Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect of the Common Platform programme on access to justice.

HMCTS is committed to ensuring that Common Platform maintains and improves the level of access to justice across the criminal justice system. A key part of Reform design is engaging with users to understand their needs and develop a system that offers greater engagement opportunities for example by providing an additional route for users to engage through a digital process.

The Ministry of Justice is to undertake an overarching evaluation of the Reform programme to understand the effect of reform on access to justice. An interim report is expected by Summer 2021.