Welcome to this afternoon’s sitting of the Justice Committee, the last before the Christmas recess. We are finishing in style by having the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor, the right honourable David Lammy, in front of us. I also welcome Dr Jo Farrar, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice; I am sure, Permanent Secretary, that you will not be offended to hear that most of our questions will be directed towards the Lord Chancellor today, but it is very good to have you here, for your first time before this Committee. Lord Chancellor, I think you are going to make a short opening statement, but first we have to make our declarations of interest. We will begin with Sir Ashley Fox.

Good afternoon. I am Sir Ashley Fox, the Member for Bridgwater. My interests are as declared.

Good afternoon. I am Neil Shastri-Hurst, the Member for Solihull West and Shirley. In addition to my interests as declared on the register, I am a practising barrister who holds a current practising certificate with the Bar Council, and I am an associate tenant of No5 Chambers.

I am Andy Slaughter, the MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick and the Chair of this Committee. I am a non-practising barrister. I am a member of the GMB and Unite trade unions, and the patron of two justice-related charities: The Upper Room and Hammersmith and Fulham Law Centre.

I am Sarah Russell. Before arriving here, I was a solicitor specialising in employment law. I am on various APPGs, as you would imagine, and a member of various trade unions. I co-chair the access to justice APPG.

Good afternoon. I am Pam Cox, the Member of Parliament for Colchester. My interests are as declared on the register. I chair the APPG on penal affairs.

Good afternoon. I am Vikki Slade, the MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole. My interests are as declared, but none is relevant; I am just here as a person who has been involved with the justice system—on the right side!

I am Tessa Munt; I am the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills in Somerset. All my interests are declared on the register, but I also want to point out that I am a vice-chair and director of WhistleblowersUK, which is a non-profitmaking organisation, and I am a Vice-Chair of Pam’s APPG on Penal Affairs, among other things. Those are the most relevant of my interests.

I am Tony Vaughan, the MP for Folkestone and Hythe. I am a practising barrister, also with a valid practising certificate. I am an associate tenant of Doughty Street Chambers. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Thank you very much. Lord Chancellor, over to you.

Thank you very much, Chair. This is my first opportunity to appear before the Select Committee. I thank the Committee for its work to date. I did take the opportunity to look at the video of the previous Lord Chancellor’s appearance, just a year ago. You will know from testimony to your inquiries over the last 18 months or so that the Government inherited two crises, effectively. One was the prisons crisis—a capacity crisis on which we had to act. We now have the Sentencing Bill going through, which will substantially alleviate that crisis. Then, of course, we have the backlog crisis in our courts. I sometimes think we should describe that as a waiting-list crisis, so the public can fully understand—those who are not in the criminal justice system. I suspect some of your questions will pertain to the courts Bill, which will come forward next year to deal with that crisis. I am very pleased that we have been able to put more money into legal aid, particularly for criminal barristers and solicitors for immigration and housing cases, and that we are also investing in our prison system. There is a lot to do. This is an area that suffered hugely during the years of austerity. Not everyone sees inside a prison, but our prisons, as you will know, are in a dire state. We need to invest in staff and technology—there is much to do—but it is important that in investing that £4.7 billion, we deliver those 14,000 prison places by 2031 to alleviate pressure in the estate, as the Sentencing Bill becomes an Act. It is also important that we continue to deal with foreign national offenders, which is a subject that the public care a lot about, and that over the course of this next period we uplift probation in particular. There is £700 million in the spending review going into probation. Getting probation back to where it should be is essential, and that is why I made probation my first visit as Lord Chancellor. I look forward to your questions, but the theme that I keep returning to is telling a bigger story about justice. Justice is not just about criminal justice. We also have our civil courts. There is a £47 billion contribution from legal services to GDP in this country, which is hugely important in terms of growth. We must ensure that the system is modernised over this next decade, with digital at the heart of that in the Prison Service, our courts and right across the system, so that we can alleviate some of the pressures that our probation officers are facing.

Thank you very much. The Committee takes your point—we do a lot of work on civil, family and other forms of justice. We will be touching on those this afternoon, but a lot of the questions this afternoon will be around criminal justice, particularly around part 1 of the Leveson review and the Government’s response to it on releases of prisoners and on the probation service, which you mentioned. We wrote to you with a number of detailed questions in relation to matters concerning jury trials and related matters from Leveson, and you kindly replied. That has just been published online. It answered some of our questions, but thankfully, for the benefit of this afternoon, not all of them. I will begin by asking a few questions on Leveson, and then my colleagues will come in as they wish. The first point that occurred to us is: has there been a formal response to Leveson? That is a very substantial piece of work—388 pages. We know some of the things that the Government have said they will adopt, go further than, or don’t comment on, but will there be a formal response? The second part of that question is: you mentioned legislation and a courts Bill, so what needs to go into that Bill and when can we expect to see it?

There will be a formal response in the spring, and it is my intention to come forward with a courts Bill and legislation in the spring as well. I know the Committee is also focused on the modelling that sits behind the position we have come to, and I assure the Committee that there will be proper scrutiny when we publish the Bill in terms of the impact assessment on both economic issues and inequalities. Understandably, parliamentarians will want to scrutinise and understand that. So I have those three things to do. Alongside that, I know the Committee will understand that I will be settling the concordat with the Lady Chief Justice, which effectively is also pertinent to some of that modelling as we draft legislation, invest and reform at the same time.

We have had Leveson for some months now. We are talking about a response and a Bill in the spring. Can you be any more specific than that? To make some of the suggestions that you have regarding changes in the mode of trial, powers of magistrates and judges sitting alone, you must have done some number crunching. You must have that information available. Why can you not publish that now?

Some of those numbers will relate to the concordat process and where we end up in terms of investment and sitting days, so I am not able to publish the modelling now. The modelling is an ongoing process, as you would expect. I indicated the landing spot in my statement a couple of weeks ago, to indicate where the Government was. We will be coming forward with a Bill and the detailed work is going on as we speak, and some of that detailed work, of course, involves work with the judiciary.

Do you know when part 2 of Leveson will be published? Will your response deal with that? Will the legislation deal with it as well?

Sir Brian has indicated that he also expects to produce his response in the spring, so the spring will be very busy. Part of the reason why it was determined to have part 1, which is about the reform that will require legislation, and part 2, which is really about processes and efficiency and is unlikely to require legislation, is that we could get on with both, if you like, at the same time. However, once we introduce the Bill, we are obviously very much in the hands of Parliament regarding how long it takes to pass through the House. I do not anticipate that Leveson part 2 will require legislation; I think it will be about processes that we can get on with. We will need to consider it carefully, so I am not anticipating an immediate response to Leveson part 2.

We know that “spring” is a moveable feast—a moveable season—in political terms. Where do we go now to find out exactly what the Government are proposing to do? I ask that because this is a subject of great interest to the public and to politicians now, and we are reliant on individual statements, answers to questions and things of that nature. That does not seem satisfactory for something as substantial as this.

I recognise the need for this Committee to be able to scrutinise and I will reflect on how I can support the Committee in conducting that scrutiny. It may be that there is a pre-legislative way in which the Committee can get on with its important work. I know that you recognise that it is not unusual for Government to make a statement. If we come forward with legislation in the spring, that will be still in this Session of Parliament and pretty early for the Government to come forward with that legislation. And as I have said, the legislation will have the impact assessments and it will be subject to a lot of scrutiny, including by this Committee.

When do you expect the Bill to become law? Presumably not in this Session of Parliament, but in the next Session, before the end of the year. When will the measures in the Bill take effect?

My hope is that the Bill gets Royal Assent by the end of next year. That is why I want to bring forward the Bill in the spring and how we will get the maximum benefit of the reforms. Effectively, the backlog will continue to go up even if we are getting on with implementing part 2 of Sir Brian Leveson’s work, and even notwithstanding the fact—we will talk further about this, no doubt—that I want to continue to invest in sitting days. Until we get this legislation, in fact, we will not be able to do all three of things: investment; reform; and modernisation.

You are talking about substantial changes to mode of trial, restriction of jury trial, substantial increase in magistrates’ sentencing powers and judges sitting alone, not even with magistrates alongside them. Would you be making any or all of those changes were it not for the backlog?

