Sarah Sackman MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising such a moving case, and I pay tribute to his constituent, who is here today. Let us be absolutely clear: the Government’s position is that parental alienation has no evidential basis and is a totally discredited concept. We are working carefully with the Family Procedure Rule Committee to limit the instruction of unregulated experts, including those who hold that they are parental alienation experts. I hope that will ring the changes and prevent this sort of thing in future.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Of course I will meet my hon. Friend about that case. She is a tremendous advocate for her constituent. It is important to say that we have ensured that legal aid is available for domestic abuse victims, and we have also changed the evidence thresholds that must be met in order to access that aid. I will look into the case that she raises, and I look forward to meeting her to discuss it.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Gentleman that our magistrates are the backbone of our justice system. I meet magistrates from across the length and breadth of the land, and I have met the Magistrates Association. We have to make being a magistrate more attractive. That is why our reform of their expenses, allowing for greater flexibility, is so important. We are transforming the application process and the training that magistrates receive to make it more attractive for people to volunteer their time. I want to put on record that we are incredibly grateful to our army of volunteers who keep the justice system going.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Family Justice System · Hansard source

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  The Government are reforming the family justice system to better support families and children. We are rolling out the successful child-focused courts nationally. That means that in Northamptonshire, Coventry and Warwickshire, Northumbria, north Durham, Cleveland and south Durham, Lancashire, Cumbria, York and North Yorkshire, and Cheshire and Merseyside, you have a child-focused court coming to a court near you. We are developing a cross-system family justice strategy and legislating for new child safety measures that ensure child welfare continues to be prioritised.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Family Justice System · Hansard source

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  We are resolute and committed to repealing the presumption of parental involvement in the Children Act 1989. The campaigning efforts of the likes of Claire Throssell have been little short of heroic, and we will redouble our efforts to ensure that the repeal of that presumption comes about through the Courts and Tribunals Bill.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Family Justice System · Hansard source

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  In individual cases, how those financial settlements are made is a matter for the judiciary. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, as in so many cases, the family court is downstream of decisions that have been made elsewhere, and it is quite right that there should be join-up between areas of Government. I am happy to take away his direction that we should liaise with DWP colleagues to ensure that child maintenance is addressed fairly.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Modernising Wills: Law Commission Report · Hansard source

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  I commend my hon. Friend on his work, looking at how we can combat predatory marriages and those who prey on the vulnerable. The Law Commission’s recommendation that the rule that marriage revokes a will be abolished is well evidenced. We will take a holistic look at the issue, but we will certainly consider carefully.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Modernising Wills: Law Commission Report · Hansard source

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  As we consider the Law Commission’s recommendations, we will of course consider how they might lead to law changes and law reform across the United Kingdom. However, where matters are devolved, we respect that as well.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Modernising Wills: Law Commission Report · Hansard source

