose. We know what choices those on the Opposition Benches would make about our justice system, because it is writ large in how they gutted legal aid, shut criminal courts and capped sitting days. They have presented many criticisms, but one thing I have not heard is an apology, nor have I heard an alternative plan for how to address the backlog.

This Government have brought forward a plan built on three pillars, or three levers that we choose to pull. The first is investment in uncapping sitting days, removing the financial constraint on how much our courts can sit and putting record investment into criminal legal aid. I have heard the important contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West), the hon. Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) and for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), and my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) about needing to look at the availability of legal aid, because of course access to justice is vital.

The second lever is modernisation. Many Members across the House have pointed to the wasted time in our inefficient and broken court system, with the time it takes to bring prisoners to court, the courtrooms empty because of disrepair—we are now investing in courtrooms —and problems with listing and how we adopt best practice from successful courts such as Liverpool. These are all valuable suggestions, and as the Deputy Prime Minister said in his vision speech last week, we are taking them all forward because we have to pull every lever.

Thirdly, the conclusions of the independent review of criminal courts led by Sir Brian Leveson were clear: investment and efficiency alone will make a dent, but they will not bring down the backlogs. We have to bring forward structural reforms to alleviate the growing pressure on our Crown courts. That was caused not simply by covid or by lack of investment; these long-term changes in our criminal justice system have been coming down the track for decades. Crown court trials take twice as long as they did 20 years ago, the police are making more arrests and it is right that we have more procedural protections. All this means that our system is creaking under the demand, as the modelling we have put forward demonstrates.

The way we are going to bring about transformation is through people—the brilliant people who work every day in our criminal justice system. I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth), for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop) and for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson), to the CPS, the police and the prison staff, and to the defence and prosecution barristers who power our criminal justice system, because we will need them. As many have pointed out, we will also need our magistrates, and I commend my hon. Friends the Members for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody) and for Corby and East Northamptonshire (Lee Barron), who demonstrated how magistrates will power our system. These are lay justices—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Sackman]

I will give way, but I am mindful of the time. I have to wrap up on time.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I do not expect an answer now, but will the Minister take away one point that I and others made, which is that people of good character should have an absolute right to a jury trial? She need not answer now, but will she at least consider that point?

[Sarah Sackman]

I will not respond to that point now, but I will say that there needs to be equality before the law irrespective of background.

That brings me to the point raised by the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) about rushing. We are not rushing. This Bill, as seen in the vibrant debate we have had today, will receive ample scrutiny. I have taken on board the suggestions from right across the House, whether it is the idea of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid and South Pembrokeshire (Henry Tufnell) about district judges, or those of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner). We will engage in constructive dialogue to strengthen the Bill. One of the most important ways in which we will do that is through a review, to which the Deputy Prime Minister has committed, focused primarily on the racial disparities and the inequalities in our system.

I am not here to defend the status quo. We know that for too long, marginalised communities, working-class communities and racial minorities—

[Mr Adnan Hussain]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Sackman]

I will not give way, because I have a lot of comments to cover.

Members representing those communities have been vocal in this debate. We hear you, and that is why we will be bringing forward a review in Committee. I pay tribute to the contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton), for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed), for Bradford West (Naz Shah), for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) and for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson). Something that came through in their comments was the importance not just of justice being done, but of justice being seen to be done. The justice system that we reform needs to command the confidence of communities, and we will work constructively to ensure that the review that we put on the face of the Bill does just that.

I return to the central theme, which is the need to act. For too long, those on the Conservative Benches were prepared to sit idly by while they presided over a crisis in our prisons, a crisis in probation and, now, a crisis in our courts. We have heard loud and clear from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) and my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton), for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne), for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes), for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) and for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) that there is a necessity to act. As Sir Brian Leveson himself said,

“if not this, then what?”,

and if not now, then when?

Politics is about choices. This Labour Government choose modernisation over tradition, investment over decline, and to put victims and communities first in a transformed, modernised justice system in which our public and our citizenry can have confidence.

Question put, That the amendment be made.