Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Siân Berry Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

I rise to speak to my new clause 6, which would introduce specialist courts for sexual offences and domestic abuse cases. It is similar to new clause 2, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Warrington North, and Conservative new clause 25, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle.

We tabled new clause 6, which would ensure that specialist court capacity is made available for the fast-tracking of rape and serious sexual offence cases, because that was a Labour manifesto commitment. The Government have announced blitz courts, which will list similar cases together. They will be introduced to begin with in London and the south-east, where the backlog of cases is most severe, and will at first prioritise cases involving assaults on emergency workers. Our new clause would ensure that court space and time is set aside for RASSO cases.

The Government promised in their manifesto to implement specific rape-focused courts, but have chosen not to deliver that commitment. As of September last year, 16% of cases in the backlog were sexual offence cases. We all listened to the harrowing oral evidence from victims and survivors of rape who waited years for their cases to be heard. I pay tribute to them and to the hon. Member for Warrington North for their bravery in doing something incredibly challenging: reliving the most fragile moments of their lives. They did so incredibly well. We owe it to them to fix the system. I recognise that the Government are trying to do that, but they are choosing to do it in a different way from the way a lot of survivors are asking for it to be done.

Specialist rape courts have not been properly trialled. What have been trialled are courts with specific trauma-informed training. Fast-tracking rape cases will alleviate the wait that many face. If courts are trauma-informed, that might limit retraumatising experiences for victims at the point that they enter the process. In her written evidence, the Victims’ Commissioner said:

“Victims of rape are particularly impacted by the backlogs and by the criminal justice system more broadly. The duration between the case being received and completed at Crown Court is particularly high for rape offences, an average of 429 days compared to an average of 259 days for all offences… Specialist rape courts which expedite rape cases and ensure a trauma-informed approach via training and adaptions to the court environment could help lessen the impact of the system on victims.”

The Victims’ Commissioner has been calling for specialist rape courts since 2022 and was really pleased that the Government committed in their manifesto to introduce them. I think that comes from her experience working alongside a very limited pilot that created a trauma-informed court in a particular Crown court. I am sure she will be keen to see the Government make good on the commitment that they stood on just two years ago.

New clause 23, which is also tabled in my name, would require the Lord Chancellor to commission a report on the effect of the provisions of the Bill on the progression of rape and serious sexual offence cases, and to respond to the recommendations in the report. It is completely unacceptable that these cases are waiting for so long. We need to understand whether the Government’s measures make a material impact on those cases and reduce the time that people have to wait in the criminal justice system. The new clause is also supported by the Victims’ Commissioner, so that we can see real progress for victims who are stuck in the criminal justice system.

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

Huge apologies for my lateness, Sir John. I wish to speak in support of new clause 2 and lend my support to new clauses 6, 23 and 25, all of which seek to honour the commitment that the Government made in their manifesto at the last election. I have huge admiration for the hon. Member for Warrington North, both for her courageous and clear speech on Second Reading and for tabling new clause 2, which seeks to honour that commitment. I am heartened by how many Labour Members have added their names to the new clause, and I hope that the Government will listen.

New clause 2, which is detailed, would introduce specialist courts. It sets out the different ways in which guidance can deal with the difficulties that courts currently have in dealing with issues such as coercive control and honour-based abuse, and would make sure that the courts deliver justice in a timely and compassionate way. It is so important that we look at the many practical ways of dealing with the cases that we need to hear, for victims of domestic violence and sexual offences, that do not completely remove the right to select a jury trial, as the Minister has admitted the Bill will do, and that do not adjust the thresholds in courts so as to effectively abolish the centuries-old principle of jury equity. That principle is important to our democratic right to protest and to protect our fellow citizens from unjust prosecution, including by authoritarian or tyrannical future Governments.

The new clauses in this group outline how much can be done to make court processes support victims in a practical, kinder and more compassionate way. They would make the processes more trauma-informed, and more effective and just, as they would bring more successful prosecutions in cases of sexual and domestic violence. I also support new clauses 8 to 10, which would mandate training in such matters and which we will discuss later.

A goal of the Government’s reforms is to increase speed, and the new clauses would achieve that by focusing specialist courts on these important cases. We have debated extensively the many other practical measures that could speed up justice more generally and clear the backlog, which is getting in the way of far too many of these cases.

I really hope that the Government are listening and that we can vote on these issues today. I hope they will go away and listen more to the victims groups that are determined to put forward practical measures to deal with these things without affecting our fundamental rights, and introduce clauses that will do that—and remove clauses 1 to 7—on Report. That is the right thing to do. The issues have been laid out clearly during the Committee’s debates, and the Government now have an important choice to make.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I too support the new clauses, and I concur with a lot of what has already been said about the reasons for supporting them. I will make a couple of wider points on the merits of specialist rape courts and courts for sexual offences.

There is nothing wrong with the legal system in this country when it comes to the fundamental principles of trying these crimes—that someone is innocent until proven guilty, that they have a right to be heard in court, and that evidence must be tested rigorously, as is the right of a defendant in any case. The issue is how that is applied in the way our courts operate in respect of a set of crimes that are extremely sensitive because of the impact on the complainant—the victim—who is almost always a live witness. It is trying to deal with the operation of the court that is at issue here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Sackman]

Once again, I strongly reject that suggestion. The two things are not mutually exclusive: wanting to bring in measures that speed up justice for every victim in the criminal justice system and building the foundations for a specialist court.

Let us get back to basics. What is a specialist court? What are we talking about? I have discussed this with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North. A specialist court prioritises a type of offence to address the timeliness issue. It guarantees special measures. Again, we have debated provisions in Committee about how we ensure the consistent guarantee of special measures in whichever Crown court in the country a rape trial occurs. Thirdly, it is a court in which not just those who are adjudicating and directing juries, but those who are supporting the participants, are trauma-informed, as that is how we now in contemporary society understand that evidence needs to be treated. That training is in train.

Those are the essential ingredients of a specialist court. Those are the building blocks. We guarantee them not just in this Bill but through the funding of training and the measures being implemented in our courts. That is really important, but it does not have a bearing on the overall backlog problem. It prioritises those cases, as we recognise them being among the most serious with some of the most acute trauma, but it does not deal with the huge backlog delays for other forms of violent crime and other types of crime.

[Siân Berry]

The Minister and I have both talked about making choices. The brass tacks are that the Minister has chosen to make huge changes to our court processes, but not to introduce this change in the Bill. There is still the chance to introduce measures into the Bill on Report and make different choices. Will she consider that?

[Sarah Sackman]

We are making those choices. The difference is that we do not need legislation to make those choices. We have made those choices, including the commitment of money to fund independent legal advisers, trauma-informed training and victim support. We have made those decisions. We have put those building blocks in place. We do not need legislation to deliver specialist courts. I had this discussion yesterday with the Victims’ Commissioner. We do not need legislation.

I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of the new clause. How could I not? It is in our manifesto. We are taking action to deliver it. We do not need the new clause to deliver it—that is the point. I will come shortly to its unworkability, but I will not take from the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion or anyone else the suggestion that we have not been making the choices to deliver on our commitment to halve violence against women and girls.