argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I have the happy advantage of having spoken, I think, to that very same judge myself last week when I visited our Nightingale court at Cirencester. Indeed, my hon. Friend is right in several respects to highlight the important work being done in the western region to deal with the heavy case load. The proactive work that is being done by dedicated judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers and all court staff to come together to resolve cases that are capable of proper resolution and to identify and list those cases that absolutely need a trial has been a shining example of how to do it. Similar success has been achieved in Wales in eliminating and dealing with the so-called backlog, and we see that in other parts of the country too That is no reproach to those parts of the country that are facing a particular challenge. There is no doubt—the right hon. Member for Tottenham knows this from his constituency experience—that there is a particular pressure in London and the south-east, where there are still a great number of cases yet to be resolved. However, it is right to say that, in the good work that is being done, supported by investment from Government, we are seeing the sorts of results that my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) talked about. He mentioned potential ways in which—
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I just need to finish the point, and then I will give way to the Chair of the Justice Committee. With regard to how the magistrates court and the Crown court can work together, the short answer is yes, there will be some further potential primary legislation changes. One or two visa matters are already dealt with in the current Bill before Parliament, but I am sure that the sort of uncontroversial change that ensures that the interests of justice are served and which allows magistrates to work more in synthesis with the Crown court will be one that the right hon. Member for Tottenham and Labour would wish to look at carefully and possibly support. I imagine that it would command his support, but I will not prejudge the position, obviously.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): Returning to the matter of rape and serious sexual offences, does the Secretary of State agree that one key issue is that the best determinant of a successful conviction will be not what happens once it comes into the justice end of the system, but the quality of the evidence file that the Crown Prosecution Service has in deciding to bring proceedings, and ensuring, to avoid delay, that it is full and complete at the point at which it arrives in the Crown court? That is what needs to be tackled. Evidence to our Committee shows that much of the problem is delay at the investigation stage, failures in disclosure, failures to pursue proper leads and, sometimes, the failure to deal with victims, complainants and other witnesses sensitively. Is not that perhaps the area that we really need to concentrate on in a genuinely joined-up approach, as has been said?
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely correct about the important early stages of an investigation and the particular problem, frankly, of disclosure. Disclosure is a vital part of our system—it ensures fairness—but for many, particularly young women, who are faced with having to give up their mobile phone, in which their lives are stored, it is a very difficult choice. It is almost Hobson’s choice: give up your phone. What substitute do you have? Suddenly it is gone for months. Your life is on your phone. They are these sorts of choices. Women should not be put in that position—it is just wrong—and we are going to do something about that. I will not open up all the details with regard to the rape review, but the House can see my concern about the early stages of an investigation. The right hon. Member for Tottenham and other Members on both sides of the House rightly talk about the length of time that it takes from a complaint to the outcome of a trial. There is no doubt that while the court process is a part of it, it is by no means the whole part and, very often, the wait has been for many months—and sometimes years—prior to the bringing of the case into court. If a suspect is remanded in custody, of course, the courts continue to work very hard to get those cases dealt with. There are custody time limits. There was a temporary increase to those time limits that I, through the consent of this House, ordered last year, which has now come to an end. It related to the pandemic and, rightly, I ended that, as it is such a serious measure when it comes to deprivation of liberty. However, I assure right hon. and hon. Members that, in cases where custody time limits apply, the courts have been getting on with the cases in a timely and proper way The issue has been those complex cases that perhaps involve many defendants—perhaps defendants on bail—which have had to take their place behind custody cases and which I accept have been taking too long to come to court. I watch the numbers, as the right hon. Gentleman knows—I share some information with him, of course, on a proper basis—and I take into particular consideration the length of time that it takes. I truly will not be satisfied until I see a significant drop in the length of time that cases take from arraignment and charge, when they come into the justice system, to final outcomes. But it is right to say that, certainly in recent weeks, there have been some encouraging signs.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I will judge success—never "mission accomplished", but certainly success—when I see the number of cases that take six months or longer dropping to well below 20% of all cases. That is my personal benchmark. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a date when that will be achieved; what I can say is that there is now a sustained pattern in which the number of cases being dealt with in both Crown and magistrates courts is larger than the number of cases coming in. That, obviously, means one thing—a decline in the overall number The Courts Service’s latest published plan is to see the overall number of cases in the magistrates courts reduce back to pre-covid levels by the end of the year. Every sign that I have been seeing over the past few months suggests that that progress is sustained and sustainable. We should pay tribute to the magistrates, judges and all the court staff who are working so hard to make that real The pressures that we are under are all familiar to us in the House. I look around in this place and see so few people, and that reminds me of the challenge in courts. Imagine the difficulty of running a busy court where people are coming back and forth and covid coming into the middle of it all. The work done to make our courts safe, in accordance with guidelines from Public Health England and Public Health Wales, has been immense. We invested about £113 million in safety measures —from perspex screens right through to social distancing measures, plus the Nightingale courts programme, which is allowing us to create the sort of capacity needed to deal with the case load. Plus there is the commitment I made, to which the right hon. Member for Tottenham alluded, that there should be no upper limit on the number of sitting days that can be used by the Crown court In other words, the Government and I have clearly signalled to all involved in the system that all systems are go and only the inevitable constraints of the current covid pandemic and social distancing rules would hold back the sort of full-throttle progress that I would love to see. If we continue with the common endeavour of the vaccination programme—that race that it is so important to win—and continue to make progress, I am convinced that will be reflected in improved figures at our courts.