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  The law governing wills has not changed substantially since 1837. It is in that context that the Government welcome the Law Commission’s comprehensive and thorough review; we will be taking our time to consider it, and will respond in due course. Innovations such as electronic wills could improve accessibility and increase the number of people making wills, putting them and their loved ones in a more secure position.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to an interview with my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield that took place in December, well before this House voted conclusively on Second Reading. Any ministerial team would have to take on this challenge. Unlike the Conservatives, we will not duck it. What my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield actually said was that we need to pause and reflect. The evidence base is clear. Sir Brian Leveson offered a blueprint. We cannot bring down the backlog without structural reform— [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) says we can. As so often happens, the Conservatives ignore the experts and the evidence. They crashed the justice system, and we know who suffers: it is the British citizen. We will not allow it.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  There is no right to a jury trial in this country; there is a right to a fair trial, and timeliness is a key ingredient of a fair trial. If someone has to wait years for their day in court, that simply is not fair, whether they are a defendant or a witness. Of course, there is precedent for this, including from someone who is perhaps the hon. Gentleman’s hero: the late, great Mrs Thatcher. The fact is that we have always made a policy choice about who can access jury trial, and we are going to make that policy choice again to deliver swifter justice for victims.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  This Government inherited a criminal justice system in crisis, with record and rising Crown court backlogs. We simply cannot accept the intolerable delays currently faced by victims, witnesses and defendants alike. Sir Brian Leveson’s conclusion was clear and emphatic: it is only with investment, efficiencies and pragmatic structural reform that we can begin to turn the tide on the backlog and deliver swifter justice for victims. Those are the measures being brought forward in the Government’s Courts and Tribunals Bill.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman mischaracterises the Government’s policy, as so many do. We are preserving jury trials as a cornerstone of British justice, but it is no justice at all if someone is waiting years for that jury trial. When witnesses and complainants pull out of the process and those trials collapse, that is no justice at all, whoever is in charge. The dereliction of duty by the Conservatives—the so-called party of law and order—allowed the Crown court backlog to run out of control. They buried their heads in the sand, but we will not do so. We will take on Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations and make the difficult choices to bring down our backlog and deliver justice for the British people.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend, as always, is an outstanding advocate for Harlow. Our judges take the judicial oath to act without fear or favour, which is why our judiciary is the finest in the world, but of course transparency matters, which is why the recording and transcription of proceedings and the review that we have committed to, to test the impact of our reforms, are so important. I observe directly the training that our judges receive, which is first class.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Court Transcripts · Hansard source

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  I am sorry to hear about the hon. Member’s constituent’s case. Technology in this area is a potential game changer. However, as with all technological adoption, particularly in the justice arena, we have got to ensure accuracy for the very reason she says. The transcript has to be accurate, and redactions have to be made where necessary to protect individual participants in the case and to ensure reporting restrictions. That all has to be done safely, but I can assure her that the Ministry of Justice is progressing at pace with the adoption of AI, which will be a game changer in the years to come.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Court Transcripts · Hansard source

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  The Government are committed to greater transparency and access to justice in our courts. Transcripts are an important part of that, and I know that there has been a lot of cross-party campaigning on this issue. Victims of sexual offences and bereaved families of homicide can already request a free copy of sentencing remarks. From spring 2027, eligibility will be extended so that all victims can request them.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Court Transcripts · Hansard source

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  I know that the hon. Lady is a great advocate in this regard. I have had the pleasure of meeting Charlotte on a number of occasions, and I know how important her campaign is. The hon. Lady is right: owing to the Government’s commitment to audio recording and the capital investments that we are making to enable it to happen, change is coming soon and fast. We will seek to go as far as we are able while preserving the accuracy of those transcripts.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Court Transcripts · Hansard source

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  Equality before the law should mean just that, and as my hon. Friend says, it is an important principle to bear in mind when we talk about barriers to access to justice, whether we are talking about the cost of representation, which we try to address through legal aid, or about the cost of transcripts. In the current context, the targeted approach that we have taken—prioritising the victims of the most serious crimes, and now extending eligibility so that all victims can request court transcripts through the Sentencing Act 2026 from the spring of 2027—constitutes a big step forward. I hope that developments in technology will enable us to lower the costs and make that freely available to all in due course.

