Andy Slaughter MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2026 · Air Pollution · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend mentions the Mayor of London, who has made substantial strides, but I refer him to the matter of emissions from buses and the only partial electrification of the fleet in London and elsewhere. Pollutants from diesel buses are a continuing problem, especially when buses are allowed to idle at bus stands close to residential property. That is of particular concern to my constituent Kate Hollis, whose 12-year-old son, Jack, tragically died from bone cancer, the spread of which the family believes was caused by pollutants from a bus terminus next to their house in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend, who knows a great deal about these issues and who, like me, is a London MP, share my and the Hollis family’s concern that electrification is going too slowly, with potentially dangerous consequences?

• 1 Jul 2026 · Israel: E1 Zone Expansion · Hansard source

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  Advice to UK businesses and complaints to Israeli Ministers are not just inadequate but create ambiguities, because they suggest that the UK Government are prepared to speak but not to act. When Netanyahu previously threatened the annexation of parts of the west bank, we made it clear what the consequences would be. Will the Minister do the same now, and say that in the event of any move towards E1, there will be a comprehensive trade and investment ban?

• 30 Jun 2026 · Magistrate Numbers · Hansard source

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  I wish the Lord Chancellor luck with the recruitment campaign—I wish him luck generally—but even if he is successful, those magistrates will be newly recruited, and he is also asking magistrates to try much longer and more complex cases by increasing their sentencing powers. Those two things do not really square up. Is his solution to recruit a lot more district judges and therefore have a lot more judge-only courts in the magistrates court as well as the Crown court?

• 29 Jun 2026 · Home Office and Ministry of Justice · Hansard source

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  I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this important debate. The debate follows a joint application by the Chairs of the Justice, Public Accounts and Home Affairs Committees. There is cross-Committee concern for our criminal justice system, as the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), has just said. I thank my fellow Chairs for their focus on the issue in its widest sense. As Chair of the Justice Committee, I will focus my remarks on the estimates for the Ministry of Justice. A year ago, the Justice Committee was granted a similar debate on the spending of the Ministry of Justice. I noted at that point the positive settlement that the MOJ had received as part of the spending review, including a £7 billion investment aimed at delivering 14,000 new prison places by 2031 and £700 million a year for the Probation Service by 2028-29, in the light of the Sentencing Act 2026 reforms. Although I welcome many of the actions that the Government have taken over the past year to reform our criminal justice system, there is still a great deal of progress to be made, as those targets indicate. The Ministry of Justice suffered years of budget cuts during the years of Tory austerity, meaning that when this Government were elected in 2024, MOJ expenditure was 11% less in real terms than it was in 2010. The main estimates for 2026-27 confirm that the MOJ’s day-to-day spending is set to increase by £757 million, or 6.5%, which includes further investment in the Prison and Probation Service, the Courts and Tribunals Service and the Legal Aid Agency. I will come to each of those areas in turn shortly. The MOJ’s capital spending is also set to increase by almost £60 million, or 2.6%. I note that the MOJ anticipates drawing down further funding at the supplementary estimates to support its prison capacity programme, and that must be right. This year’s main estimates allocate over half its day-to-day spending to the Prison and Probation Service. This is aimed at investment in staffing, opening of additional prison places and paying for prison contract costs. The prison population stands at over 87,000 and it is predicted to increase, with the most recent set of projections forecasting 91,400 by September 2026, and between 97,400 and 102,100 by September 2029. These are the highest numbers we will ever have seen in UK prisons. Already, 25% of prisoners live in overcrowded conditions. As we have heard, overcrowding reduces safety, increases the likelihood of self-harm and violence, and impairs the rehabilitative programme that prisons are able to offer. The Justice Committee has focused much of its work over the past year on the endemic drugs crisis in our prisons and the poor rehabilitative offer available for prisoners. The Government’s continued investment in creating new prison places is necessary, but alongside the provisions of the Sentencing Act, some of which have now come into force, I hope that we can begin to see a stabilisation and eventual reduction of the prison population and an improvement in conditions there. I note that deaths in prison custody decreased by 12% from the previous 12 months up to March this year, but any non-natural death in prison is a tragedy. I direct Members to our reports on drugs in prisons and rehabilitation in prisons, which have been tagged on the Order Paper as relevant documents for this debate. As I mentioned earlier, by 2028-29, the Probation Service will receive an additional £700 million per year to support reforms resulting from the Sentencing Act, including a significant increase in the use of electronic monitoring or tagging. That investment is a substantial and welcome increase for a service that has been under strain for many years. I have raised repeatedly my concerns about the performance of Serco in its provision of the tagging service, and the Justice Committee will closely monitor Serco’s performance moving forward. I commend the work of the Public Accounts Committee in looking at the probation service and the report it published in February this year. The PAC report stated that the vacancy rate for probation officers increased from 14% in 2021 to 21% in 2025, with probation officers working above capacity for several years. The system has been running hot for an unsustainable period, which impacts on the hard-working probation staff. That cannot be underplayed and I hope to see improvements in this area soon. The additional funding for the Courts and Tribunals Service is driven by pay increases and an increase in the uncapped sitting days in the Crown courts, which are necessary to recruit and retain staff and to address the backlog. The Crown court backlog continues to sit at around 80,000 cases. The uncapping of sitting days for 2026-27 is a welcome step and has already had a positive impact, but it is widely recognised that it is not enough on its own. It is against that backdrop of an ever-increasing backlog that the Government introduced the Courts and Tribunals Bill earlier this year. Among other measures, the Bill would shift more cases to the magistrates courts and reduce the use of jury trials. The Justice Committee recently published an extensive report on the Bill, in which we warned that capacity in magistrates courts is unlikely to expand quickly enough to meet this increased level of demand. Our report highlighted the long-standing reductions in the number of magistrates and legal advisers, and described the recruitment target of having 21,000 magistrates in place by 2029 as unrealistic. The Courts and Tribunals Bill has been carried over to this Session, but a date for its consideration on Report has not yet been set. I would encourage the incoming Prime Minister—whosoever that may be—to consider carefully the Committee’s critique of the Bill, but also to be conscious that reform is desperately needed and cannot simply be kicked down the road to avoid difficult decisions.