That is a very good question. Modernisation is required anyway. Let us put the backlog to one side; when we look at the trends, they are worrying: triable either-way offences in the magistrates court are taking longer; trials are taking longer; police arrests are up 10%. The very experienced colleagues in this room recognise that the big innovations in policing and in investigations—DNA evidence, phenotype evidence within that DNA evidence, CCTV, the complexity of data and systems—are all leading to lengthy trials. The time has come to modernise a criminal court system that has effectively not been modernised since 1971—the year before I was born. Yes, we do have to deal with the backlog. It is 78,000 now; it will be over 100,000 by 2028-29 if we do nothing and heading in the wrong direction. Frankly, because of what is happening and because this place is legislating more, historical crimes are driving arrests. There is complexity with some of the sexual offences that this House has put on to the statute book. All that requires some reform to the criminal justice system.

It was almost a yes or no question.

Sorry. I wanted to give you that.

Is the answer that, yes, even if the backlog was at a sustainable level, you would still be looking to make some of these changes, including restrictions on jury trials and not allowing a rehearing from a magistrate’s decision? Those are significant changes and restrictions to the way in which the criminal justice system operates. Are you saying that you would be going ahead with them in any event?

Yes.

Obviously, there are several ways in which you can tackle the backlog: we can become more efficient, you can put more money in or you can make the changes that you are proposing. I do not know whether those are all worked out, but in the letter you sent to me last night, you say, “The open caseload will be over 116,000 cases in our central scenario by June 2029 without taking further action, and over 125,000 cases in our high scenario, compared to around 78,000 currently.” I am assuming—it does not say so in terms—that that is if you do nothing.

That is right.

If you do nothing, those are the sort of levels that it will rise to over that period of time. Clearly, you could have pushed ahead with additional resources. For example, you could increase sitting days or repair courts so that more courts can be used. You could make the system more efficient. You could make prison transport more efficient, so that there were not so many delays in dealing with prisoners in custody before you had to make these controversial, substantial and difficult choices, which require legislative change. Why did not you take that approach?

I recognise the question, and we do have to do it. Sir Brian concluded, and I accept his judgment and his conclusions, that yes, efficiencies were important, but they would not be sufficient. Let us just step back and understand why they would not be sufficient. One is—

Sorry to interrupt you, but I think what we are looking for is figures. If you just did the mode of trial and other changes, what would the backlog be, before you put any efficiency measures or extra funding in? Can you break down how that backlog divides among those various cures?

It is not as straightforward as that, first because we must let Brian do his work. Let me just come back to what we are really saying. Running a Crown court trial is a bit like running an operation in a big hospital: it requires more than just the judge and the jury. It requires barristers, and we have, as you know, got a real problem with the pipeline of criminal barristers. That is why I made the announcement that I made. It will take time for new barristers to come on stream. It also requires courtrooms. This Committee has taken an interest in maintenance issues and we have found extra money, but, again, restoring our courts to where they were, given that they were languishing for 14 years, will also take time. Victims cannot wait, and should not have to wait, and that is why Brian concluded that we must deal with the efficiencies, but we also have to act. When we look at the cases that are vacated and effectively unable to go forward, part of those are related to efficiency, but some are related to how the process is working between magistrates and the Crown court. The judgment that Sir Brian took—I accept that he is right in this—was to look at whether our magistrates could do more and whether we should retain the right to elect. There are decisions that we have made in terms of mode of trial. Effectively, of the 3% of Crown court cases that go forward—towards the bottom end of that, between the magistrates and up to three years—are we content for a shoplifting case, a driving without insurance case or cases like that to be before a single judge? That is the balance of judgment that I have taken.

I will pause there, because I know a number of colleagues want to come in.

Lord Chancellor, I would like to come back to the issue of the evidence base for curtailing jury trials. Are you able to confirm whether the Government currently hold empirical data demonstrating that restricting the right to trial by jury will materially reduce the backlog?

Yes, of course we do.

If that data exists, will you not only publish it but ensure that it includes all the assumptions associated with it, all the modelling and all the sensitivity analysis?

As you know, Ministers have a range of data available to them. That data is being updated and validated. Sir Brian relied on some of that data, which will inform our data. As I have said, we will publish the impact assessments alongside the Bill. I will seek to help the Committee as it seeks to scrutinise that, as we get to that stage in the spring.

At the risk of repeating the question, you have said that you will publish the impact assessment, but will you include within that all the assumptions, all the modelling and all the sensitivity analysis?

I will of course include the assumptions that sit behind where we have got to, which enables Parliament to properly scrutinise and helps people understand why the Government have arrived at the position that they have.

I have noticed that you are reluctant to use the word “all”. Will you produce all the analysis?

I will do what I deem appropriate for the purposes of this Bill passing and to ensure parliamentary scrutiny. I have been in Parliament for 25 years and have seen a number of impact assessments, both economic and equalities—equalities is particularly important in this area, as is the economic data that we believe will drive down the figures. Of course, that will be available to the Committee.

You will be aware that both the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association have concerns about this specific proposal.

Of course I am aware.

They have requested the data. Is there a reason that that data has not been shared with them at this stage, given that they are such critical stakeholders?

We will continue to work with the Bar Council in the usual way, as you would expect.

Do you accept their position, which is that Sir Brian’s recommendations, while they are a worthy piece of work, have neither been piloted nor modelled thoroughly? Do you accept the position that the Bar Council and the CBA have taken, or do you think they are wrong?

We asked Brian to do a very serious piece of work. He was supported by a panel. Some of that work involved modelling in other common law jurisdictions which were comparable in terms of the changes that were made. You will also know that the Department publishes a lot of data—recent court and prison projections were published on 4 December. As I have said, I totally understand that in order to get any legislation through, it is important that Parliament is able to do the proper scrutiny, so I want to make sure that the impact statements are sound and thorough, and that parliamentarians are able to do their work both in this place and the other place.

There are currently in the region of 17,500 prisoners on remand in this country. Will these reforms apply retrospectively?

No.

You have also acknowledged that the proposals will not make a difference to the existing backlog in the short term. Given that that is the case, can you explain to victims, witnesses and defendants currently awaiting trial—often years in the future—why you are not looking at measures that will affect the backlog in a more expedient manner?

No, that is a misunderstanding. What I have said is that legislation takes time, and that the proposals we have accepted, and are making in relation to Sir Brian’s recommendations, will of course come into effect only at Royal Assent. But we are getting on with investing in sitting days; that is happening now, and I have increased those sitting days. When the Lord Chancellor was here last year, we were talking about 106,000 sitting days. I am now able, owing to record funding now, to talk about 111,250 sitting days—over 5,000 more than the previous Government funded. So sitting days are up. The investment is up. Investing in court maintenance is essential and is happening. Modernisation is key, and part of that will emanate from Sir Brian’s part 2, which we can get on with from the spring of next year. That will be happening.

Sir Brian’s report actually envisaged trials taking place with a judge and magistrates, not judges sitting alone. How do the Government reconcile that distinction with the current proposals being put forward?

I think Sir Brian recognised that we might come to a different judgment. The judgment I came to was that we are giving our magistrates more power in the magistrates court in terms of their sentencing—up to 18 months, although the Government have the power to take that up to 24 months. I am recruiting more magistrates at this time, and, on reflecting on other systems, particularly the system in Canada, I therefore settled on the single judge.

Does that not mean that the evidence base that Sir Brian reached was based on his hypothesis of a judge and magistrates, not on a judge sitting alone, and that extrapolating from it would produce a false result?

That is why the hon. Member rightly expects the modelling and the impact assessment in relation to the Bill that we have brought forward, and that will be available to the Committee.

That opens the question that the modelling has not been done to date, and therefore this is a proposal that is—

It does not. It opens the question, as I said, that the Government are doing that modelling. Some of that modelling is based on where we end up with sitting days and the concordat with the Lady Chief Justice. That will be available at the point at which we publish a Bill in the spring, but I will seek to do what I can in relation to this Committee before then, if I can. That is the undertaking I have given.

But it is the case that the modelling is not complete at this stage, and therefore it is based on assumptions that—

The modelling is ongoing.

Do you accept that, even if Sir Brian’s analysis is correct and it leads to a 20% reduction in trial length, that would apply to only a fraction—about 3%—of trials in total?

Yes.

The other issue, of course, since you have touched on it, Lord Chancellor, is the presence of advocates and having enough people going into the criminal Bar. We know that junior barristers do not go into the criminal Bar because it pays well; they go into it because they have a passion for criminal law. Part of that is the thrill, if I can put it that way, of being a jury advocate. By removing those opportunities, are you concerned that that will reduce the number of individuals who choose to go into the criminal Bar, when they could have a much more profitable career perhaps in chancery or other areas of law?