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

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  I associate myself with the remarks of those who have thanked the Chairs of the various Select Committees for securing this important debate, and I thank everybody who made incredibly thoughtful contributions to it, although there was the odd exception. To govern is to choose, and those on the Opposition— [ Interruption. ] I am coming to it. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) is getting started early. We know what choices the Opposition would make, because the Government’s inheritance in the criminal justice system was intolerable. Our prisons were allowed to run red hot so that the most serious offenders had nowhere to be locked up—a total dereliction of duty from the so-called party of law and order. In our courts, we had record and rising backlogs—there is consensus about that in the House—with both victims and defendants seeing intolerable delays. I could not agree more with the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) that this is one system, and it must keep the public safe and command public confidence. Yes, indeed, justice delayed is justice denied. We see the brass-neckedness of Opposition Members—there is no apology—but this Government do not duck the choices. As I will come to, in both areas we have grasped the nettle. We have sought expert advice in the form of the independent review led by Sir Brian Leveson into the state of our criminal courts, and from David Gauke in relation to sentencing. We have heard the conclusions of those reviews, and yes, we have been prepared to make the tough choices required to put our justice system first and to put it on a stable footing. The context outlined by the hon. Member for North Cotswolds and astutely by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) is one in which for several decades justice has been relatively sidelined in public policy terms and in investment terms. That has changed under this Labour Government with the uplift in the capital budget, as hon. Members across the House have rightly acknowledged. That is seen in prison construction, the investment in our court estate, the investment in the technology required to bring our justice system into the 21st century and, indeed, in the vital intervention of uncapping sitting days to salvage our courts from the brink of collapse. That is the choice that the Government have made to put justice first and to fix the mess that the Opposition left us with. Let me turn first to the crisis in our courts. We have taken a multi-pronged approach to this issue, as is set out in the estimates Bill. In colloquial terms, I would say that we have thrown the kitchen sink at it. We have done that in three ways: investment; modernisation and efficiency; and reform. Let me take each in turn. First, we have taken the choice that the Conservatives failed to take when they gutted our legal aid system, our court workforce and the capital spend in our courts. We have reversed that. Now, £2.78 billion has been agreed in the concordat with our courts, including those uncapped sitting days, and £287 million in capital spend is literally fixing the leaking roofs in Newcastle and right across the country. I was also pleased to see Harrow Crown court reopened when I visited the other day. On investment in our workforce, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle speaks of empty courtrooms. Of course we do not want to see empty courtrooms, but that is a reflection of the state of system capacity. We cannot 3D-print judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers or court staff; we have to train them. Those people are skilled. They have to be trained, they have to be remunerated, they have to be retained. That is why this Government chose, early doors, to make the investment of £116 million in criminal legal aid for solicitors, the £34 million pledged to advocates and the record settlement for the Crown Prosecution Service, as well as the investment in our judiciary. It is that that is going to fill and sustain our empty courtrooms. Many, including the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), have rightly spoken about victims. We have made a £0.5 billion investment in victim support services. The transformation in the availability of transcripts and audio recording of proceedings in our magistrates courts is vital not only to improving the victim experience but, given the intolerable delays, to keeping victims and witnesses engaged in the process, because when victims and witnesses pull out of the process and walk away, they do not get justice at all. That is the situation that the Conservatives left us with. Efficiency and modernisation are vital too, and it is right that Members across this House challenge the system and challenge those responsible for it to improve matters. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for referring to prisoner transport and the prisoner escort and custody services—PECS—because this issue has been highlighted by the Bar, by the judiciary and by Members in this House. The Minister for Prisons in the other place and I have set up an oversight board to grip our PECS contracts—contracts that were agreed with Serco by the previous Government—to ensure that we are driving out inefficiency in that operation from end to end. The judiciary is making a step change through a national listing framework, accompanied by AI data-driven tools, to improve the listing and scheduling of cases and make it more consistent. We are seeing investment in blitz courts in London and other places, as well as a case co-ordinator in every single Crown court centre to progress cases more rapidly. The adoption of remote technology is increasing the amount of remote participation, reducing the need for those prisoner transfers and enabling us to get through the easier cases. All of that is being done to drive the efficiency that everyone quite rightly wants to see. However, I have to be clear that—just as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick said, and consistent with the conclusions of Sir Brian Leveson—efficiency and investment alone will not reduce the backlog. It is true that the investment that we have made in sitting days, uncapping them for 2026-27, has resulted in a stabilisation of the backlog, just as we hoped it would, but the backlog continues to sit at over 80,000. Behind each and every one of those cases, there is a victim waiting for justice and a defendant stuck languishing in the remand system, and the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system is waning. That is why we will not duck the necessity of structural reform.