• 29 Jun 2026 · Home Office and Ministry of Justice · Hansard source

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  First, one has to look at the Leveson package—the two volumes that Sir Brian Leveson has put together over 1,000 pages. That has 180 recommendations, a very small number of which deal with this issue. It is undeniable that it will be one factor that has an effect. Where I agree with the hon. Gentleman is that it is very difficult to calculate at this stage what effect it will have. The changes to jury trials—not the abolition of jury trials—are moving the line so that some more cases will be dealt with at a summary level. As I think the hon. Gentleman knows, I prefer to look at the practical problems there may be in replacing some jury trials, with the additional pressures on the magistrates court. As a matter of principle, we can differ; as a matter of practice, I suspect he would agree with me. I ask him to agree with me that there will be some benefit, but I agree that it has not been calculated as yet. Let me pick up what I was saying. A malfunctioning courts system is bad for victims, bad for defendants and bad for faith in our justice system, which has ramifications for our democracy. I will conclude by touching on the Legal Aid Agency, which affects civil and criminal legal aid. Legal Aid Agency spending will rise by 10% year on year. That is driven by Government reforms that will result in higher billing in civil representation schemes, fee uplifts in crime lower schemes and additional operating costs. As I said last year, I was surprised to see that the spending review did not include a specific funding allocation for the Legal Aid Agency, with the only reference to it being in the context of potential efficiency savings that the MOJ will make in the review period. Continuing investment in legal aid is essential to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system and efforts to tackle the Crown court backlog. Access to justice for those who rely on legal aid is reliant on a well-funded and properly functioning Legal Aid Agency, and we are all aware of the difficulties it has had over the past year. The Justice Committee will soon publish a report focused on legal aid as part of a wider access to justice inquiry. Let me emphasise how important it is that we have a properly functioning criminal justice system if the public are to continue to have faith in our institutions and political system. I implore the incoming Administration not to lose the focus on reforming the criminal justice system. The current system is not fit for purpose, and we cannot afford not to act.

• 18 Jun 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right to mention that there was a dissenting report, which was not approved by the Committee. Other members may wish to raise that issue. From my point of view, it was reassuring that the analysis in both reports was very similar. I hope that I correctly reflected some of those concerns in my statement. What the outcome of those concerns should be may have been a matter of difference between different parties, but that all adds to the spice of life on Select Committees. I agree with the hon. Member on magistrates. There has been so much attention on the issue of judge-only trials, which is crucial, but the Bill will succeed or fail on recruitment and the type and nature of magistrates court proceedings. They are being asked to do a huge amount of heavy lifting, and it is only fair that the Government keep us up to date on progress.

• 18 Jun 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is an assiduous member of the Committee. In the same week that the Committee published this report, we published our report on the pre-appointment hearing for the new Judicial Appointments Commission chair. We feel strongly that the Government need to look at judicial appointments and progression, because it is clearly not working at the moment. It undermines the credibility of a judiciary that we all take huge pride in if they are not reflective of the population at large. That was true before the Bill; it is even more true after it.