It is precisely because I am worried about the pattern that we are seeing with the criminal Bar, and indeed with criminal solicitors, that I have made the investment I have in those match-funded mini-pupillages, so that we see the next generation of criminal barristers coming through. That is hugely important over this time. Obviously, there has been some attention on the changes to jury trials, but I do not think we should lose sight of the significant investment we are making in legal aid, the uplift in fees and the match-funded mini-pupillage scheme, which is designed to ensure that the next generation of lawyers is coming through. Part of your question is about whether there is almost a disincentive to becoming a criminal barrister. I emphasise that trials are running longer and are more complex, and there will be a significant number of jury trials. Indeed, the patterns in more serious cases suggest that there will still be a lot of jury trials, so there will be quite enough work to go around.

Has your Department undertaken any analysis of the impact that the proposed changes to jury trials will have on retention, particularly at the junior end of the Bar?

The analysis done by the Criminal Bar Association, the Bar Council and the Department on workforce informs the decisions we have made about mini-pupillages precisely to deal with some of those retention issues. Following our reforms, it is still the case that around three quarters of trials in the Crown court will continue to be heard by a jury.

That is a slightly different answer—that is about the wider retention issue of the criminal Bar. I am asking specifically about your proposed changes to jury trials. Have you done any analysis on that?

As I have indicated, of course we have done analysis. That is why we are putting taxpayers’ money into a match-funded system to increase the number of junior barristers. Sitting behind that, of course, is the analysis of trends we are seeing in the criminal Bar.

Before I bring in Vikki Slade, could you clarify whether it is a quarter or a half of jury trials? I asked that question of the Prime Minister yesterday at the Liaison Committee, and he said it is a quarter. You have just said it is a quarter, but your letter to me from last night says that, of the 3% currently sent to trial, 0.5% will be at the Crown court bench division, 1% will be at the magistrates court and 1.5% will continue with juries. That is half, and that is the answer one of your junior Ministers, Jake Richards, also gave to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, at which I was a guest last week. Is it half of jury trials that will be dealt with in other ways, or is it a quarter?

Sorry, I am confused.

I think we are all agreed on the figure that 3% of criminal trials are now conducted in front of a jury. Is that going to go down by 0.75 percentage points or by 1.5 percentage points?

By 1.5 percentage points.

So about half of those trials?

Yes, about half.

Some of this will be a little repetitive, but I think it is really important to get to the bottom of it. I am slightly confused by some of the answers you have given. First, I will go back to Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations. As I mentioned at questions earlier, I met the Law Society today and it is deeply concerned. It has said, “The Leveson proposals, while an uncomfortable compromise, were understandable given the…challenge.” However, it said that going beyond the Leveson recommendations is not acceptable, as far as it is concerned. The main reason is the retention of an element of lay participation in determining guilt. Where I am slightly muddled is that you said earlier that you would be doing this anyway, if there was not a backlog, which suggests that it is a matter of principle, whereas you have also said there is a backlog, a pattern of behaviour and under-investment. I am not quite sure whether it is your personal principle that we should reduce by half the number of jury trials, or whether it is circumstance. Could you give me a bit more of an understanding of that? I am deeply worried that the Law Society, the Bar Council and others, and the majority of the public, are uncomfortable. Why are so many people uncomfortable with this while you seem very convinced that it is the right thing to do?

Let’s step back, Ms Slade. I have been in Parliament when you have quite rightly asked very strong questions about victims, and so far in this Committee, victims have not been mentioned. We are making these changes so that women who have been raped do not have to wait three years—so that a young women who is raped at 16 does not have to wait until her second year of university for a trial to come forward. That is what I keep in my mind’s eye. You will recognise that, of course, it is my and the Government’s job to hold the legal profession and victims at the same time, and to look at the entire system. That is the responsibility of the Government—I see you nodding your head. We can hold at one moment the recommendations that Sir Brian has made. We have reflected on those recommendations over many months, we have come forward in the last few weeks with our plans, and we will then get to a Bill and legislation. I have said that I do not think Sir Brian’s recommendations are the whole story, in its entirety, because sitting days are—quite rightly—important, but so is modernisation within our courts and investment. I hold that at the same time. I have also said to you that, when we as a Government look at this system—and the criminal justice system—there has not been substantial reform since 1971 to, effectively, the jury system that we had. When we reflect on the patterns in crime—with arrests up, serious violent crime, technology driving historic offences, more arrests and trials that go on for longer—I believe that reform would have been necessary. So I do not think this is an either/or—I think you can hold both those two things at the same time.

Okay. Can I just make reference to something else that was talked about with the lawyers? My colleague was talking about the Bar, but you referenced defence lawyers. The Law Society told me today that it had an event where it introduced 120 new lawyers, of which just one was going to be a criminal lawyer. It does not matter how many rights the Government take away from people to have a jury trial; if there are not enough lawyers, enough courts or enough legal advisers in the magistrates courts, justice is not going to be done, and that victim is still going to have to wait. Those other things cost a lot of money. What are you doing to influence your colleagues in the Treasury to fund Justice properly, because it has been underfunded, as you have said yourself, for many years? I do not think it is just the last 14 years; I think it has been decades.

Ms Slade, you make my case for me; thank you. You are absolutely right, and that is why I said this is like an operation. You need the barristers and the solicitors, and that is why I announced funding of £34 million a year for criminal legal aid advocates. That is why I have match-funded the criminal barrister pupillages, as I have said. That is why court maintenance funding was £120 million last year, and is rising to £148 million this year. Clearly, maintenance takes time, and it will not happen overnight. All of that ecology has to come together effectively to have a trial, and all of it requires investment, modernisation and reform—those are the three things underpinning what I am trying to convey to the Committee.

Do you think that the money you are putting in is sufficient to make enough of a nudge to have a real impact on the backlog? If they are all incremental, tiny changes, what assessment has been done of how much change the collective will actually have?

I want to see the backlog and the waiting lists coming down towards the end of this Parliament, by the next election. I want to see the trend going downwards. That is what we are trying to achieve, and that is my ambition.

I have one more question, if that is okay. This is the third time I have asked you this, so you probably know exactly what it is, but I am going to talk about magistrates and the magistrates court. The question was asked earlier on this morning, but I am not sure that we got a particularly robust answer. It may be that you might need to come back on it. It is about the impact on magistrates being comfortable with taking cases that potentially have much longer sentences. I said this morning that 18 months ago we were at six-month sentencing for magistrates but, by the time we get to the end of next year, they could be looking at cases with a two-year sentence. That is a very big difference for somebody without legal training and who is effectively a member of the community; I value having magistrates working in the system, but they will be taking a decision to deprive someone of their liberty for two years. That is very different from imposing a fine or a very short sentence. What assessment has been done on the impact on magistrates’ ability to cope with that and to manage much longer trials? As you said, the Crown court trials are a lot longer. Also, what about the willingness of people to become and stay magistrates, given that the role is completely different, and they are effectively the school governors of the system? Might they feel that this is too much of an overreach?

The Magistrates’ Association is supporting these reforms and are up to it, but they are not doing that in a way that suggests that they do not require training and investment to go in. Just as magistrates were trained to move from six months to one year, over this next period we have some time—because it will take until the end of the year to get Royal Assent followed by implementation in 2027—to train up our magistrates to take on those new responsibilities. Magistrates completed around 1.4 million criminal cases last year. That is a substantial amount, and I hugely thank our magistrates for their work. I am going to be increasing the investment into our magistracy, and I want to see increased recruitment into it. My sense is that people are up for being a magistrate. They are a very important part of our system in the lay role that they take. My view is that they can do more; they are up for more; they can make these decisions; they do the job very well indeed and I want to support them to do more.

Lord Chancellor, you have spoken strongly about the importance of centring victims in this discussion, which I entirely agree with. At the moment, the average wait from reporting a rape to the end of a criminal trial is six years. What figure do you think would be acceptable for that period?

