Category: Criminal Justice

Michael Ellis – 2020 Comments on Low Sentences

The text of the comments made by Michael Ellis, the Solicitor General, on 16 July 2020.

The ULS scheme allows anyone, including victims of crime, to ask for a review of certain sentences they believe are too low.

A sentencing exercise is not an exact science. In the vast majority of cases, judges get it right. While we are seeing fewer complaints about sentences, the scheme is still important to ensure that certain cases can be reviewed where there may have been a gross error in the sentencing decision. This brings comfort to many victims and their families.

July 16, 2020
Priti Patel – 2020 Comments on Sentencing for Assaults on Emergency Workers

The text of the comments made by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, on 13 July 2020.

Our police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers go above and beyond every single day – running towards danger to protect us all.

They are our frontline heroes who put their lives on the line every single day to keep us safe, and yet some despicable individuals still think it’s acceptable to attack, cough or spit at these courageous public servants.

This consultation sends a clear and simple message to the vile thugs who assault our emergency workers – you will not get away with such appalling behaviour and you will be subject to the force of the law.

July 13, 2020
Robert Buckland – 2020 Comments on Sentencing for Assaults on Emergency Workers

The text of the comments made by Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, on 13 July 2020.

Being punched, kicked or spat at should never be part of the job for our valiant emergency workers who put their lives on the line to keep the public safe.

Now more than ever they must be able to do their extraordinary work without the fear of being attacked or assaulted, which is why we’re determined to look at how our laws can protect them further.

We will continue to do everything in our power to protect our police, prison officers, firefighters and paramedics – and ensure those who seek to harm them feel the full force of the law.

July 13, 2020
Nick Thomas-Symonds – 2020 Comments on Sentencing for Assaults on Emergency Workers

The text of the comments made by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 13 July 2020.

We will look closely at the full details of what the Ministers bring forward. However, if the Government had listened to Labour MPs like Chris Bryant and Holly Lynch in 2018 the principle of a two-year sentence for attacks on frontline workers would already be in place.

Police officers have faced some appalling attacks in recent weeks while going about their work to keep people safe – this is unacceptable and we should do all we can to protect them, including tougher sentences for those who attack them.

July 13, 2020
David Lammy – 2020 Comments on Sentencing for Assaults on Emergency Workers

The text of the comments made by David Lammy, the Shadow Justice Secretary, on 13 July 2020.

Emergency workers put themselves in danger to keep the rest of us safe. It is right that anyone who assaults a firefighter, prison officer, paramedic or police officer should face the full force of the law.

We will look closely at these proposals, but recognising the bravery of emergency workers requires more than just increasing sentences for those that assault them. After a decade of austerity, the Government should promise to end the cuts that have left our emergency services understaffed and overworked even before this crisis began.

July 13, 2020
Nick Thomas-Symonds – 2020 Comments on Publishing Report into Priti Patel

Below is the text of the comments made by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Shadow Home Secretary, on 11 July 2020.

It has been over four months since the Government promised a report into whether the Home Secretary broke the Ministerial Code. There are now allegations of deeply inappropriate political interference in the publication of the report, both in terms of content and timing. The delay in producing it is totally unacceptable.

Yet again the Government is acting in the interests of a Conservative Party elite, rather than the national interest. I’ve written to the Minister for the Cabinet Office calling for the report be published immediately, so that it can be properly considered before the recess.

July 11, 2020
Edward Timpson – 2020 Speech on the Retirement Age of Magistrates

Below is the text of the speech made by Edward Timpson, the Conservative MP for Eddisbury, in the House of Commons on 7 July 2020.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend section 13 of the Courts Act 2003 to change the retirement age for magistrates from 70 to 75; and for connected purposes.

Magistrates, or justices of the peace, are ordinary people hearing cases in court in their community, and have been a fundamental feature of our judicial system since 1361. They continue to be chosen from people of good character, commitment, social awareness and reliability—those who can communicate effectively and are capable of making sound choices when sitting in judgment on their peers.