• 18 Jun 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the Backbench Business Committee for making time for this statement. The Courts and Tribunals Bill was introduced in February as a response to the Crown court crisis. There were over 80,000 outstanding cases as of December 2025, with some trials being listed into 2030. That harms victims, defendants and witnesses alike. We recognise the urgency of that crisis and acknowledge that continuing with the status quo is not an option. In response to the crisis, the Government commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to conduct his independent review of criminal courts, which has been published in two extensive parts and makes 180 recommendations to address the crisis and reduce the backlog. The Government’s Bill has been informed by Sir Brian’s review, although it deviates from his recommendations in some key areas. Last Wednesday, the Justice Committee published a report setting out our critique of the Courts and Tribunals Bill, based upon three oral evidence sessions and over 130 written submissions. I take this opportunity to thank all those who contributed to the report, in particular Committee members of all parties, many of whom are here today, and of course our secretariat. Our report makes recommendations to improve the Bill and draws attention to some of its unintended consequences, and it aims to inform further scrutiny of the Bill in both Houses. I note that we do not yet have a confirmed date for the Bill’s return to this House on Report. I hope we will have that soon. The Government introduced the Bill without publishing a formal response to part 1 of Sir Brian Leveson’s review. The Government also declined to allow the Justice Committee to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny. We instead launched our inquiry a matter of days after the Bill’s publication, as we felt this landmark piece of legislation required proper, in-depth parliamentary scrutiny. We know it is hard for the Government to change course once a Bill is introduced, but this is an area where the Government should have enabled more parliamentary input before pushing forward, particularly given that the Bill’s provisions will not come into force until March 2028 at the earliest. Our report is analytical, but crucially it is constructive and aims to improve rather than dismiss what the Government have proposed. It covers all clauses of the Bill dealing with reform of the criminal courts, but I will focus my remarks on a few key areas. First, let me address the impact on magistrates courts, which will significantly increase owing to the removal of the right for defendants to elect for Crown court trial and by increasing magistrates’ sentencing powers. Our principal finding on this point is that we are not convinced that the magistrates courts will be able to cope. It seems unrealistic to propose that 7,000 magistrates can be recruited in three years so that there will be 21,000 magistrates by 2029. Previous recruitment campaigns have fallen far short of their targets. Retention also remains a persistent challenge and there is a chronic shortage of suitably qualified legal advisers. The Government must demonstrate, in more detail than they have done so far, that expanding capacity in the magistrates court is deliverable. As part of that, we recommend that the Government should significantly increase the number of salaried district judges. They must also ensure that the pay of legal advisers matches comparable legal roles in the public sector. The Government seek the authority to increase magistrates’ sentencing powers to 18 months or even 24 months—double what they are now. Until recently the maximum was six months, and then from October 2024, 12 months. Sir Brian said that this should be set permanently at 12 months and that the Government should not be able to vary it at will. We say at the least that any change should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and debated in Parliament. Otherwise, every time there is a peak in prisoner numbers, the Government will shift magistrates’ sentencing powers down to six or 12 months and then back up to 18 or 24 when they stabilise again. On appeals from the magistrates court, we recognise the Government’s concern that, as more cases are retained, unmanaged growth in appeal volumes could place additional pressure on the Crown court. We also accept that the current automatic right to a full rehearing can, in some cases, place a stressful burden on victims and witnesses. However, appeals currently represent a small and declining proportion of overall Crown court receipts, with only 0.4% of magistrates court decisions appealed in 2025. They are resolved quickly and with a high success rate, suggesting that the right to a full rehearing plays an important role in correcting wrongful outcomes. The Bill provides for the introduction of audio recording in magistrates courts for trial and sentencing. This would allow for an accurate record of proceedings to be transcribed in support of an appeal. Several submissions we received raised concerns about the scale of such an undertaking and the practicalities of equipping magistrates courts with the necessary facilities. It would benefit no one if changes were introduced before recording systems were properly functioning or if they subsequently failed. We recommend that any changes to magistrates appeals should be introduced only once recording of all magistrates court proceedings has been introduced and is proven to be operating effectively. The main public and professional criticisms of the Bill have been around judge-only trials, and the creation of a Crown court bench division. Our report focuses more on the question of whether that will work in practice rather than the principles of the reform. We decided the proposal to introduce judge-only trials hangs on allocation to a jury trial or the bench division. That will be done by an assessment, at the first hearing in the Crown court, as to whether the defendant would receive a sentence of three years or more. While many cases will be straightforward, the allocation process could consume a significant amount of court time and judicial resource overall. We think the three-year threshold for deciding which sort of trial a defendant gets will need some more consideration. At present, when magistrates decide whether a case should be allocated to the Crown court, they consider the length of the potential sentence, but they also can consider the circumstances of the case. Should the Crown court not also be able to say that a case is likely to have a sentence of less than three years, but should still have a jury trial? We conclude that the allocation process as currently designed is likely to be complex, time consuming and will lead to unintended consequences. Reliance on likely sentence length as the sole criteria will mean that defendants with previous convictions are more likely to face a jury trial than those without, and that children are less likely to face a jury than adults accused of the same offence. We recommend that children should be exempt from being tried at the bench division. We also raise concerns that the predicted 20% time saving of judge-only trials, so heavily relied on in both the Bill and Sir Brian’s review, lacks sufficient evidential basis. Finally, on equality, we share the concerns of many in the justice sector around the potential equality impacts of the Bill, particularly in relation to race. An unreformed justice system already perpetuates a range of inequalities, and we do not feel that the Government have tackled those head on through the Bill. The Bill proposes to expand the role of both the magistrates court and judge-only Crown court proceedings, while reducing the role of juries. The Lammy review, in 2017, concluded that juries are one of the few areas of the criminal justice system where black and ethnic minority defendants do not face disproportionate outcomes. It is shocking that only 1% of Crown court judges are black, a figure that has not changed since 2015. This has serious implications for the trust that black defendants may have in the bench division, where judges will sit alone. We recommend that the Government take action to improve progression routes to the senior judiciary, and that they set a clear national target to achieve a representative judiciary and magistracy by 2035. We recognise the need to reform our criminal justice system and commend the Government for commissioning the Leveson review and proposing comprehensive reforms. We hope, however, that they will take note of our recommendations, which we believe would improve the Bill while maintaining the core values of justice and fairness in our criminal justice system.