A woman waiting six years is our country and our state being in breach of the Magna Carta clause 40 edict that justice delayed is justice denied. I have said that I want to see the backlog falling by the end of the next Parliament. That is as ambitious as I believe I am able to be. I urge the Committee to reflect hard on what I and Sir Brian Leveson have said, which is that we will need reform, as well as investment and dealing with the efficiencies, if we are serious about that. If we curtail that reform, we will not have that effect. We will come forward with the modelling and the impact assessment that the Committee has been discussing during the passage of the Bill. Of course, I want to get those six years down.

Lord Chancellor, I reiterate my question: what do you consider, in a civilised society and the seventh richest country on earth, to be an acceptable waiting time?

I would hope that no woman would be waiting much longer than two years to get justice. That is what I think would feel acceptable in a complex system and a major democracy such as ours—but we are a significant way from that at this point.

In terms of the targets that you are setting, when do you anticipate that we would reach that point?

The only undertaking that I can give to the Committee—I am sorry that I am not able to give a bigger undertaking than that—is that the backlog will be falling by the end of the next Parliament. Ms Russell, you have heard questions from this Committee that might limit those reforms. Therefore, I do not believe that reducing the wait for the victim, a desire that I know you hold sincerely, would be produced by the system if we were just dealing with efficiencies—that is my hesitation.

I quite agree that the system will not produce that improvement if we are just dealing with efficiencies. I also question whether the proposed reforms would even touch the sides of moving that dial down from six years. I think the ambition is to see this start to come down a bit.

It is important to emphasise that, if we take this new CCBD, and it is dealing with, say, possession of a class B drug, shoplifting or the ownership of a dangerous dog, it is dealing with those cases by a single judge. Sir Brian estimates that that means that the system would be 20% faster. Effectively, once you have taken those cases out, the rape case that goes to trial is speeded up, and that is the significance of the proposal.

I think it will significantly increase the speed of those trials, but we are talking about half of 3% of the total criminal backlog. If we want really to move the dial on that six years, what do we need to do, and are we going to do it?

I am confident that, if we are increasing sitting days to the end of this Parliament, as is my intention, increasing investment in our courts and maintenance, as I hope to continue to do, and implementing these reforms, after the next election we will be into a much better horizon for victims right across the board.

Thank you for your answers so far, Lord Chancellor. I want to come back to the issue of the impact assessment and the 20%. Will it transparently show not just the assumptions, as you said in response to Dr Shastri-Hurst, but also the evidence and analysis underpinning that figure? In particular, will it list all the factors that, it is said, would save time—jury empanelment and deliberations—and those things that would add time, such as the judge having to write their judgment, which they do not currently have to do in a criminal case? Then we could get a sense of what really underpins it.

Yes, it will.

Will the impact assessment show how much of the backlog reduction will come from restricting jury trials as opposed to other measures such as increased sitting days?

We will endeavour to do that.

Will it show the sitting days that are saved as a result of restricting jury trials in sitting days?

We will endeavour to do that.

Brilliant. I want to ask about the concordat, which you touched on earlier. Your letter said that we may need 139,000 sitting days by 2030 to meet demand. Is the barrier to sitting 139,000 days physical—that is, not enough courtrooms or judges—or financial? If you had the money, could you physically sit those days?

We do not have the judges, courts and barristers to sit to that. That is an estimate of where we would be if we did nothing, but the system could not be that hot at this time.

In terms of the 1% of cases that are being retained by the magistrates court, it is particularly important that you have a right of appeal that is effective. I want to ask about the legal aid position, and whether there would be any resource uplift from the Legal Aid Agency to fund the proposed appeals. As a lawyer, I know that reading through a transcript, applying the law to the facts and drafting the grounds of appeal all take time. Will the LAA provide funding for that?

As we are introducing a new permission stage, of course I will look at the legal aid available to make sure that people are properly represented.

I want to ask about the proportion of resources. It may be that it is in the papers and I have not picked it up, but what proportion of the total criminal courts budget is used up by the 1.5% of cases that will lose jury trial in actual money terms? I know we have talked about numbers of cases, and some people have said that it is a small number to justify such a drastic reform, but what does it look like in actual pounds, and how could any savings be redeployed to cut the backlog in other ways?

Can I come back to you on that? I do not have that figure available to me.

That is fine. The last thing that I want to ask about is diversity—that is something I do not need to lecture you on. What specific mechanisms will there be to monitor disproportionate impacts on minority groups—conviction rates, sentence lengths, all disaggregated by race and other protected characteristics—so that we can see the impact of the changes on all criminal trials? We can then make sure that the problems that you identified in your report on racial bias in the justice system are not magnified. As you know well, the conviction rates at magistrates court level are quite a bit higher than those before a jury.

Thank you, Mr Vaughan, for asking that question. May I be crystal clear? In the event of implementation, there will be the undertaking and commitment to ensure that all data is published, so that the full scrutiny of the effect of the changes in relation to different ethnic groups is understood fully. I would emphasise that centring victims means that it is important that we recognise that, if you are black, for example, they are 13 times more likely to be a victim of crime than if you are white—and, by the way, 43% more likely if you come from a mixed ethnic background. If you are black, you are four times more likely to be a victim of homicide, compared with white victims. For all those reasons, as Ms Russell was indicating, it is important that we recognise that black, Asian and minority ethnic people are also victims and want to see the system speeding up. If your son has sadly been murdered following a knife crime, you do not want to wait three or four years for the trial. It is also the case that my work in the Lammy review on disproportionality is important. It underpinned our understanding of the jury system. I focused a lot on accountability and, if you like, sunlight being the best disinfectant. In relation to that, it is important to recognise that judges will now give their reasoning; we are putting in place the transcripts and the transcribed system, because we have the digital technology, which we did not see at the Lammy review. Our magistrates courts will now have recordings, so you will know what the magistrate said and can appeal it, if you ever find yourself back at the Bar. For all those reasons, accountability and transparency were the underpinning of understanding how things were disproportionate with, as I say, sunlight being the best disinfectant.

Thank you. My last question builds on that and relates to the judiciary, because this is not just about magistrates court. On a slightly related issue, the High Court judiciary is not representative of the British population. What, if any, additional pressure can you bring to bear on the judiciary to ensure that it is fit for the 21st century, so that we have a greater reflection of the British people in our higher courts?

We have greater representation of ethnic minorities among our magistrates since I did my review—31% in London—and greater representation among our court judges, up from 6% to 11% since my review, with 21% among new entrants to the judiciary. That is a trend that is good into the middle ranks and upwards in the years ahead. It is important to emphasise that, because some people have not fully understood my review. When I was commissioned to do it, I was asked to look at whether juries were fair, because some people had concerns that an all-white jury was unfair. I asked Professor Cheryl Thomas to look at that, and she concluded that juries are fair, precisely because the 12 people, whatever their background, make the system very fair and accountable. We did not find that there was disparity between judges, magistrates and a jury, however. Some people went on to conclude that, but that is not what we found. There was some evidence at the sentencing point, but recognising that judges sentence after the jury trial anyway. I just want to make that clear in the system.

We are going to move on to another topic, but before we leave juries entirely, and given your last answer, do you accept that a judge sitting alone without magistrates—because, as you say, there is diversity among magistrates—is no less likely to discriminate than a judge sitting with a jury? Is that your evidence?

No. In the Lammy review I looked at juries and gave them a clean bill of health. I looked at sentencing and did find disproportionality at the point of sentencing. I did not find disproportionality between a magistrate and a jury—that is different—in terms of determination.

You are not worried at all about a judge sitting on their own, without magistrates or a jury, sentencing somebody to three years?

In balancing the victims of crime—I have given you the statistics on crime affecting black, Asian and minority ethnic people—and the sorts of crimes that will be in front of the Crown court bench division, compared with more serious crimes, I have come out at those 18-month and three-year thresholds. I believe that is the right balance. The data will all be available to scrutinise, as will the decision making of our judiciary. In the end, you do not have a decision, or much of a decision, from a judge at the moment. You will have that decision as a result of the system that we are introducing and that will allow for better accountability.

But do you accept that in the higher ranks of the judiciary we have no one from an ethnic minority in the Supreme Court—which is a matter that we discussed with the Lady Chief Justice three weeks ago—and one, Lord Justice Singh, in the Court of Appeal. There is no other person from an ethnic minority.

I do accept, of course, that as you go up the system there is work to do. We will appoint a new chair of the Judicial Appointments Commission. That is absolutely still a job in hand. I know that the Chair will understand that, of course, the reforms we are making do not pertain to the very highest courts in the land.