I had the pleasure of appearing in front of many magistrates while practising on the then Chester and north Wales circuit as a criminal and family barrister in the late ’90s and the noughties. My rose-tinted spectacles remind me that, more often than not, my clients got the rub of the legal green, but I also had to accept that I and the bench did not always have a meeting of minds—in other words, I lost.

The one constant, however, was the selfless and enduring dedication on display by so many of our fellow citizens to the fair and equitable dispensing of justice. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of them, particularly those who have contacted me about this Bill and shared with me their experiences, for their public service. I should add that their overall number includes at least 10 fellow current Members of Parliament.

However, the constant reliable recruitment and retention of our magistracy across England and Wales is under serious strain. The number of magistrates has decreased dramatically over the last decade or so, from about 30,000 to less than 13,000, with the number actually sitting thought to be substantially lower. That has had a profound impact on the case backlog, which is now up to nearly half a million in the magistrates courts; on delays, and even on the way justice is delivered. For example, during 2017-18 there were benches of just two magistrates, including for some trials, in nearly 40,000 court sessions—15% of the total. Inevitably, the covid-19 pandemic has both exacerbated the problem and catalysed the urgency of action, with recruitment and training on hold.

To illustrate this at a more local level, Paul Brearley JP, chairman of the Greater Manchester branch of the Magistrates Association, provided me with details of how the current chronic shortage of magistrates is affecting what is the largest single bench in England and Wales. At its creation in 2014, the bench size was approximately 1,100. As of 24 June this year, the number stood at 792.

From this figure should be deducted 188 justices who are currently on covid-19-related leave of absence and 47 justices appointed but not yet sworn in, leaving just over 550, or about half of the original number, in active service. During the pandemic, no more justices have been appointed, despite the fact that the retirements have continued—15 since lockdown.

Sadly, it is the same story across the country, as other examples I have received from the chairs of the West Yorkshire, north-west Wales and Herefordshire benches bear testament, with the latter seeing a fall from 127 magistrates in 2008 to only 47 in 2020, nine of whom are due to retire in the next 18 months. As we emerge from lockdown, the pressure on our court system has never been greater, and with more police officers on our streets and additional resources for the Crown Prosecution Service, we can expect even more cases, requiring even more capacity.

The measures introduced by the Ministry of Justice to tackle the considerable and escalating delays are welcome, including extending court hours and widening the use of technology where appropriate. Yet much of this will still rely on the human resources— otherwise known as people—working in our courts to meet ever-growing demand. That is irrefutable proof that we desperately need more magistrates as quickly as possible. Any judicial restoration also needs to ensure that it delivers as great a diversity as possible, especially regarding age, ethnicity and social status. As the former chair of the Magistrates Association, Malcolm Richardson, has said:

“The magistracy must reflect the community it serves if courts are to be perceived to be procedurally fair, command public confidence and help civic engagement.”

To that end, I was pleased to hear the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who is sitting on the Front Bench, tell the House only last week that the magistrates recruitment and attraction steering group held its first meeting in February, with a particular focus on increasing diversity, regardless of age.

Despite such laudable and important efforts, recruitment will not, of itself, fix the problem, because the fact remains that nearly 7,500 magistrates—more than half of all current magistrates—will reach the age of 70 in the next decade, and, under current legislation, will be forced to retire. Losing these magistrates at 70 is a triple whammy. First, they are often the most experienced. Secondly, they represent a high proportion of presiding justices—those in the court chairs—in this group. Thirdly, they are likely to be retired from work and so more able to accept extra sittings, including at short notice. Paulette Huntington JP, chair of the West Yorkshire branch, tells me that her magistrates who have retired at age 70 generally tend to be high sitters as they have more time to give, with many clocking up between 50 and 100 sittings per year, and some even more than that due to the volume of work—well over the minimum 26 required. In contrast, it is proving difficult to entice those with work and family commitments to the bench, with fewer employers seemingly content or in a position to sanction regular absences.