• 18 Jun 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is also an assiduous member of the Committee, and I appreciate what she said about important respects in which the Government, without evidencing the reasons, have departed from Leveson—for example, on whether magistrates should sit with judges in the bench division. She makes a good point: because the Government have deviated from what Leveson recommended, there is a narrow window between what can happen in the magistrates court and what is left for the Crown court bench division to do. The Government will have to look at that again. Some Members may think that that is a good thing, because they are not supportive of the Crown court bench division, but we have to have a system that has credibility and works seamlessly.

• 18 Jun 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill · Hansard source

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  I rely on the hon. Gentleman to attend these statements, so that he can make that point, as he has done during every Justice Committee statement on the Floor of the House. He is right that, even though the Bill will apply in England and Wales, the lessons can be learned elsewhere. I will undertake to go back to my officials and ensure that that work is done.

• 18 Jun 2026 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for all his work as Chair of the APPG and with the contaminated blood community. On the issue he has just raised, there is growing support for a national oversight mechanism to monitor and intervene when recommendations from public inquiries are being ignored or misapplied. Does he agree that it is particularly important in the case of contaminated blood, where there have been so many false starts and delays? Although the Minister has announced a new mechanism to raise concerns about how compensation schemes function, does he agree that such monitoring must be statutory and self-resourced to ensure fair and timely compensation for victims and their families?

• 8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) for his excellent opening speech. In the 21 years that I have been entering the private Members’ Bill ballot, my name has been drawn out once, in 2018. My Freedom of Information (Extension) Bill—a very fine piece of legislation that I will have to tell hon. Members about another time—was talked out by a Conservative Back Bencher who tried to console me afterwards by saying that he supported my Bill, but wanted to make sure that the Bill after mine was talked out properly. It is therefore right to say that private Members’ Bills are fragile things, are often subject to headwinds, most commonly because the Government do not want the Bill to proceed, and are susceptible to sabotage. But I do not believe that that is or should be the case with the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. It is an exception because it received the endorsement of the House of Commons on Second and Third Reading because of successive polls of the public. We are all doubtful about the veracity of polls, but when one has a very substantial majority of people over many years, we are wrong to ignore the will of public in that way. The Government are allowing passage of the Bill, so it is only the filibuster in the Lords, by a small number of peers, that has harpooned this piece of legislation thus far. Frankly, I would respect the Bill’s opponents if they were clear and up front that they were using procedural means to talk out the Bill because of their position on it, rather than pretending that the amendments tabled are serious.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Progression of Bills through Parliament · Hansard source

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  I am coming to that. I will not take up all my time, because I suspect that we all know each other’s minds on this matter and are unlikely to change them. We need another vote so that the Bill can progress, and there is a mechanism in the Parliament Act for that to happen, which is a perfectly legitimate and logical next step. I think that there is arrogance in the way the Bill has been opposed, because it restricts the agency of the individual and seeks to take control of their lives. I am quite surprised that some Members, particularly those who come from more individualistic traditions than I do, are prepared to see that. It also increases the suffering of our fellow citizens. I think those are moral and constitutional issues; I do not believe that state actors should be able to constrain the freedom of the individual. There have been legitimate concerns about safeguarding in the Bill. They have been debated and provided for, and I do not believe that a sufficient alternative has been provided. In conclusion, there is a credibility problem here for Parliament. Our constituents will look at us and say, “We have asked you to do something and you have failed to deliver it, despite the fact that you have the ability, the will and the mechanisms to do it.” Let us just get on with it now, and let us use the Parliament Act as it is intended to be used.

