Oral Answers to Questions

Shockat Adam Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I will happily look at the details of the case that the hon. Lady raises. Some of that relates to charging and what the police and others are doing, but I will ensure that she gets a full response from across Government on some of the specifics. Let me observe that we make a whole range of victim support available to victims as they navigate the criminal justice system, and we will continue to do so; I recommend that she recommends some of those mechanisms to her constituent. We have made a record allocation of funding to the Crown courts, but we recognise that we need to go further, as we will after the publication of Sir Brian Leveson’s report.

[Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)]

The Crown court backlog stands at approximately 73,000 cases annually, and rape and sexual assault trials in Leicester Crown court face delays of up to three years. What steps is the Department taking to reduce that backlog and ensure that serious offences are brought to trial more efficiently to prevent further trauma for victims and the miscarriage of justice?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the delays in the system and the long waits for trials are causing huge amounts of trauma to victims, who regularly tell me, him and other Members from across this House that they feel retraumatised by the criminal justice system when they seek justice. I am not willing to tolerate that, which is why I have made record funding available. I recognised right at the outset that the system cannot carry on as it has done for all these years. We need to ask a bigger question about the sorts of cases in our system that get a jury trial, and those that do not. This Government will pursue once-in-a-generation reform of our Crown courts.