If I were to sum up that part of the session, I would probably say that the jury is out, and we are looking forward to having a lot more data to see what the effect will be on jury trials and on the backlog. One area that we have not covered is the effect on the prison population. Are you going to publish data on that as well? We know what the Gauke review and the Sentencing Bill say in relation to accommodating—if I can put it that way—a growing prison population. If, as seems inevitable, the consequence of Leveson is more people going to prison because you have magistrates sentencing up to 24 months and “swift justice”, which presumably means that people are going to get custodial sentences more quickly, prisons are going to be overflowing again, aren’t they?

I do not think that is quite axiomatic, because it suggests that there will be a different rate of conviction. I want to maintain that our criminal justice system is fair, fundamentally, or it is not much of a criminal justice system. So I am afraid I cannot concede that somehow there will be a higher conviction rate because you have changed jurisdiction. We have focused on the swift nature of that justice, but of course the modelling that sits behind it will be available to the Committee.

I do not ask you to take responsibility for the last Government, but it was an administrative rather than a political decision when the then Courts Minister decided not to increase magistrates court sentencing powers because they negatively impacted short-term prison pressures. That is just a matter of fact, isn’t it?

We will publish the prison capacity modelling in January and, as I say, there will be modelling attached to this implementation.

Sarah Russell is going to ask about civil justice.

What area are we moving on to?

Civil justice, so I have a question about the county court, if I may. Our recent inquiry into the county courts revealed a dysfunctional system full of delay, and we recommended a root-and-branch review. Although the Government has seen fit to commission major reviews on sentencing and the criminal court, the recommendations that we made for the county court have been rejected. What is the plan for civil justice?

Well, I have been in conversation, of course, with the Master of the Rolls. I am not sure that the judiciary are supportive of a further review, precisely because there is a lot going on in the Crown court system at this time. But you are absolutely right: our civil rights are an important cornerstone of our system, certainly for access to justice for many people, but also for underpinning the £47 billion that legal services contribute to the rule of law and to this economy. I am keen to see further digitisation of our county courts particularly, which are one of the engines of small business, so that people can properly deal with their disputes in a speedy way. I am keen to move forward with modernisation, simplification and some of the progress that we have made on small claims particularly. It is also the case, of course, that in the family area, the pathfinder in the private law area is incredibly important. I want to continue to support that and to support mediation as well.

You referred to family law. In your introduction, you said that you were proud of the increases in legal aid rates. The current fixed fees in family legal aid are based on an hourly rate of £44. If we contrast that with the national rates recommended by HMCTS for solicitors in general, for solicitors with over eight years’ experience the recommended rate is £288 an hour—this excludes London, so these are national rates. For solicitors with over four years’ experience, it is £242 an hour—that is anyone who is basically sufficiently senior to do any sort of supervisory work at all. For any newly qualified solicitor up to four years, it is £197 an hour. I reiterate that the current legal aid rates are based on £44 an hour. They went up by £1 an hour in 1996 and have not been reviewed since. Discuss.

In looking at the balance—I know that Minister Sackman has been on this issue very deliberatively—the evidence base was that we needed to come forward and make progress on housing and immigration first. Of course, we are funding the pathfinder project and there are other ways of resolution, particularly in the family arena, mediation being one of those. But I do want to emphasise that, just as we have seen solicitors and barristers moving to other areas of work in the criminal law area, I have been concerned by those patterns in family law. I hope to be able to come forward with further proposals in the months ahead.

Lord Chancellor, the only people who can get family legal aid are those who have suffered from domestic abuse or whose children are being taken into care. I would strongly suggest that mediation is probably not appropriate in most of those situations, so £44 an hour is completely and utterly unsustainable. The same position applies in discrimination employment work, where recently there was a tendering exercise. HMCTS were looking for four potential providers of discrimination work; they received two tenders. The system is literally collapsing.

I don’t want to diminish the challenge. We have launched a new survey of legal aid providers to understand the context fully, and we are commissioning a feasibility study on the best way to monitor demand for civil legal aid particularly. There were acute areas in immigration and housing, which is why we prioritised those areas, but I do not want to diminish the seriousness facing those who have family disputes.

Let us move on to the employment tribunal system. There are now over half a million open claims. Individual unresolved claims are up 33%, new claims in are up 33% in quarter 2 and claims resolved are down 10% in quarter 2. We are obviously producing significant new employment legislation, which of course, as a Labour MP, I support hugely. None the less, it is very stressful for both businesses and individuals bringing those claims when those claims sit within the employment tribunal system for years on end—and it is now years on end, typically. What is the plan to deal with the increased caseload that will inevitably follow?

The story that I told of austerity is real, and I know that you recognise that, Ms Russell. We do have to prioritise, 18 months into government. I do recognise the huge challenges in our tribunal system, particularly with employment and immigration tribunals. They do require investment, but in the spending envelope I have had, I have set out where I have had to put the priorities. My priority is to see the backlog in the criminal arena coming down and to support legal aid in the areas that I have outlined. I have been able to support employment tribunals, and as you will recognise, I made a decision. There was a suggestion of fees, which I was very keen to act to stop in the early weeks in this job, but I do recognise that challenges with employment tribunals remain.

Lastly, I have a question on the subject of SEN tribunals. Again, 25,000 cases were registered last year, but only 20,000 were disposed of. The cases in question are children who have education, health and care plans. Those have typically taken a long time to come forward in the first place. Children are waiting for long periods for diagnosis. They are then waiting for long periods for an agreed EHCP, and if they are not agreed, they are then waiting upwards of a year now for a tribunal date. These are children who are exceptionally vulnerable and often out of education. Given that 99% of those appeals are successful, what do you propose for that system?

You will know, Ms Russell, that the Secretary of State for Education is coming forward next year with further proposals in relation to SEND young people, so we are working in lockstep with her on that and indeed on the previous question on employment. I am pleased that the Department has got itself into a place where it requires other Departments to have a justice impact assessment when they make changes. That will ensure that our tribunals are properly compensated to deal with any extra work that flows as a result. We are in good discussions with the Department for Education. As those proposals come forward, we will be able to see the impact on SEND cases.

Before we move on to prisons and off courts, Warinder Juss, do you have a question?

At this time, the changes that we are making are precisely to ensure that those very serious cases come on more quickly. That is as true of murder cases or child sexual offences as it is of rape. We want all those cases to come on more quickly. That is why the 20% reduction that Sir Brian estimates—as a result of stopping the right to elect, changing mode of trial, giving our magistrates increased sentencing power where there is not a significant backlog, and the new Crown court bench division—will bring about that change. We are not proposing, at this time, a new jurisdiction solely for sexual offences.

Lord Chancellor, I would like to ask you about prisoners released in error. On 2 December, you announced that 12 prisoners had been released in error since your statement on 11 November, with two prisoners still at large. Is that still accurate?

I first gave figures on 11 November at my oral statement. I announced, for the first time, an ad hoc data release from April to October of this year, which showed that there had been 91 releases in error in that period, and I confirmed that there were three unlawfully at large. You are right that I gave figures again on 2 December during a media interview. At the time, the numbers were 12 releases in error since the oral statement and two unlawfully at large. That is more data released out of the cycle—the last Government, as you know, were releasing once a year in July—than ever before. In the meantime, and importantly, I met Dame Lynne Owens just yesterday. She is looking closely at the data issue. She is due to report in the new year, and she will be making recommendations on data releases and that data. It is important that I allow her to do that work, so there will not be further data releases until she comes forward with her report in the early part of next year.

But it would be reasonable for me to assume that that figure is no longer accurate and there have been more accidental releases since then.

Between April 2024 and March 2025, there were 262 releases in error, averaging at 21 a month. In the seven months from April to October, there were 91, averaging at 13 a month. I did indicate that the trend looks to be downward. Mr Fox, you will be aware that I put in mandatory stronger checks that I wanted prison governors to make, and new investment in tech and digital. This is a paper-based system; it has been a paper-based system for many years. The last Government had four different release schemes, which added to complexity. We came in and, as a result of the prison capacity crisis, which the Committee has looked at very closely, we introduced the SDS40 scheme. That is a lot of paper complexity, and therefore there are errors. It was important for me to put in that new tech, to have a courts hotline because there are sometimes problems between the courts and the prisons in this area, and of course to have Dame Lynne Owens’ review. I think that that has made some contribution, but this is an uphill task, partly because it is a paper-based system and partly because we are asking very junior prison officers to make this decision. Mr Fox, you will be aware that under the last Government, we lost 6,000 prison officers up to 2013. Those officers, who were very experienced, have gone out of the system, never to come back. For all those reasons, errors are being made. We are asking good people—prison officers—to work in a pretty pressured environment. I should say that it is important to recognise, notwithstanding the errors that have been made, that there were 57,000 releases from our prisons, and these errors account for 0.5%. For all victims that is worrying, and the system should not be making these errors, but I want to put those errors into context.