• 21 May 2026 · Family Justice System: Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for that intervention. Many Members here will have local organisations that they help to signpost, champion and try to obtain funding for. What I am arguing for is something that is comprehensive and reliable, in terms of funding and support. In addition to the excellent work that Members may do, we need a better structure to support the family court system and victims in it. Just to review where we have got to so far, the June 2020 publication of the harm panel report, which has been mentioned, began a series of significant policy and legislative developments relating to domestic abuse and the family courts. Following extensive evidence gathering, the panel found that domestic abuse allegations and related risks were not taken sufficiently into account by the family court, due to “deep-seated and systemic” failings. Many of the report’s recommendations were brought in by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. For example, section 1 gives legal recognition to different forms of domestic abuse, including economic abuse and coercive control, and section 3 gives recognition to children who see, hear or experience domestic abuse as victims. The Act also requires that victims and survivors be provided with special measures to reduce the traumatising nature of proceedings and enable them to give their best evidence, such as the use of screens and the provision of separate entrances, exits and waiting rooms. Furthermore, it prevents unrepresented perpetrators or alleged perpetrators of abuse from cross-examining their victims or alleged victims during proceedings. In response to the harm panel’s recommendation that the voice of the child should be enhanced during proceedings, the previous Government piloted child-focused courts, then referred to as private law pathfinder courts. The pilot, which began in north Wales and Dorset in 2022, was designed to test a less adversarial problem-solving approach. At the outset of a case, the risks posed to children from domestic abuse allegations are identified and specialist support is provided where needed. The results of the pilot indicated faster resolution of cases, children’s voices being placed at the foreground in proceedings and a transformed experience for domestic abuse victims. Last year, the Justice Committee, which I chair, examined the effectiveness of these recent reforms. We heard from the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, the chief executive of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and the then president of the family division, Sir Andrew McFarlane. We were keen to understand, five years on from the publication of the harm panel report, what progress the family court had made on reforming its approach to domestic abuse in the cases before it. One of our key findings was that there is wide approval and enthusiasm for the work and outcomes of child-focused courts, which our witnesses said should be rolled out across England and Wales with urgency. We are extremely pleased that that is now under way, with a substantial investment promised by the Government in this financial year. However, a note of caution was sounded that I wish to highlight to the Minister. The model places much greater pressure on CAFCASS and other specialist support providers, particularly at the outset of a case, so they need to be resourced accordingly. In the words of one witness to our inquiry: “If you are going to have specialist domestic abuse provision supporting the courts, then it needs to be baked into the budget and resource that are coming down the line. It is not the model of the court that will sort the experience of children and victims out; it is the quality of the risk assessment that goes on to present advice to the court.” Our witnesses also reported on the success of the family, drug and alcohol court, which takes a problem-solving approach to care proceedings for parents with complex needs, including experiences of domestic abuse and substance misuse. I highlight to the Minister the great potential of that approach. The former president of the family division was a great proponent of FDAC in domestic abuse cases. In his evidence to the then Committee in April 2024, he said that “there is a domestic abuse component” in every case dealt with by FDAC, and that FDAC had “found a way of supporting that victim to deal with the fact that they may have a series of abusive relationships that they have gone through and to break the cycle.” Despite this, FDAC provision is patchy, to say the least. There are currently FDAC teams supporting families in about 39 local authorities and 24 family courts. They are in an uncertain position, though, with Newcastle having lost its FDAC in the last year and with provision in the midlands looking precarious. Our witnesses pointed out that despite the strong evidence base demonstrating its success, the FDAC “depends on small pots of funding year to year”, usually from local authorities and dedicated individuals who understand its potential and cobble money together. I therefore urge the Minister to consider the expansion of FDAC, which would enable courts hearing public law proceedings to respond more effectively to domestic abuse, in the same way that child-focused courts are doing in private law proceedings. FDAC must be looked at across Government, and I hope that the Government’s forthcoming family justice strategy will consider it. The Ministry of Justice is involved in providing the courtroom and the judge, but the Home Office, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education also have an interest in its beneficial outcomes. Finally, in line with the recommendations of the harm panel, the Courts and Tribunals Bill will repeal the presumption of parental involvement in the Children Act 1989, ensuring a child-centred approach when deciding what contact a child should have with their parents. I hope that we will see the Bill returning to the House soon—I would be grateful if the Minister indicated today when that might happen, as there is a lot in the Bill that we would like to see more of—so that this important safeguard can be implemented without further delay.

• 21 May 2026 · Family Justice System: Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) on securing this important debate. May I also congratulate the Minister? This is my first opportunity to speak in a debate to which she is replying. Perhaps I should be congratulating the Government on her appointment, since I know she will do an excellent job. Victims and survivors of domestic abuse who are separating from their abuser will often be involved in proceedings in the family court, for example to obtain a non-molestation or occupation order, divide assets following divorce or determine arrangements for children where these are in dispute. Sadly, perpetrators of domestic abuse often use proceedings in the family court as a means of coercive control and abuse post separation. In the case of private law children proceedings, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s office, which gathered and analysed data from three court sites in England and Wales throughout 2024, found overwhelming evidence of domestic abuse, identifying it in 73% of the hearings observed. As I think the hon. Member for Wokingham said earlier, 87% in the sample of cases reviewed had reference to domestic abuse, which has led the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Dame Nicole Jacobs, to describe domestic abuse as “the everyday business of the family courts”. There are very significant numbers of these cases. In 2025 alone, more than 55,000 private law children cases started. Clearly a great number of people, including children, are affected.

• 19 May 2026 · Family Courts · Hansard source

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  One of the successes of the family justice system is the family mediation voucher scheme. Two thirds of families who use the scheme avoid going to court, which takes a lot of pressure off the family courts. It started in 2021 and gets renewed every year, often at the end of the year or even when the next year has started, which creates huge uncertainty. Will the Secretary of State just say that he will make the scheme permanent from now on?

• 18 May 2026 · Youth Justice · Hansard source

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  I welcome the White Paper, which shines a welcome light on an often-neglected part of the criminal justice system. The remarkable drop in the number of young people in custody, from a high of 3,400 a day, is sometimes box-ticked as “job done”, but when half those young people are on remand and a majority do not go on to receive a custodial sentence, there is clearly more to be done. The Justice Committee is conducting an inquiry into children and young adults in the secure estate. While the Government are right to look at early intervention and alternatives to custody, will the Lord Chancellor also look at the successes and failures of the current custodial system for young people and how it can better rehabilitate young people and reduce the risk of reoffending?