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

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  The policy exists, as I have said, critically in the context of a restored probation system, and it is to that which I come right now. Probation is an indispensable part of the scheme that the hon. Member talks about—a probation system that was, as I have said, absolutely gutted under the Opposition. Probation and community services will receive an additional £700 million by the final year of the spending review. In real terms, that looks like recruiting at least an additional 1,300 trainee probation officers by March 2027, on top of the over 2,300 who have been onboarded in the past two years. Those hard-working probation officers—not the slackers that perhaps were portrayed by the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox); far from it— doing some of the most difficult jobs in our public services have been delivered a 6% headline increase in pay, and rightly so, because they do such valuable work. They have been given the tools with which to do that work. We have the biggest expansion of tagging in British history, with a presumption that every offender will be tagged on release from prison, save in very specific circumstances. All of that keeps the public safe, and staff will be given the technology to enable them to do their work in a more efficient and accurate way with the Justice Transcribe AI-powered tool. These investments and reforms will ensure that probation officers can have the biggest impact by focusing on those who present the highest risk. A number of points have been made on legal aid, which will celebrate its 80th anniversary in a couple of years’ time. It is one of the proudest achievements of a previous Labour Government—the Attlee Government. It is something that we have put back on a stable footing. As I have said, we have put in an enormous uplift of £116 million for legal aid solicitors, up to £34 million for barristers, match funding for pupillages, building the workforce and, to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell), investment in the digital system. My hon. Friend is right that the particular line in the estimates pack from the House of Commons Library to which I believe she refers does not reflect the totality of the capital investment that the Government have made in this area. We are at £61 million invested in the digital transformation. That is much needed because those in this House will know that the impact that the criminal cyber-attack had on the legal aid system was so detrimental, precisely because there had been so much underinvestment and neglect of the system. It is therefore important that we not just stabilise the system, but transform it so that legal aid providers, but even more importantly, their clients can benefit in the long term. I am conscious of time, and so I will speak briefly about policing. The hon. Member for North Cotswolds is absolutely right that this is one system and it needs to behave as such. I recently had the privilege of visiting the Greater Manchester local criminal justice board, and I saw an outstanding example of cross-working in the criminal justice system. Prevention is better than cure, and so much of the investment we see in policing, but also the reform in the policing reform Bill, which will bring so many officers out from behind their desks and onto the streets in neighbourhood policing, will mean that we can prevent so much crime and intervene before so much of that behaviour becomes problematic.

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

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  Prison education is vital, and I have seen some fantastic examples of it, in particular on a recent visit to High Down. Prison education can take many forms, such as vocational training and education in a conventional sense. In some senses, the bigger question is how do we make our prisons safe? There is no point in having outstanding education—I agree with the hon. Member that it is important; I do not think we disagree on this—if drones are bringing drugs and contraband into prisons, as he pointed out, and if prisons are overcrowded. If that is the case, it is almost impossible to deliver and see the benefit of that education. The fact that this Government are prioritising, through a £40 million investment, a drone prevention programme, that we are building new prisons that are fit for people to live in and receive that education, is a choice that makes sense and that, as I said, prevents so much of the problem. Violence reduction units, the prison reform Bill, and the workforce plan that the Home Office has put forward are all part of the choice—I return to that theme—that the Government make, whether on policing, courts, prisons, or probation. We choose to fix the mess, and when we see a problem we make the choices required to fix it. Investment, modernisation and reform: the contrast between that and the choices that Opposition Members made when in government could not be starker. We must now give the plan a chance to work.

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

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  The hon. Member has had an entire urgent question in which to ventilate these issues, and I am here to debate the estimates and address some of the other points that have been raised. I do not duck the essential point that our early release scheme will apply to some of those guilty of the offences to which he refers, if safe to do so. If they have misbehaved in prison, they will not benefit from those provisions. The point is that this is not a free-for-all. They will be subject to tagging and control on the outside. That is why the investment in probation is critical.