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew John Carter (Conservative, Centre-right): The Lord Chancellor is absolutely right to pay tribute to court staff, magistrates and judges. As he knows, I sit as a magistrate and have seen the work that has continued right the way through the pandemic. What he has missed, though, is the investment that the Government have made in technology. I have been able to sit here, in the House of Commons, and undertake justice procedures for Merseyside so that we can keep the process and the wheels of justice moving forward. That investment has made a significant difference, too.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to be prompted by my hon. Friend, who anticipates what I was just about to say about the next limb of our investment, which is in technology. At the beginning of the pandemic, about 500 cases or so were being dealt with by way of telephone or remote technology across the whole of England and Wales. Last week, the number reached 20,000—just under half all the cases heard every week in our various jurisdictions That has not happened by accident; it has happened as a result of significant Government investment in the hardware and software so that the technology works as well as possible for all court users. We continue, through the £1 billion court reform programme launched in 2017, to evolve, refine and improve the technology. All the measures that we have invested in are supported by the biggest single increase in court maintenance in nearly 20 years—the £142 million that I announced last summer. That is further evidence of the concerted action that I and the Government have taken since the outset of the crisis Plans were outlined for recovery in the criminal courts in September last year—most notably, our commitment to create 290 courts that could be used for jury trials. But we did better than that: we now have over 300 courts that can be safely used for jury trials—and they are happening day after day. We published our plans for other court recovery, relating to other jurisdictions, in November. I can remember a time at the beginning of this crisis when there was a serious question as to whether the wheels of justice could carry on rolling at all, but at no time did we stop. Again, that is as a result of the application and dedication of everybody involved. The most difficult and troubling moment for all of us concerned in the system was the decision to stop jury trials at the end of March 2020. There was a two-month hiatus, but it did mean that in late May of that year we were among the first jurisdictions in the world to start jury trials again. That was a remarkable achievement and a testament to everybody who got involved in that endeavour. Clearly, that has had a consequence and an impact, and I do not seek to shy away from the reality of that. However, I can sincerely say to the House that our robust action—the investment we made, the multi-layered approach we are taking—is yielding the sort of results that all right hon. and hon. Members would welcome: the sort of outcomes for witnesses and victims that we all want to see. Can we do more? Yes, we can, and we are going to do more, not just in the ongoing work to recover from covid, but on the legislative framework, which I think we all agree needs to be enhanced.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): One area of crime that has seen a significant increase during the pandemic is pet theft, with the number of dogs being stolen in Suffolk alone having doubled. I very much welcome the Lord Chancellor’s taskforce on pet theft. Does he expect that it will lead to legislation in the current Session?
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who raises an important issue. Clearly, the abduction and theft of much-loved pets has caused real distress to too many people. During the lockdown, we have seen the rise in pet ownership, because of the comfort and company that much-loved pets bring, yet there is no doubt that there is an insidious market in the underhand sale of animals. Clearly, there is a wider issue here that needs to be looked at, which is why I was delighted to help bring together my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Environment Secretary to form the taskforce. We are looking at legislative measures, whether they relate to enhancing cruelty laws, on which we have already taken important action, increasing the maximum to five years, or to looking at stamping out the trade itself, in a way that we did several years ago with regard to scrap metal, where there were a spate of thefts and real misery for many people. We are looking at this in great depth and we aim to come back in a short while with a report. If that means we need to legislate, of course we will do so I wanted to talk about victims. The hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) is not in his place, but I wanted to pay a bit of a tribute to him for the work he did when he was in the shadow team with the right hon. Member for Tottenham. The hon. Gentleman has been consistent on these issues and I respect that, and I listened carefully to what he said. My proposed way forward of having, first, a proper and full consultation to make sure that this legislation is future-proofed and fit for purpose, together with the draft Bill approach, will give everybody the chance to really bring a cross-party flavour to what our deliberations should be, to make sure that any product is going to be the result of mature and careful deliberation, so that we are not just paying lip service to these issues and not just enshrining the victims’ code into law, important though that is, but we are looking carefully at how people, organisations and agencies are held accountable. That is the big question we all need to ask ourselves. Here is the challenge for the right hon. Gentleman and others in this House: we have to balance the important principles of independence of prosecutorial authorities and other agencies within the criminal justice system, with the clear and present need for victims of crime to feel that if something has gone wrong, not only can they go and complain to somebody, but there is an outcome they can be satisfied with—there is accountability for any failure or dislocation in the system. That is what we all need to put our shoulders to the wheel on. I am sure that, in the spirit of the exhortation from the right hon. Gentleman, he will take that away and consider the offer that I make for how we can create a truly transformative victims law.