• 18 May 2026 · Backing Business to Create Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  That was a bit off-subject, so I will confine my comments to saying that, as usual, we are all disappointed by the official Opposition. We will leave it at that. Fortunately, the Justice Committee has been involved in scrutinising some of the legislation being carried over—namely, the Courts and Tribunals Bill, which I believe has now been reborn as the courts modernisation Bill, and the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, by which I mean the Hillsborough Bill; I hope the House is keeping up with these nomenclatures. I will deal with those Bills before outlining what else the Committee is doing. First, on the courts modernisation Bill, the Justice Committee has been engaging closely with the Government’s proposals for reform of the Crown court, holding evidence sessions and collecting written evidence to gather views. We have heard from Sir Brian Leveson, whose independent review of the criminal courts formed the basis for the proposed changes, and from a wide range of practitioners, including barristers, solicitors, magistrates, retired judges and victims’ representatives. The Government declined to allow the Committee to undertake pre-legislative scrutiny, so we have conducted our own on behalf of the House, and next week we will publish a major report of our findings. The passage of the Bill through the Commons has been rapid, and there has been little opportunity for scrutiny of its contents by Members and indeed the wider public, despite the profound constitutional implications.

• 18 May 2026 · Backing Business to Create Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  What an abrupt end that was. What a cliff-hanger! I want to speak briefly about the justice measures in the King’s Speech. Important Bills are being introduced or carried over, and it is disappointing that the Opposition did not nominate justice and home affairs for a full day’s debate, even more so because today those in the other place are debating those very same subjects, which are indeed important.

• 18 May 2026 · Backing Business to Create Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  It is a bit early, but all right.

