Court Closures — House of Commons, 2016-03-24
Topic: Law and Crime
William Peter Wragg (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), and I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this important debate. I am pleased to speak in it, and I wish to speak up for the principle of local justice and the vital importance of the courthouse in Stockport for my constituents. I welcome last month’s decision by the Ministry of Justice to keep the Stockport courthouse open, particularly in the wake of my campaign with the Ministry of Justice and having had many productive conversations with the Minister As many hon. Members have said, a key principle of our justice system, one that underpins both the magistrates courts and Crown courts, is that justice should be delivered by one’s peers. By extension, that gives rise to the requirement for local justice to be administered by local people within the local area. Those principles have given rise to the patchwork of jurisdictions and local courts that make up the current structure of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. Those principles, under the current courts system, also give rise to the important practical benefits that help to deliver justice effectively. They provide a shorter distance to travel for the relevant parties in cases, including defendants, victims, and witnesses, many of whom are often accompanied by their families and friends to court, and for the magistrates, clerks and staff of the court. They also give rise to smaller benches having a local identity and a social or team aspect. Finally, the distribution of courts not only contributes to local communities, but serves as a catalyst to small micro-economies—we heard about the pies and pasties in Wakefield—and associated services, as well as to the legal professions that the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) mentioned Out of respect for those principles and practical benefits, I also opposed the proposed merger of the local justice area of Greater Manchester, which was considered in a public consultation by the Ministry of Justice at a similar time to the one on courthouses. I made the separate case to the Ministry that in the event of any changes to that local justice area, not all the business of any new merged LJA should be conducted in the Manchester city courts, but rather a significant proportion should still be conducted in courts across Greater Manchester, including that in Stockport I made the case some months ago to the Ministry of Justice to urge that Stockport’s court should remain open and retain at least a significant proportion of its current magistrates court and county court functions. Stockport court has 47 staff and was running at only 54% capacity in 2014, with annual running costs of £879,000. Please allow me to explain why I felt the way I did. The first reason was that those impacted by the proposed closure would be the court users, including victims and witnesses in the magistrates courts, and those involved in small claims, bankruptcy and evictions in the county court. All those are groups of vulnerable people who need the security and convenience of local services, at what is an already stressful time for them. The closure of Stockport courthouse could have severely restricted access to justice and may have ended up being a false economy by simply shifting the operating costs to other areas.