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I am saddened by some of this debate, because I genuinely like and respect both my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who are committed politicians and committed lawyers. We missed a bit of the seriousness of the debate in some of the party political knock-around that inevitably happens in these cases. The truth is that this is a really important issue, and both of them have elements of force and truth in the cases that they make. There is actually more common ground than one might read from some of the noise in between. I would have thought that anyone who listened to the very reasonable approach of the Lord Chancellor would say, with respect to the shadow Secretary of State, that he was the wrong messenger to shoot at. The Lord Chancellor, like me, has immersed his life in the criminal law. Between us, we have clocked up about half a century of doing the publicly funded, the unfashionable, and the rough end of the trade. It is not that we have not seen exactly the things that the right hon. Gentleman talks about on the ground. It is not that I have not seen or experienced the frustrations of victims when I have prosecuted offences that we were not able to bring to a conviction, or the difficulties in sitting in a police cell trying to persuade often troubled defendants who have committed very serious matters to accept the reality of the evidence. Those are things that cannot always be reduced to simple statistics. Behind the statistics of conviction rates and prosecution rates there are individual cases that are all fact-specific in every instance. It is not in the gift of any Government to guarantee a given rate of conviction or a prosecution for any type of offence, because the nature of the system is that an independent jury, properly directed by an independent judge, must come to a decision on the evidence that is put before it.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Laura Rose Farris (Conservative, Centre-right): A point that I think we can all agree on is that victims should not have to wait. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen how difficult it is to accelerate justice. In May last year, Lord Brown, the retired Supreme Court justice, wrote in The Times that it was time to abandon jury trials. He recalled the experience of judge-only trials in Northern Ireland during the troubles and recommended that we temporarily pursue that route The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) disagreed. On 20 June last year, he wrote: "You don’t fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair." He later came forward with his own proposal for "wartime juries" of seven people, which he thought might reduce the backlog by 15% to 20%. A number of practitioners disagreed, including Baroness Kennedy, who said that that was "opening the door to sacrificing the precious way people in our communities contribute to something really important." Again and again, she has talked about the magic number of 12 people on a jury, which is what the Lord Chancellor has pursued I say that not to criticise any of the views to which I have referred, but because there are good, fair, sensible arguments for and against any of those options. All of them are imperfect, but all have at their heart access to justice and the execution of article 6 rights. I respectfully say that these delicate, nuanced considerations about delivering justice deserve more than the atmospherics of an Opposition day debate It is important to contextualise our backlog. It is striking how much better we are doing than equivalent jurisdictions. New Zealand has a population of 5 million and a backlog of 75,000. New York City—one city in one state—has a backlog of 50,000 criminal cases. It is important to look at the progress that we are making through the backlog. The latest figures published by the MOJ up to, I think, 25 April show that disposals are now at a level 5% higher than before the pandemic.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Laura Rose Farris (Conservative, Centre-right): I think I understand the hon. Lady’s implication. Of course I am not suggesting that the backlog is dealt with, but the critical point is the progress that we are making through the backlog rather than the number itself. It is right to say that disposals now outstrip receipts and we are reducing numbers, which is something that I think we should be very proud of I also think that there is real cause for optimism in how remote hearings have been used. From a standing start, we saw courts embracing nascent technology, and in 12 months they have delivered everything from a 12-week trial in the High Court to a complex jury inquest in Kent, all of it online. These changes are becoming embedded. In the future, we will be delivering justice in a way that is more efficient, more economical and crucially, I hope, more swift I would like to spend a moment on the issue of justice for women. I echo the remarks of the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), in that I think we do women a disservice if we reduce these questions to a political tit-for-tat, although I think the mood has shifted a little bit since the start of this debate. There are Opposition Members for whom I have a lot of respect on this issue, and they know that. The Government have made good progress. Stalking, choking, revenge porn and rough sex are ugly crimes that have found their way on to the statute book, where they did not previously exist. Of course, we are not there yet, and it is a raw feeling to be speaking on this in the week when Wayne Couzens admitted to the abduction and rape of Sarah Everard, but that crime did not happen because of an absence of laws. In fact, Harriet Wistrich from the Centre for Women’s Justice gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee this morning, where she said that the fact is we do not need more legislation. Her concern, which she expressed powerfully, is that the police are failing to implement what is already there. Very respectfully, when I read the Labour Green Paper, I saw almost no reference to police failings at all I also think that we as a House have to be honest. While young people can pick up a phone, click a few buttons and watch rape porn, we have a problem. While schools and universities, and even workplaces, tolerate or at least turn a blind eye to misogyny and harassment in their midst, we have a problem. When young people are living in families where they see perhaps violence and misogyny exhibited in the home, we have a problem. The justice system is the end point, but if we are serious about violence against women and girls, we owe it to the victims to work seriously and collaboratively on the causes.