While every effort should continue to be made to boost recruitment, simply replacing retiring magistrates would be a significant challenge, and given current shortages would not, in itself, be sufficient. Indeed, this year the number of magistrates recruited is expected to be less than the number who retire, partly due to the need for rigorous selection, mentoring and support of newly appointed magistrates. It is worth noting, too, that these difficulties apply to all jurisdictions—adult, youth, and family. The senior judiciary, including the Lord Chief Justice, the senior presiding judge and the president of the family division, are all aware of the seriousness of the situation, as are, I know, the Minister and the Lord Chancellor.

It need not be this way. Jurors are now selected up to the age of 75, doubtless to enable justice to be delivered by people with wide experience of life. You may also have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the head of the Supreme Court is aged 75 and the almost 73-year-old Roy Hodgson seems to be doing a reasonable job at Crystal Palace. So why should magistrates be deemed incompetent simply because they have hit an arbitrary age?

There are other sound, compelling reasons to apply such logic. First, people live longer. The current retirement age of 70 was set in 1968, when life expectancy was just 72, and it is now nearly 81. Secondly, people work longer. Thirdly, people retire later. As they say, 70 is the new 50. To ensure ongoing competency beyond 70, the recognised and recently updated system for appraisal of all magistrates and retained registrates would need to be extended, but this should not be a block to progress. As John Bache JP, chairman of the Magistrates Association, told me:

“We are rapidly heading for the perfect storm in the magistrates court. The backlog is increasing while the number of magistrates continues to fall, yet we are discarding those magistrates most able and willing to address this crisis”.

I know that my hon. Friend the Minister, on behalf of the Government, is very sympathetic to these arguments and is keen to make progress sooner rather than later, so I urge the Secretary of State, the Lord Chancellor, for whom I have the utmost respect, to grasp this nettle now and give the magistracy the opportunity through this Bill, especially at this vital time of greatest need, to do what it has done for over 650 years, and deliver timely, fair justice for the communities it serves.

July 8, 2020
Kit Malthouse – 2020 Speech on Policing in Devon and Cornwall

Below is the text of the speech made by Kit Malthouse, the Minister for Crime and Policing, in the House of Commons on 6 July 2020.

Can there be any greater pleasure than to gather together late at night to talk lyrically about such a wonderful part of the country, second only in its beauty to the North Wessex downs, which I happen to represent? It is a remarkable part of our heritage and a part of the country that is very well policed and guarded by my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and his colleagues, but also by the police officers who serve in that part of the country.

I want to join my hon. Friend by starting with a tribute to Shaun Sawyer and his team in Devon and Cornwall. I know Shaun of old. He was the head of counter-terrorism at the Metropolitan police when I was chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority and deputy Mayor for policing in London. He and his team have done a remarkable job over the past few years, but most particularly over the past few months, when, as my hon. Friend said, they have coped with extraordinary circumstances with aplomb. They have stayed resilient, with low absences and a commitment to keeping their fellow citizens safe in the face of all sorts of hazards—seen and, as we are learning from this pandemic, unseen. It has been a fantastic job all round.

Among the officers my hon. Friend thanked, I would also like to single out Deputy Chief Constable Paul Netherton, who has been leading the local resilience forum and has done fantastic work in pulling together all the organisations that have been engaged in dealing with the pandemic. We should also thank, as my hon. Friend rightly did, the police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, who has been a voluble voice in the weekly calls I have held with PCCs from across the country, putting the case for her police force with vigour but also with reason and proportion. She serves both counties extremely well and has shown exactly the kind of leadership that one would expect from a police and crime commissioner.

That has been reflected in all sorts of areas. Obviously we have seen crime reduce very significantly, but personal protective equipment, which one might have expected to be an issue in such a large, rural part of the country, has actually been managed with aplomb. The force has been rated consistently green on the red, amber, green rating scale for PPE, which is very reassuring for everybody.

My hon. Friend, as usual, puts a powerful case for his force and his county colleagues. He shows a passion and commitment that one would expect from a true Cornishman. I have seen that in previous roles. When I was Housing Minister, I made a wonderful visit to his constituency and those of his colleagues. He dragged me down there, as no doubt he will again, to see the police in action. He rightly pointed out that alongside the new headquarters in east Devon, significant investment is going into Devon and Cornwall policing from central Government, alongside the flexibilities that the police and crime commissioner has used to raise the precept.