• 18 May 2026 · Backing Business to Create Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for her intervention, and the answer is that there is a balance. We all want the Government to press on with all the wonderful things that they intend to do, which are in the King’s Speech, but that must be mitigated by the guiding hand of experienced practitioners, such as my hon. Friend, in their Select Committee roles. I hope that our report on the courts modernisation Bill will make a significant contribution to Members’ understanding and analysis of its provisions, and aid their scrutiny and deliberations. I also hope that Ministers will take on board the issues that we will raise. Secondly, I welcome back the Hillsborough Bill, which is the result of years of committed campaigning led by the families, victims and survivors of the Hillsborough disaster and other public tragedies. I spoke on Second Reading to highlight the areas of the Bill where I thought further clarity was required, including the application of the duty of candour to subcontractors, not just those with a direct contractual relationship; the scope of the exemption from the offence of “misleading the public” for acts done for the “purposes of journalism”; and how the expansion of legal aid will be funded. I am pleased to see that the Government have now published their proposals for the last of those. When the Bill’s remaining stages take place, I intend to table amendments to require the Government to consider the merits of a national oversight mechanism—an independent body tasked with collating, analysing and following up the conclusions and recommendations made in the course of inquests and inquiries. I will also add my support to amendments relating to the role of the Independent Public Advocate and its information-gathering powers, and to the extension of the duty of candour to subcontractors, who are used by the vast majority of service provides, including Fujitsu during the Horizon scandal. I look forward to the Bill returning so that these issues can be considered in more detail. The national oversight mechanism, championed by the charity Inquest, is getting considerable traction. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Liaison Committee are discussing what may be the best method of ensuring that the recommendations of inquiries are implemented, and the Justice Committee also has an interest in this matter. We are also exploring the wider issue of how information from inquests can be collated and presented to prevent future deaths, whether or not there is a formal prevention of future deaths report. To that end, I am tabling amendments to the Bill that would establish a national coronial database. Thirdly, I turn to the immigration and asylum Bill. The Justice Committee has been engaging with the Government’s proposal, since it was made last August, for a new independent appeals body to speed up decision making on asylum appeal cases, which is to be implemented via the Bill. In February, we visited the Taylor House tribunal hearing centre in London and spoke to senior judges to try to understand the causes of the current high appeal backlog. From speaking to them, it was clear that the failures in the current system, which have led to high appeal backlogs, are operational. They include: a shortage of administrative officers to check validity and collect papers; a shortage of court lawyers to issue directions and prepare cases for hearing; inadequate legal aid provision, causing essential legal and evidential groundwork to be performed far too late or not at all; poor or absent Home Office representation at hearings; and failure to comply with tribunal directions on both sides. Replacing judges with adjudicators will not solve those problems. Operational investment in the tribunal infrastructure is clearly required. The Committee will endeavour to shine a light on that as the Bill goes through the House, but our initial thoughts are that replacing or supplementing judicial decision making by the first-tier tribunal with Home Office administrators will complicate rather than speed up the process, and simply move contentious cases to the upper tribunal or administrative court. In addition to scrutinising that significant legislation over the coming months, the Justice Committee will be concluding and reporting on its inquiries on the rehabilitation and resettlement of offenders and access to justice, and progressing its inquiry on children and young adults in the secure estate. It was good news earlier to see the Government launch the White Paper on youth justice. The Committee will be holding individual sessions with senior office holders, including the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Lord Chancellor. We will expand our work on tribunals by launching an inquiry on delays in employment tribunals, which currently have a backlog of over half a million active claims. We will also want to scrutinise the impact of the reforms contained in the Sentencing Act 2026 both on the prison population and the Probation Service, and on offender rehabilitation and public safety. There are omissions from the Gracious Speech that are a matter for regret. Despite broad consensus, there is no measure to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling in PACCAR. The Committee heard in its access to justice inquiry how that is adversely affecting litigation funding. There is also no proposal for anti-SLAPP—strategic lawsuits against public participation—legislation, despite substantial evidence of the use of litigation to stifle free speech, nor is there anything to help the victims of press harassment. It is disappointing that calls to introduce a legal right to consular assistance for British nationals arbitrarily detained or abused by foreign Governments have been ignored, and that proposals mooted to reform the position of cohabiting couples are absent. None the less, this is a substantial King’s Speech with a full programme that includes full, wholesale reform of leasehold and commonhold, social housing renewal, closer ties with the EU, and nationalisation of the steel industry. It is to be commended and supported in all those aspects, which are firmly based on sound Labour principles. Who can argue with that?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Hammersmith Bridge · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Alec, not least because you have allowed me the privilege of speaking although I was a couple of minutes late. I was chairing the Justice Committee, but I did not want to miss this debate. Fortunately, I can be reasonably brief because my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and my friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) have covered most of the bases on this issue; I will not repeat what they said. I welcome the Minister to his place. I will say something complimentary about him in a moment, which will perhaps convince him to spend some money on the bridge. I will also take the unusual step of welcoming the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), who knows as much about this as any of us, because he was the deputy leader and then leader of the opposition in Hammersmith and Fulham—we all know where the bodies are buried, even at the high water mark. Hammersmith bridge is a unique structure. Before people start shouting “Albert bridge”, I will come on to why that is different in a moment. Hammersmith is a beautiful bridge across the Thames—I am prejudiced, but I would say it is the most beautiful—but it has unique challenges. Whether through bomb damage or the corrosion of the materials that make it up, the bridge has reached a state of catastrophic failure. At one stage, it had to be closed in its entirety, even to pedestrian and cycle traffic. That is fortunately not the case now, but I think it is accepted on all sides—people sometimes say, “Oh this could be done cheaply”, by which they mean for a few million pounds, but it cannot—that restoring Hammersmith bridge to its former tolerances would require the replacement of most of the elements of the bridge. It would effectively be a new bridge, albeit looking like the old one. That has particular, unique implications. It is right that this Minister and this Government have taken a far more proactive view than the previous Government—they could not take a less proactive view than the previous Government, who did not answer my letters for three years. The taskforce has met since this Government came in, and it has defined the issues and pointed the way to next steps. In my view, there are three issues. One is: let us define clearly what the costs are. There is the clear preferred option, which is the Foster and COWI scheme; it is very expensive, but other schemes are less efficient and more expensive. What will the cost of that be and what are the opportunities for funding it? My hon. Friend the Member for Putney mentioned the application to the structures fund, and I welcome what the Minister said about that. I notice that the guidelines for grant funding were published last week, so I do not imagine that an application has gone in yet, though I am sure that one will go in quite shortly. It is still an extremely expensive project. In addition to the costs and sources of funds, there is the thorny issue of traffic loading. I have seen many different figures for traffic displacement to other bridges, including Putney and Wandsworth bridges and Chiswick bridge, which is also in my constituency. There are serious concerns about that, but we must have sets of figures that we can all rely on—I hope the Minister will say that he now has those figures—because otherwise it is pointless if we are going to not agree on those matters. Those are the essential ingredients, from my point of view. The taskforce met last year. To be full and frank, it is also right to acknowledge that there is a strong lobby against opening the bridge to motor traffic. I know that from my inbox. I have always said that the presumption should be that the bridge goes back to its previous tolerances, which requires a major reconstruction. This has gone on so long that we need certainty and an answer now. The other thing—I am grateful to the hon. Members who spoke about this—is the acknowledgment of where Hammersmith council is in all this. I think it is right to say that the council has spent over £50 million on preventing the collapse of the bridge, restoring it to make it a walking and cycling bridge and continuing to maintain it. To put that into perspective, that is half the sum spent on repair and maintenance for all bridges over the Thames in the decade between 2010 and 2020. That local authority, like most local authorities these days, is cash strapped. It prides itself on running a very tight ship, has the third lowest council tax in the country and provides extremely innovative—and, in some cases, unique—services, such as free social care and free breakfast clubs in all its schools. Those are the priorities that its electorate set out for it, and, I think, will again when it is re-elected in two weeks’ time. I did not believe it was feasible to add the £50 million in there. Hammersmith and Fulham council deserves a huge amount of credit for that, but the idea that it will make another substantive contribution towards the bridge is for the birds. The money is just not there. If we are saying that, we are saying the bridge will never reopen. We need a little bit of honesty here. The comparison was made with Albert bridge. It is very unfortunate that another bridge needs repair. Yes, it is another Victorian suspension bridge with some, shall we say, challenging materials, such as its cast iron structure. But there the similarities end, even though, or partly because, Kensington and Chelsea council is only a minority shareholder, if I can put it that way, but more so because, although Albert bridge will take at least a year and cost £8.5 million on the current estimate—and I am sure that that will grow—Hammersmith council has already spent six times that just on the maintenance of Hammersmith bridge at its current standards. Let us try to move this forward. I do not want to say anything more today other than that a conclusion has to be reached as a matter of urgency. Decisions have to be made. Not everyone will be happy with those decisions one way or the other, but so long as they are made based on a sound mathematical basis and classic surveys, the finances are there and we are not just wishing for money that does not exist, and we have a secure model for replacement of the bridge, we can go forward in that way. At the moment, we have the worst of all worlds: nothing is happening while everybody is putting forward their own version of reality or events. Whatever side of the coin they are on, my constituents want that to end.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Knife Crime · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for agreeing to meet me and members of the safer knives group, which brings together experts on the type of knives most commonly used in knife crime. Does she agree that restricting sales of pointed knives, and moving to rounded-tip versions for kitchen use, could limit the number and type of injuries caused, especially in domestic and impulsive violence, potentially reducing death and serious injuries?