You have talked about a paper-based system and how it was very complex. Given that the number of prisoners released by accident doubled between 2023-24 and 2024-25, would you accept that your Government’s early release schemes made the system even more complex and unmanageable, and that is partially responsible for the number of prisoners released in error?

There were 800 releases in error under the last Government.

In which year was that?

It was very serious. The figure was spiking from 2021. As I have said to you—

Two-hundred and sixty-two is an all-time high.

As I have said to you, there were four different release schemes in the last stage of the last Government, which added to complexity. We put in an early release scheme that has also added to complexity, but that scheme was put in to make sure that we still have the prison places to lock up very bad people. I do not think, Mr Fox, that you are suggesting that we should not have done that, because I know that you would want to see criminals in the right place, and that is in prison. So yes, the truth is that our officers are dealing with a complex, paper-based system. That is what we inherited. That is what we are unpicking. Just to remind you, under the last Government, Rayon Newby was released in error, Lauras Matiusovas was released in error and William Fernandez was released in error. William Fernandez, who was released in error in March 2021, went on to commit horrific sexual crimes. That is to say that these errors have happened under both Governments. We need to bear down on it—we need to see that number coming down to historic levels—but I do not believe this to be a partisan issue. I believe this to be an issue that is occurring because of complexity, because of paper and because junior people, both in our courts and in our prisons, are having to make fine assessments in a prison system that releases many people every year.

Lord Chancellor, you referred to the last Government being responsible for 800 prisoner releases. I assume you are talking of the cumulative figure over 14 years. In 2021, the year you referred to, 54 prisoners were released in error. I am taking these numbers from your webpage. In 2023-24, it was 115. That figure doubled to 262 in 2024-25. That is a massive increase: it is five times more than 2021-22. I am putting to you that it is the very complicated release scheme that your Government put in place that is responsible for that spike.

Within the figures that you have just suggested, there was a spike from just over 50 to 121 under the last Government.

But that happened in 2023-24.

You accept that there was a spike under the last Government. I have said that there were four prison release schemes that contributed to that. We are in agreement. I have also said that the SDS scheme that we introduced when we came into Government because of an emergency that I think you accept—we had to do it—has also led to that complexity. I do not think that there is disagreement between us.

You said last month that you had introduced the strongest release checks that have ever been in place for prisoners, which included mandatory checklists and the physical presence of a governor for certain releases. Why have there been subsequent mistaken releases since then? Where does responsibility for those mistaken releases lie?

I have said that you can never, ever, as a Secretary of State, rule out human error. I have said that there are 57,000 releases from prisons every day. Prison is not like a warehouse. There are people who come in and out: some people leaving for day release and employment and coming back to prison, some people being released to go to hospital and coming back to prison, some people being released to go to an immigration tribunal and coming back to prison, and some people who are released permanently, either into probation or to an immigration centre for removal. That is a pretty complex ecology. Within that, this is a paper-based system. I have also said very clearly that there is a mountain to climb. I have put in place mandatory and stronger checks, I have put in place new investment in tech and I have put in place a courts hotline because of the errors that were occurring on assessments of warrants between courts and between prisons. I did that as an emergency set of things to try to bear down and grip the system, but the important work that underpins that is the independent review being led by Dame Lynne Owens. She will report in a few weeks’ time and the Government will act, of course, on her report. But there is a mountain to climb to get these figures down to historic levels, and those are historic levels that preceded both the spike that we saw under the last Government and the spike that we have seen under this one.

When Kebatu was released in error, the Ministry of Justice published his photograph, his name and his offence, which was just as well, because it was actually a member of the public who located him and phoned the police. Why do not you do that for all releases in error?

That must be an operational decision for the police. It is for the police to make assessments of risk. It is not for Ministers to make those assessments; it is for the broader criminal justice system. Sometimes the police are keen to release information to the public that will help them to apprehend someone who is at large, particularly someone who might be pose a risk to the public. However, it is sometimes the case that people are not at risk to the public, or indeed that the police are able to apprehend someone and publishing their name might mean that they go underground. That must be an operational decision for the police, not for Ministers.

You say that it is an operational decision for the police, but in the case of Kebatu I understand that your Department did not even tell the police for seven days that he was on the run. I put it to you, Minister, that actually it is just too embarrassing for your Department, because so many prisoners are released by mistake.

I have said to you that that must be an operational decision for the police. And of course the Ministry of Justice is liaising with the police on a daily basis on a range of things. We work as a whole criminal justice system. Just last week, I was at the Criminal Justice Board, which brings together the police, prosecutors, the Ministry of Justice and probation; it brings together the entire system. It is a whole ecology across the criminal justice system. That is the seriousness that actually underpins what we are talking about when we talk about the criminal justice position. And I am sure, Mr Fox, that you understand that it must be for the police to make those judgments.

Lord Chancellor, this Committee has been very concerned over the past year to ensure that both the Prison Service and the Probation Service have a robust and well-supported workforce, and we have just been alluding to the challenges in that respect. We have been monitoring capacity challenges in both sectors, so I would like to ask you about skilled worker visas and the impact they are having in the prison sector. How many prison officers are currently on a skilled worker visa and how many will be lost over the next 12 months as a result of proposed immigration changes?

Can I emphasise that I recognise that this is an issue that has preoccupied the Committee and parliamentarians in general? I am in discussion with the Home Secretary on this issue and I hope to come forward with proposals shortly. I will update the Committee as soon as I am able, but I think we have found a way through this issue. It is also the case that I want to recruit more prison officers who are local to communities all over the country. I particularly want to be able to recruit prison officers into London and the south-east, where there have been challenges because of the labour market and people being able to get jobs in other sectors for pay commensurate with the sort of pay you would get for being a prison officer. I will update you with the latest figures, because the figures move around. I am happy to write with the latest figures, but I hope to be able to make an announcement shortly.

Thank you very much. Do your discussions with the Home Secretary and the Home Office concern an exemption for prison officer roles, or other matters?

I think it is a way through with the Home Secretary that is a satisfactory way through. Obviously, I wanted to reassure myself that we could recruit the number of officers locally that we need in the required time, because that is the best situation in the time available, while recognising the important commitments that we have in relation to reducing our reliance on immigration. That is the balance that I have sought to strike and I think we are just about to get there.

I ask partly because a recent inspection of HMP Liverpool revealed significant anxiety among prison staff affected by the skilled worker visa changes. How are you and your colleagues managing morale among those who hold skilled worker visas at this challenging time?

I recognise that people currently on skilled worker visas—they are largely from west Africa, and I am hugely grateful for the contribution they have made—want a degree of certainty and understanding, as do the prisons themselves. I had a roundtable with governors, and I know they want certainty, as they rely hugely on those extra numbers. The most important thing, of course, is that we have prison officers who are able to meet the demand that we see in prison places. That is paramount, so that is the conversation that I have been having with the Home Secretary, understanding the desire to get a British workforce across the board. I think that there is a way through, and as I say, I hope to be able to come back to the Committee very shortly on that.

I will wrap in another question around staffing and probation, as it follows on quite nicely. The Sentencing Bill places a welcome fresh emphasis on community justice. That will, of course, place additional demands on probation services. The Probation Service currently has a vacancy rate of 22% nationally, rising to 33% in some regions, so given current and projected staffing shortfalls, how will probation practitioners be able to manage their increased casework safely?

It is hugely important that we secured £700 million going into probation over this next period, so that we can recruit those extra full-time equivalent staff. The number was standing at 21,527 in September this year. That is an increase of 22% from June 2021, so there is an upward trend, although there is more to do. I know that you know about our commitment to recruit 1,300 trainee probation officers over the next year, but it is not just about the numbers; it is also about helping our probation officers get back to face-to-face contact. I deliberately made my first visit as Justice Secretary to a probation setting in Islington. Very shortly after, I was with probation officers in Chatham. We need to reward our probation officers better, and I am in discussions with the Treasury so that we can give our probation officers a good reward, recognising too—I know that you recognise this, Ms Cox—that 76% of our probation officers are women. Often we see inequality in terms of women’s pay. The other thing that is important to enabling them to get back to face-to-face contact is digital technology. Justice Transcribe, which they were piloting in Kent, is hugely important. Those officers were saying to me that it is life-changing that you can quickly use AI to get the details down and get back to face-to-face contact, visiting people and being with people where they are.