The budget for D and C is moving up to £338.4 million, which is £23.2 million large on last year. That is the biggest funding increase in a decade. As part of that, there will be an uplift in police officers of 141 across the force area, as he rightly pointed out, of whom I am pleased to say 61 have already been recruited to the end of March. Recruitment is going particularly well despite the pandemic, not least because Devon and Cornwall is one of the 22 forces in the country that have adopted the virtual assessment centre that the College of Policing put together in double-quick time so that applicants to be police officers were able to go through the process online, rather than face to face. That recruitment will obviously continue.

I hear what my hon. Friend says about future allocations. No decisions have been made yet on the future allocation of police officers, but we are hoping the decision will come before the summer recess, because one thing that has become clear from forces across the country, including Devon and Cornwall, is that a number want to run ahead of the target. A number have already reached their annual allocation with nine or so months to go, and some wish to recruit beyond their allocation, but they need certainty on what they will get in years 2 and 3 so that they can commit to those bright, shiny, new police officers with confidence. We hope and believe that will help them to do that.

All that means that the relaxation of the lockdown, which ordinarily would bring significant challenges that are not to be underestimated, has been dealt with extremely well in Devon and Cornwall. The tourism industry is vital to that part of the world. I think I read in the paper that the estimates are that the two counties have lost something like £665 million in income over the two or three admittedly off-season months. That is still a huge amount of money for businesses to bear in losses, and it shows the urgency and the need to restore something of normality to that industry, on which my hon. Friend’s constituents and others rely so heavily.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, the unique geography and beauty of that region attracts people in numbers from across the world, and we want them to come. I know that the police in that area are standing up strongly to ensure they can enable those people to come safely and sensibly, rather than, sadly, what has happened in other parts of the country, where people have been greeted with hostility. They have been greeted with proportion, sense and good management in Devon and Cornwall, which is exactly what we want to see.

My hon. Friend laid down a number of challenges to me, first to appreciate the nature of rural crime in his part of the world. Given that I represent a constituency that is about 220 square miles in size—not far off his —and is largely rural, he will be pleased to know I am well aware of the problems that rural crime can create. He will have noticed that in our highly successful manifesto for the election last year, we had a commitment to allocate some of the extra resources to tackling rural crime. While the allocation of police officers in a particular force is obviously a matter of operational independence for the chief constable to decide, nevertheless at the Home Office we can influence some of the priorities across the country. We hope to turn to rural crime relatively soon.

The funding formula has been a persistent issue for all Members of Parliament, who I think universally claim that it is unfair to their force. That cannot mathematically be correct. Obviously, in any funding formula change there will be losers and winners, yet we seem to have a House of Commons where everybody believes they can be a winner. If there is a review of the funding formula—I cannot give a commitment on that—I would anticipate that there would be a large and vigorous consultation process, in which my hon. Friends here tonight would doubtless participate.

The current funding formula is old and has been around a long time. We have had one or two abortive attempts at reform, and no doubt we will turn to it in time, but before we do so there are important tasks to do—more important to the people we represent—such as fighting the uptick in crime that we have seen across the country in the past few years. Dealing with the county lines problem, which plagues all the constituencies in Devon and Cornwall, is high on our list of tasks to complete first. I am pleased that in the past few weeks, during lockdown, given the drop in volume crime—robbery, burglary and so on—police forces have to been able to concentrate on targeting the villains out there who perpetrate this trade. We have seen some extraordinary results, not least with Operation Venetic, which Members will have seen details of in the newspapers. It broke into a huge international communications network used by the criminal fraternity at a very senior level, and this resulted in 700-odd arrests last week. The data that has been collected from that system in the past few weeks and months means that there will be arrests into the future as we piece together the picture of serious and organised crime, which is delivering drugs into my hon. Friend’s constituency and mine, and damaging our neighbourhoods and, in particular, our young people.