• 26 Mar 2026 · Prison Officers: Mandatory Body Armour · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to talk about this very important matter under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I suspect there will be quite a degree of agreement across the House. The first thing that struck me was a quote from some evidence that the Prison Officers’ Association submitted to the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee last year: “prisons are inherently violent institutions to live and work in because they are places where large numbers of often violent criminals are forced to stay against their will”. That may seem rather obvious, but if it is true, and I think it is, then we need to take every step to minimise the levels and seriousness of violence. This would not be tolerated in any other profession or environment, and it should not be tolerated in prisons. I pay tribute to the courage and fortitude of all our prison officers, who have to put up not just with assaults, but with risk and vulnerability every day—10,000 assaults a year, or 30, including three serious assaults, a day. That is not acceptable. As the Chair of the Justice Committee, I routinely receive the chief inspector’s reports, as well as urgent notifications when there are particular problems, and I will refer to two that I received in the past few days. One relates to HMP Woodhill, of which the chief inspector says: “The prison was not safe. Rates of violence were very high and at the time of this inspection, only Swaleside (also subject to a UN) had a higher rate of violence among similar prisons. The rate of serious assaults on staff was the highest in the long-term high secure estate and around a third of all violent incidents involved the use of weapons. Unsurprisingly, 61% of prisoners said they had felt unsafe at some point.” On Swaleside, the other prison referred to there, the chief inspector states: “Our inspection of Swaleside, a category B training prison on the Isle of Sheppey, revealed a prison in disarray, with the lowest scores in my five years as chief inspector…levels of violence were some of the highest of any prison in England and Wales and assaults on staff, many of which were serious, had more than doubled since our last inspection in 2023. Much of the violence had been driven by the large amounts of drugs being brought into the prison by drones. Drug debts and gang rivalry were often the cause of assaults, and many prisoners were routinely making and carrying weapons.” I appreciate that that rather dystopian description is not typical of every prison in the country, and certainly not of every prisoner. However, if that is the level of harm, then we have to give proper protections to prison officers, including body armour. In principle, I support that, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) for securing this debate just before we pack up for the Easter recess. I am glad, as he is, to see so many people here, because it is a vital issue.

• 26 Mar 2026 · Prison Officers: Mandatory Body Armour · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for all the work that he and other Members present do in supporting the POA and making sure that its voice is heard. It is often the case with prisons that out of sight is out of mind. Both because of the conditions in prisons, which are deplorable in many cases, and in particular for the welfare of staff, it is important that we speak loudly on this subject. The basic principle of this debate is absolutely right and should be followed through, but I have three qualifications to make. First, I believe—we will no doubt hear this from the Minister—that the Government have done a substantial amount more to address this issue. Body armour was first available in particularly dangerous institutions and is now available in all high-category prisons. That is a huge improvement, which has been acknowledged on all sides, including by the staff. It is in the lower-category prisons where it is not routinely available. That may be where we are moving to, but I want to acknowledge what has been done so far because it is a significant development. Both the current and previous Lord Chancellors have been clear on their intention to give the upmost protection to staff. Secondly, if there is a danger that, through the widespread, customary, routine use of body armour, we will get into a mode of accepting levels of violence. Violence should never be acceptable in our prisons. Yes, the first priority is to keep staff safe, but beyond that, we have to do something about the appalling conditions in prisons. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned mental health; we could equally talk about the chronic levels of drug addiction, organised crime and overcrowding, and the conditions in prisons, all of which create an environment in which violence thrives. That is what I worry about. The Prison Reform Trust has said: “The real drivers of prison violence—unsafe conditions, lack of purposeful activity, and poor mental health—can only be addressed through improved safety, decency, and respect. That means better staff training, supporting leadership development, and the political will to invest in prison conditions and reduce demand for drugs.” I hope that view will be echoed on all sides. Rolling out body armour across the entire prison estate may be the right thing to do, and it may be that what has been done so far needs to be improved upon, but it should not hide the systemic, dangerous problems and conditions in our prisons, which are the result of decades of neglect, overcrowding and failure to provide decent standards for prisoners and for staff, who have an incredibly difficult job.