This links quite interestingly with probation, because I want to look at the other end, which is remand—he sighs.

I don’t sigh! It is very important, and it is a tricky issue at the moment.

It is a really tricky issue, and the data on it is absolutely staggering—20% of the prison population consists of people who are on remand. Those people have not been convicted and may be innocent. I admit that a lot of them are not and it is important that when people are convicted of violent offences, or when people are afraid of perpetrators, they are kept out of the way. I would hate you to pivot to that position, but there are some people who are going to be serving longer on remand than they would for a sentence. The last time this Committee looked at remand—prior to many of us being here—they found that over 770 people had done more than two years. The number of people on remand has gone up 55% in the last four years, and nearly one in five of them have gone beyond the custody time limit. Given your commitment to technology, what are you doing to review the use of technology to allow more people to be remanded on bail, tagged, curfewed and so on, so that you can get the prison population down in a safe way?

Ms Slade, you are absolutely right; the remand figures are deeply worrying, and the spike in the wrong direction suggests a system that is overheated. At the moment, we have 17,700 prisoners on remand, which represents 20% of the total prison population. That number is up 70% since 2020, and it means that there are real pressures in our reception prisons in particular. Two thirds of them are awaiting trial and one third are awaiting sentence. Speeding up the courts—the lion’s share of questions today have been about our court reform proposals—will be significant in relation to the remand population, but so will the bail information service. Better assisting people to apply for bail and making sure that there are the right incentives to apply for bail are also important. You are right that using community accommodation and tagging as an alternative to remand, and legislating as we have done in the Sentencing Bill so that people who are not likely be punished with prison will not typically be held in prison, will prompt a significant shift in the remand population. I expect to see the remand population falling as we move into 2028-29.

There are two things there. We said earlier that it is going to take some time for these reforms to make a change. There are 17,500 people currently in the system. I do not get the impression that those people are going to really benefit from the changes, because even those who have been there for a year will eventually get their day in court within the next year. Are you proposing any changes to the existing system so that you are driving forward decisions made around bail, in the same way that Leveson 2 will drive forward the other part of the system? The final point that I want to ask about is conditions for people who are on remand and who are in a different mental space from people who have been convicted and know where they are and have a programme. What more can you do to make sure that people who are on remand have decent access to education, mental health facilities and work in the same way as the regular prison population? I am hearing a lot about people being regularly moved and not having as good an experience as settled prisoners.

The last part of what you are saying in your question is absolutely right. Our remand prisons—prisons like Pentonville and Wandsworth in London—are running as hot as they are and people are moving in and out. Those on remand are not a cohort of prisoners who are up for education and employment training in the same way, precisely because they do not know how long they are going to be in the prison, so we have to get the population down. To the first part of your question, let’s not forget the Sentencing Bill, which is significant. It should get Royal Assent in the spring and be implemented as we head toward Easter, and that will begin to have an effect on that remand population.

I have two very specific questions, and then two slightly more general ones. The NAO said that the Sentencing Bill might actually increase electronic monitoring caseloads by between 8,000 and 14,000. What is HMPSS’s estimate of the number of additional offenders who need a tag? We heard from the previous Lord Chancellor at the beginning of the year that Serco’s performance was below acceptable levels. What is Serco’s performance like now? At that time, we talked about it having a problem with the supply of tags and equipment that was appropriate to those they were trying to tag. Has that improved, and is it offering a satisfactory service now? And then—

I don’t want to forget your questions.

Go on, then—there is the Serco thing, the 8,000 to 14,000 and HMPPS. The other thing that I wanted to ask you about on this particular matter was tagging offenders at source, in the pilot taking place in six prisons. Is that going to work, and can it be rolled out in all prisons? Is that a good thing—to save that gap between release and tagging?

I want to study what we learn from the pilot closely. I am interested in the benefit that you might get from tagging people from prison rather than tagging people at home, but I think it is a little too early to give an estimate or understanding of that, from what I am told by officials. The indications must be that it must be a good thing to get them quite early.

Can you give me a hint as to what the bad thing about it might be?

It is just how the system is working and if it is working effectively.

I cannot really see a good reason for not doing it like that, but then I am me and you are you.

The benefits feel self-evident, but the whole point of having a pilot is to see if it actually works. Of course, you need staff in the right places to do that effectively and other things, if you are moving from pilot to a national roll-out, when the system is quite hot as a result of the Sentencing Bill. There will be an increase, of course, in tagging as a result of the Sentencing Bill, and that sits behind your questions. You are absolutely right about that. We do think that we will see a reduction over time in offending. The estimate is a 20% reduction in terms of those who are tagged with a curfew, and we expect that tens of thousands more criminals will be tagged and monitored over the next three years particularly as a result of the changes that we are making. Minister Timpson has had numerous meetings with Serco, and I am looking forward to meeting Serco with the perm sec, I think, next month. We have had to be more exacting about ensuring that it is living up to its contract, and that its work will continue as we head into implementation following the Sentencing Bill passing through Parliament.

Do we have a sense that our end of things—our procurement and writing of contracts—is up to scratch? Do we think that?

It has improved considerably from where it was.

It has some way to go?

It has improved considerably from where it was, and we have a road map as we get to implementation later on in the middle of next year.

Thank you. I want to ask you about more offenders being managed within the community and what steps are being taken to increase the availability of support services. Back to the electronic monitoring thing, the Committee heard last week about accommodation for those who are released. The National Audit Office said that the increased use of electronic monitoring would depend on prison leavers finding suitable accommodation. It seems that the number of people leaving prison with somewhere to stay on the night has actually reduced in recent years. Last week’s evidence showed that there was not enough accommodation to meet the demand. What might you be doing to address that matter?

That is very important, because in the end, we know that to reduce reoffending, there are three key buckets that are important. One is housing, the second is employment, and the third is mental health and addiction-type issues that can drive offenders into reoffending. I am very pleased—this is my first opportunity to talk about it—that just last week, with our colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, we committed to a 50% reduction in the proportion of people who become homeless on their first night out of prison and who are subject to probation supervision. That is an important target to set the system. We know that, if you are sleeping rough on the first night, it is effectively heading downhill from there. Making that commitment to reduce the numbers and working with local authorities is hugely important. The second thing is an overall increase, by the end of this Parliament, in the number of prison leavers in settled accommodation at three months after release, again working with local authorities and communities to ensure that there is a safe place to land for those offenders so that they can properly get on with their lives. Of course, on the trajectory—and there have been reflections on the last 14 years over the course of this Committee—there was an upward trend in the employment picture for prisoners. The proportion of prison leavers sentenced to 12 months or more who were employed within six months of their release more than doubled in the past four performance years, which is really important. Obviously, I want to continue that trend and the good work that is going on to get those prisoners into employment.

Can you remind me: from what to what?

The figures that I have in front of me show that we went from 15% in 2020–21 to 38% in 2024–25, which is really important. However, there is more to do in terms of working with colleagues in health, particularly around mental health, where the numbers are quite worrying. In 2024, 61% of offenders in the community reported with mental health and 63% of those in custody had an identified mental health need. Those are profound challenges.

I have all sorts of questions that I would like to ask, but I might write to you instead. May I ask just two general questions now? Could you give us an overview of your view on what should happen where prisoners proclaim their innocence over an extended period of time? We are all aware of a number of cases in which people have gone well past their original release date with no discount whatsoever, and they still say that they are innocent. I wonder whether you have any thoughts on how we deal with people who would prefer to remain in prison for an extended period rather than be released, because they feel it is a matter of justice and honour that they get their appeal and are ultimately proclaimed innocent, if that is what they want. How do you feel about that? What do you think we should do? We have a system, the CCRC, which will not fit everybody at the moment.

I have not heard representations on this from the CCRC, but I am happy to hear them. Having visited so many prisons over the years, I am aware of that small cohort—I think it is—that you are talking about. It is obviously difficult for the system to discern the merits or truth of such assertions. It feels, to some extent, like a judicial assertion or judicial assessment or at least one that should be made by the Parole Board, not by the Minister. I have not got great reflections on that, but I am happy to hear from you if you do.