We will see much more such work, including dealing with murder—we have set that as a National Policing Board priority. We will drive down murder and reach back into the crime types that often result in a murder, such as domestic violence, drugs, serious youth violence and gangs. We will be asking police forces to think about whether they can not just detect someone who commits a murder, but prevent them from committing it in the first place, by finding that route towards the crime.

We will see much more of that, too. On acquisitive crime, which I know is a problem in parts of Devon and Cornwall, we have launched our £25 million safer streets fund, which is targeted at particular geographical areas that show they have a problem with acquisitive crime, be it robbery or burglary, but where physical alterations can be made, such as through alley gating, CCTV or better street lighting, which we know can deter crime. The police are then able to concentrate on prolific offenders in both those areas.

There is a huge amount for us to do before we get there. Happily for my hon. Friend, his police force adopts new innovations with alacrity and works hard to try to innovate for itself. Nowhere is that clearer than in its leadership on modern slavery, which has, unfortunately, plagued both counties in the past few years but on which they have taken a lead across the country and shown the way for many other forces as to how the issue should be tackled.

On that note, I congratulate my hon. Friend for gathering us all today to talk about these two beautiful counties and my second favourite subject, which we know is close to the hearts of our constituents: the power and efficacy of their local police force. Although we see from time to time in the newspapers heavy criticism of our police force, we all know that if anything untoward happens to us, they will be our first call.

July 8, 2020
Steve Double – 2020 Speech on Policing in Devon and Cornwall

Below is the text of the speech made by Steve Double, the Conservative MP for St. Austell and Newquay, in the House of Commons on 6 July 2020.

I am delighted to bring this debate to the House, to present and highlight the incredible work that Devon and Cornwall police do, and to raise a number of the very particular, in some cases unique, challenges that they face. I am delighted to be joined this evening by colleagues from Devon. It is one of the few occasions on which out-and-out co-operation and unity can be seen between Devon and Cornwall Members of Parliament.

I place on record very firmly my thanks to Devon and Cornwall police. Day in and day out, week in and week out, throughout the year they do an incredible job keeping the people of our two counties safe. As I am sure we are all aware, the covid-19 pandemic has brought a great number of new challenges to our police across the country. The pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges for our police, as they have had to adapt to new operational and resource pressures, and to a rapidly changing police environment.

Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)

I endorse the fact that it is great to be with Cornwall tonight—not always, but tonight. Seriously, the police are dealing with covid-19 and with lots of tourists coming into our area now. They have a greater challenge than ever, and I very much respect that they police by consent in this country, especially in Devon and Cornwall. Can we ensure that, as our tourists come, they please behave, because that will make the police’s job so much easier?

Steve Double

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I suspect that not for the first time this evening another Member will make a point that I will go on to make, but I join him in acknowledging the very proactive but sensible way Devon and Cornwall police have approached the pandemic. They have indeed policed with consent, and even though they, I believe, have issued the fourth-highest number of fixed penalty notices in the country—I believe we are currently up to just under 1,000—it has been done in a very sensible way.

The police have continued, I believe, to enjoy the overwhelming support and respect of the people of Devon and Cornwall in the way they have gone about policing this pandemic. I want to say a big thank you to them, and I pay tribute to them. I also want to place on record my great thanks to both our police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, and our chief constable, Shaun Sawyer, for the clear leadership they have provided during these past few months, as it has really helped the police on the ground to carry out their work so effectively. In my own constituency, I want to thank the inspectors in Newquay, Guy Blackford, and in St Austell, Ed Gard and the Cornwall commander, our very own IDS—Ian Drummond-Smith—for the way that they have provided the pragmatic and sensible approach that we have needed. I just want to say thank you to them all.

The image of Devon and Cornwall for most people is that of a picturesque, rural and coastal part of the world where people love to visit for their holidays. Policing in Devon and Cornwall is just as challenging as it is anywhere else in the country—in some ways, it is more so because of its very unique situation. Let me give colleagues an idea: the Devon and Cornwall police force area is the largest in England, covering more than 4,000 square miles. Our emergency services deal with more than a million calls per year, and their work is cut out because we have more than 13,600 miles of road, the highest in the country, 85% of which are rural. As we all know, rural roads are, in fact, the most dangerous and often the most challenging to police. The force area also has the longest coastline in the country. Cornwall itself has 675 miles of beautiful cliffs, beaches and coves. Devon is not quite so great or quite so beautiful, but, equally, that in itself presents a number of incredible challenges to our police force.

Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)

I cannot possibly let that stand. Does my hon. Friend agree that the state-of-the-art new police headquarters, based in my constituency of East Devon, is a prime example of the investment that our police need in Devon and Cornwall?

Steve Double

Absolutely. Those improvements are very welcome. They represent, I believe, some of the investment that is going into the area, but, as I will go on to say, it cannot end there. We do need continued investment.

Another factor that is often overlooked when we consider all our public services, but particularly with regard to policing, is the fact that we are a peninsula and therefore not able to share resources with nearby forces or other county areas. That often means that our police are isolated from other assets. I believe that one statistic is that only 10% are within seven miles of another police asset, which in itself presents a number of very great challenges to the way the police operate.

Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)

I would like to highlight, as my hon. Friend has done, the excellent work done by Devon and Cornwall police. The force really has managed huge influxes of visitors, so, despite what he says about Cornwall versus Devon, we have seen a huge influx of visitors to Devon in recent weeks, and we simply cannot borrow from our neighbouring forces given our geography and our extensive rural road network. We just need more local police. Unless visitors are going to start to bring their own, we need a more sustainable solution.

Steve Double

My hon. Friend makes the point very well. I will come on to talk about that in a bit more detail.

Before I go any further, it would be wrong of me not to mention the Isles of Scilly, largely because my wife hails from there. She was born and bred there and her family still live there. It is also another unique part of our force area. The five inhabited islands that are 25 miles off the mainland need to be policed by Devon and Cornwall police, and that adds further complexities to their work.

The Devon and Cornwall police area has a number of very particular challenges. When taken together, it is clear that no other police force in the country has to face this combined complexity. None the less, the Devon and Cornwall police do an incredible job. Devon and Cornwall is the second safest region in England and Wales and has the lowest rate of victim-based crime nationally. But what is incredible is that, despite all those challenges, the force provides an excellent service in keeping us safe with lower than average national funding. The Devon and Cornwall force receives 52p per day per person in police funding, compared with the England and Wales average of 61p per person per day, while having to cope with the challenges that our rural peninsula presents.

In addition to all this, as colleagues have mentioned, we must include the impact of tourism and the summer surge that we see every year. The funding gap is even more significant when we consider that Devon and Cornwall experience the highest level of visitors in terms of overnight stays, second only to London. In fact, I learned during the lockdown that the constituency I have the pleasure of representing has the highest number of overnight stays, at 4.7 million a year, of any individual constituency in the whole of the UK. During the extended tourism season, we experienced a 14% increase in the number of incidents, including an 11.7% increase in recorded crime. This represents the highest seasonal increase in recorded crime across the whole country. The intensity of calls for service seen in the extended summer period places considerable pressure on our services for the rest of the year, as staff seek to catch up on training and annual leave and to address the toll that the summer season pressure takes on their workloads. So the pressure of tourism is not just felt during the peak tourist season; it has an impact on policing across the whole year.

Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and for securing this Adjournment debate. If he would like to have a vote on whether Devon or Cornwall is better, I would take our odds as a good chance. He is talking about the geographical issues as well as the population influx that we have in the south-west. Would he support what has been done by our police and crime commissioner in the councillor advocate scheme, which gives new mechanisms for people across the area to support their police officers and help to eradicate crime?

Steve Double

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because he highlights a point I was going to make. The pressures and the below-average funding that our police face mean that the Devon and Cornwall force is often at the forefront of innovation and finding new ways in which to work and use its resources in the very best, most efficient way. The example he highlights shows a way of working within the community to ensure that effective policing takes place despite having lower than average funding. We should praise our police force for the work that it does but at the same time make the case that it deserves better funding.