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

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  I am talking about courts, but I will turn to sentencing and prisons in due course. However, I must remind the hon. Gentleman that the Sentencing Act provisions, which will come into force in September and to which he refers, were made necessary by the Opposition’s failure to invest in prison places over many years. Over 14 years in government, they made their choice, and they added net 500 prison places. In the first two years, this Government have already delivered an additional 3,000 places, and the biggest prison building programme since the Victorians is set to deliver 14,000 additional prison places. Let me return to the Crown court backlog. Reform cannot be avoided. To bring the backlog down, it is vital we ensure that the right cases are heard in the right place. It cannot be right that defendants can insist on their right to a jury trial in cases that could be heard by magistrates under even the existing sentencing powers. That is not fair on victims, and it is not fair that those cases are in the same queue as other, more serious cases, which have to have a jury trial, but a timely one. We cannot duck those choices. The proposals to increase magistrates courts’ sentencing powers, remove the right to elect and create a Crown court bench division are sound. When a triable either-way case is heard in the magistrates court, it moves far faster than in the Crown court. We have to take a proportionate and hard-headed approach that balances the rights of defendants, the rights of victims and the entitlement of every citizen in this country to a timely trial. Timeliness is an essential ingredient of fairness. As I have said, we inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse. To govern is to choose, and we took decisive action: £4.7 billion invested in the largest prison building programme that this country has seen, more foreign national offenders deported than ever before, 3,000 prison places delivered in the first two years of this Government and the Sentencing Act reforms, which will put our prisons on a more sustainable footing. As others have mentioned, we have also made a vital £700 million investment in probation, which is crucial to keeping the public safe and, as others have said, getting reoffending under control. Punishment can take place in prison, but punishment can also take place outside prison. The tough community sentence regime, the presumption of tagging, and the managed, structured and orderly early release system, as compared with the chaotic and opaque system under the previous Government—that is the choice that we make. That is how we get our criminal justice system under control.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Chichester for tabling new clauses 3 and 4, which seek to extend Crown court sitting hours, including the possibility of running two separate sessions per day, and enabling multiple cases to be heard in a single courtroom each day. In the same vein, amendments 59, 35 and 36, tabled by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, also call for a consultation on extending sitting hours in the Crown court, funding for 130,000 sitting days and a consultation on increased sitting days. As colleagues know, the Government have funded Crown court sitting days to record levels, and we are funding unlimited sitting days in the new financial year. That means that there is no financial constraint on the hours that Crown courts can sit. They can sit for as many days as possible within capacity constraints. That offers complete flexibility in Crown court centres to hear as many cases as possible. That represents real progress, and has been welcomed by Members on both sides of the House, the Bar and judges. But we cannot immediately increase capacity to 130,000 sitting days. That is not just a question of funding. Court capacity is not just about the rooms; it depends on judges, barristers, solicitors and court staff. We cannot 3D print those. We predict that sitting at unlimited levels next year will allow us to sit for 117,000 or 118,000 days, but we are not yet ready to ratchet up to 130,000 sitting days. That is the figure referred to in Sir Brian Leveson’s review, but he acknowledged that, even in the medium term, we will not get there. I say that because, although it is part of the Government’s ambition to grow capacity in the Crown court to meet the incoming demand and put the system on a sustainable level, the fact that we will not get there, even in the medium term, means that all those impacted by the cases sitting in the backlog—defendants on remand and potential victims—are left waiting. The lifting of the cap on sitting days is highly significant and is part of the investment lever that we all agree is needed to get our Crown court back on its feet. However, the central insight of the independent review of criminal courts is that that investment alone will not be enough, because even when we remove the limit on sitting days we cannot get to 130,000 sitting days because of capacity constraints. Extending hours alone does not increase the underlying capacity. Extending sitting hours or attempting to run multiple trials per day risks, I would argue, reducing time for case preparation, potentially increasing ineffective and cracked trials, and then potentially worsening delays rather than improving them.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  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.