Can I just test you on IPP sentencing? Would you like to say something about those? They were abolished in 2012, were they not? We have looked at this a little, have we not?

I do recognise the significant issues that exist for IPP prisoners. I think we have got to support and deepen our action plan for the prisoners who are there. There is more work to do on recall. I think there is more we can do on support for those prisoners who have been in for a substantial time, recognising the real challenges that exist for some of them, again, in mental health and their predisposition to get into trouble, both in communities and the criminal justice system. It is a matter that has been a topic of great discussion in the other place, during the passage of the Sentencing Bill, where there obviously is a cohort of senior Members of the Lords and former Ministers who feel very strongly about this issue, precisely because it is an issue that they implemented.

I am going to go to Warinder, Sarah and then Pam—that may be it, unless I have two minutes at the end.

In short, yes. I have met many women who are in the criminal justice system as a result of a man—a man who has abused her, a man who has pimped her, a man who has taken advantage of her. I think there is lots more that we can do to reduce the number of women in custody and in the prison system. Minister Timpson shares my view, and we are working very hard on this. I am aware of the Hope Street project in Southampton, which is doing great work. When I am up in the midlands, I would like to see that scheme, as women’s centres are essential. I am looking at allocations at the moment, and I do not want to jump ahead, but I hope that I can work in this area. Of course, the Women’s Justice Board and the work that it is doing is really important.

Approximately 12% of the total prison population is currently comprised of foreign nationals. Actually, foreign nationals are under-represented within the prison population, relative to their age profile and demographics, so I certainly do not want to be fuelling suggestions that there are disproportionate problems with foreign national offending. None the less, the Government announced in August that we would speed up removals directly from prison of foreign national offenders. There has been an increase in foreign national offender returns, but it would be a significant change—and a very desirable one—if we manage to deport more people from prison immediately. How is that going?

When we implement the Sentencing Bill, I think it will be very important to be able to deport these people as quickly as possible. It will speed the system up, and that must be good, because I do not think the taxpayer wants to fund them in the system. There were 10,700 foreign national offenders held in custody on 30 September 2025. The three top nationalities in prison were Albanian, Polish and Romanian. I was very pleased last year that we removed over 2,700 FNOs under the early removal scheme. Actually, in my previous role as Foreign Secretary, I also played a significant role in getting those returns up. Of course, that was a massive 74% increase, compared with the same period back in 2023. I think it is what the public want and demand, and as soon as we see the implementation of the Sentencing Bill, that will all drive us in the right direction.

Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, has just published quite a hard-hitting report on the health of people in prison and on probation. There are three high-level recommendations. One is about the need to prioritise preventive healthcare for chronic conditions in prison; another is about the sharing of health data between, for example, prison medical services and GPs and the NHS; and the third is about the fact that people on probation often have very high health needs compared with the general population. What is your view of the report, and what is happening with those recommendations?

Can I write to you, Ms Cox, to update you on that report? I will be meeting the Secretary of State for Health in the new year to discuss that report and other things, because it is important that we have much closer working with the health system. In particular, the spike that we are seeing in mental health worries me. So can I update you in due course—in the spring?

Thank you very much.

I don’t think any of my colleagues are looking to ask additional questions, so I will abuse my position and ask one or two final questions, if I may. Going back to probation, it is having to do a lot of heavy lifting, for instance in alternatives to custody and early release. The significant sum of £700 million has been mentioned, but can you say how that sum divides between additional probation officers on the one hand and additional tagging, which you were asked about earlier, on the other hand? What confidence do you have, given the very underwhelming inspectorate reports into probation services recently—no fault of the officers, but clearly there is both low morale and underachievement in the service—in how that service, in its current state, will cope with all the additional pressures that your policies are putting on it?

Well, that is why the money is so important. It goes back to the points that I made before. The two things that probation officers say to me are about pay—we will have to settle their pay into next year when we come back in the new year—and workload. That is where technology is hugely important, and where investing in further staff and meeting the recruitment targets that we have set is hugely important. But it is also where our vision, which we set out in Our Future Probation Service, is hugely important. We made that commitment to reducing workloads by 25% by 2027, which is essential, because 2027 is very important once the Sentencing Bill is implemented. There is also Probation Reset, which is our commitment, very importantly, to ensure that our probation officers are spending more time with the most serious and dangerous offenders, and that we are getting the balance right across the cohort of people who require probation in our communities and working with them to achieve that. So there is a lot to do, but we all know that when we looked across the criminal justice system, the lowest base of all was probation, because of the botched, unbelievably bad changes that were made by Chris Grayling, which were damaging to a Rolls-Royce service. We have to get it back to being a Rolls-Royce service once again. It has wonderful people, hugely committed, who need a lot of support. I am reluctant to break down the £700 million figure at this stage. Some of it will be used for recruitment, of course; some of it will be used for Our Future Probation Service and for Probation Reset. I am reluctant to give a breakdown, because this has to be a flexible system, working with probation officers on the ground. I met the inspector to discuss what he is finding, and there are green shoots emerging.

We talked a lot about modelling at the beginning, and you said you would come back to us in relation to the courts backlog, or publish information. Do you not have a similar problem with prisons? Yes, you are finding alternatives to custody; yes, you are releasing people early from prison; yes, you are building new prisons, but at the same time, the numbers are set to rise. Isn’t it right that prisons will remain full for the foreseeable future? Isn’t it right that we have excessive numbers of people being returned to prison because of sometimes relatively minor breaches of the terms of their licence, and rehabilitation will be very difficult if you still have full prisons throughout the country?

It will take time. This will not happen overnight; you are right about that, but I do think we will see an uplift initially after the Sentencing Bill. Both with the Sentencing Bill and as we get into 2027, with the courts Bill coming into effect, we will start to see the pressure take effect. The investment in probation officers, as those new officers come on stream, will be hugely important. The reduction in workload that the technology will bring will be hugely important. And, of course, we get the extra prison places coming on. We have already got 2,900 extra prison places, and that is really significant. We only had 500 in 14 years under the last Government. Getting to 14,000 by 2031 should not be underestimated, because that, of course, increases our prison capacity. All of that combined will make a big difference, but it took a lot of years to run this system down, and I do not think that anyone thinks you can turn this around in 18 months in office. In all my remarks, I am indicating improvement over the course of this Parliament as we head into 2028-29.

This is the last question. You were asked in Justice questions this morning, although the answer came from one of your junior Ministers, about the hunger strikes that are taking place in prisons. That question—about whether Ministers, or, I assume, officials, would meet legal representatives—was replied to with a very firm no, so I do not imagine I will get a different answer from you. But given that we often talk about self-harm and the risk to prisoners, are you concerned about what is happening in relation to those hunger strikes? What provisions are you making for the health and welfare of those remand prisoners?

Every year, over 100 people refuse food in prison and go on hunger strike. There are established rules, which were set up back in 2012. Those rules are loosely referred to as the Mandela rules. They were actually updated earlier this year. Individuals that diminish in health do go to hospital, and some of these individuals have been to hospital. They then become the responsibility of colleagues in the national health service, and of course the prison system works closely with the national health service. There are some who have suggested that I should act to give these individuals bail. The Chair will recognise that that is not something that any Secretary of State could possibly do, and it would not be right to do. That is a judicial decision that must be made by judges, and indeed lawyers are able to apply for bail for individuals and they can go before the courts. If there are issues that require complaint or concern, they should be raised with the prison governor or the prisons ombudsman, but the prison system is used to dealing with people who go on hunger strike. These are sensitive issues, but I would also remind the Chair that some of the offences are very serious offences, and it is for a judge to determine whether you should be on bail or in remand in a prison. They are offences of criminal damage. I think a police officer—a female police officer—was attacked in one of these cases involving a number of these defendants. I simply say that the established system must be followed. That must first be to the governor and, to make a formal complaint, the prisons ombudsman is there; it is not routine for Ministers to get involved in these cases.

Thank you very much, Secretary of State. That brings an end to our proceedings for this afternoon. It only remains for me to thank you and the Permanent Secretary, who has had not an easy afternoon, I am sure, but a quieter afternoon than she might have imagined, and to wish you a merry Christmas. I extend that to all the members of the Committee and, indeed, the public and press. Thank you very much.