I also want to take this opportunity to mention the excellent piece of analysis that the office of the police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall has put together. It is entitled “Understanding the exceptional policing challenges in Devon and Cornwall from tourism, rurality and isolation”. I am sure that the Minister is familiar with this piece of work. It shows in much greater detail the unique challenges that our police force faces.

I want to talk a bit more about funding. The current funding gap between rural and urban police forces needs to be addressed. This is something that I have raised continually since I was first elected five years ago, and I know I was not the first to do so. It is a long-standing issue that needs to be addressed. I would again draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that funding for Devon and Cornwall police is 9p per day less than the England and Wales average, and that when we factor in the adjustment to the population for tourist numbers, it is 13p per day. That situation needs to be addressed, so I seek confirmation from the Minister that any future review of police funding will factor in these different elements and ensure that police funding better reflects the position on the ground and the challenges that the police force actually faces. We need a better funding formula that really reflects the complexities that policing in rural areas, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, faces. The current formula fails to reflect the very high volume of calls for services faced by the police, which cover a very broad nature of incidents. Last year, as much as 84% of Devon and Cornwall police force’s total demand fell under the non-crime categories, many of which occur in rural and remote locations that are very time-consuming to get to, and so are an intensive use of resource. The role that our police officers play in rural areas, more than in urban parts of the country, is much broader than what is captured in the recorded crime figures.

I would like to make reference to the allocation of police numbers. I believe that all colleagues here will have welcomed the 141 new police officers that Devon and Cornwall was allocated out of the initial 6,000 tranche of the 20,000 new officers that we are going to put on to the frontline. However, we await the Government’s decision regarding how the remaining 14,000 of this 20,000 uplift will be allocated. If we are truly to deliver on the Government’s levelling-up agenda across the board, we need rural areas such as Devon and Cornwall to get a better share of new police officers in future. An allocation model based on population, for instance, would provide a truer reflection of the universal service demands placed on policing, given that the vast majority of all emergency calls do not in fact result in a recorded crime, particularly if such calculations include the increase we face through tourism. We do not want an approach that is largely based on recorded crime or levels of specific crimes such as serious violence, because that is urban-centric and favours inner cities over rural areas. When it comes to allocating the new police officers we are recruiting, I ask the Minister to consider these matters carefully to ensure that new officers are deployed in the best way to meet the challenges our police are facing.

I again pay tribute to our police officers across Devon and Cornwall for their hard work and dedication as they continue to work to keep us safe. I am grateful to the Minister for taking the time to listen to this case this evening. I hope he understands the unique challenges and circumstances that we face in our two counties. I look forward to working with him positively, going forward, to ensure that we get the results that we need in Devon and Cornwall.

July 7, 2020
Robert Buckland – 2020 Statement on Courts and Tribunals

Below is the text of the statement made by Robert Buckland, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, in the House of Commons on 1 July 2020.

I am today setting out progress being made to recover the operations of our courts and tribunals in response to the pandemic. Responsibility for the courts and tribunals is shared with the Lord Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunals, to whom I am very grateful for continued close collaboration in this endeavour.

Since March, the priority of the Government, working closely with the judiciary and others, has been to ensure the justice system continues to perform its vital role while keeping court and tribunal users safe in line with public health guidelines. To achieve this, HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has rapidly expanded the use of technology to allow hearings to be conducted by phone and video and temporarily closed around half of its building to focus effort and resources more effectively. The most urgent cases have been prioritised by the judiciary to ensure public safety, protect the vulnerable and safeguard children.

As a result, our courts and tribunals in England and Wales have been able to sustain more activity than many other comparable jurisdictions internationally. Huge credit must go to the judges, magistrates, HMCTS staff, legal professionals and all those involved in proceedings for their work in the face of the extraordinary challenges posed by the pandemic.

Having responded effectively to the immediate crisis, HMCTS is now fully focused on recovering its operation to increase courts and tribunal capacity to deal both with normal workloads across jurisdictions and outstanding cases. The challenges of doing so are no less great, not least because of the constraints imposed by social distancing. But doing so is essential if we are to ensure that our justice system delivers for those it is there to serve.

As part of the Prime Minister’s plan for economic recovery, he announced yesterday that HMCTS will be receiving £142 million of additional capital funding this year to speed up technological improvements and modernise courtrooms, building on the rapid progress made to keep the system running during the coronavirus pandemic. Of this £142 million, £105 million is allocated to improving the court and tribunal estate. This investment—along with £48 million already in the HMCTS budget—will see £153 million invested in improvements to court and tribunal buildings over the coming year, which is the biggest single investment in maintenance of the court estate for over 20 years.

Today, HMCTS has also published a progress update on its recovery plans for the short and medium terms. It is available at www.gov.uk/hmcts and includes the following work.

First, HMCTS is working to increase physical capacity to enable more cases to be heard. All courts and tribunal buildings are being reopened in line with wider advice on social distancing and public safety. Throughout April, over 150 of the 341 sites used for physical hearings were open to the public in response to the pandemic outbreak. As of the beginning of this week, 284 were open following detailed risk assessments and essential modifications to ensure they are safe. Nearly all locations will become operational throughout July, and a range of physical modifications are being made, such as the installation of screens where appropriate.

New criminal jury trials, which had been suspended since late March, were restarted in four Crown courts in the week beginning 18 May, following the implementation of particular measures to ensure the safety of all participants. As of this week, a total of 25 courts are holding trials again.

In addition, HMCTS is exploring options to stagger and extend the operating hours of courts and tribunals, including starting hearings at different times of day and weekend sittings, to manage the flow of people through our buildings and enable more cases to be heard safely. It is working closely with stakeholder groups in different jurisdictions to identify the areas that have the most impact in terms of increasing capacity. HMCTS is also actively locating other buildings from across England and Wales to use as court and tribunal locations or to support the expansion of existing sites. HMCTS is also actively locating other buildings, including new venues and former court buildings, to use as court and tribunal locations on a temporary basis. Ten sites have been identified across England and Wales and these will be confirmed and announced locally in due course.

Secondly, HMCTS is working to expand access to audio and video technology to support more and new types of hearings. There has been a significant increase in the use of such equipment over the last three months and, with the right IT solutions, many more hearings could take place. HMCTS has been rolling out the cloud video platform (CVP) to all criminal courts, and there are plans to provide this across other jurisdictions too. Throughout July, CVP will start to be made available to an increasing number of county courts. We will be rolling out further hardware to improve the quality of video hearings, and we will be finding new, increasingly efficient ways of organising video lists.

Thirdly, HMCTS is introducing a range of measures to make best use of judicial time, support court and tribunal staff and users and ensure the justice system is there for those that need it. It is supporting judges to list in ways that make full use of the space we can safely use and will support alternative dispute resolution for cases where it is appropriate. It is deploying laptops to staff to enhance flexible working to support case activity. In addition, HMCTS will review and implement measures to ensure all vulnerable users are supported effectively to ensure they can access services and participate fully in hearings.

These are all important measures to support the recovery of our courts and tribunals. But returning to pre-covid-19 activity will require sustained and long-term focus. Alongside these operational measures being introduced by HMCTS, the Government continue to keep under review options that will enable more hearings to take place while social distancing restrictions remain in place.

We will also make sure that we learn lessons from what has happened in our response to covid-19. The unprecedented nature of this public health emergency has required all parts of the justice system to adopt new ways of working without the preparation that would normally take place, and under conditions that have not previously been tested. While some changes will be time- limited and will stop with the end of the pandemic, others may be valuable in the longer term. We will therefore listen to feedback from judges, staff, practitioners and users to improve the way we work in the short term, and gather data and other evidence to support continuous improvement. We will also evaluate and review the measures put in place to respond to covid-19, so that we can learn lessons and make well-informed decisions about which should be adopted and/or adapted in the longer term.

Implementation of the courts and tribunals reform programme has continued throughout the pandemic response and new digital services to the public have worked normally. The lessons learned will help inform the next phases of modernisation, building on the existing principles and plans.

I will place a copy of “Covid-19: Overview of HMCTS response” in the Libraries of both Houses.

July 3, 2020