Speeches by Babarinde.

“It would be good to follow up with you another time on that.”

“My questions are on domestic abuse. Domestic abuse consistently represents a third of all the crime that you handle. We can see from the data that the number of suspects of domestic abuse-related crimes referred by the police to the CPS fell from over 110,000 in 2017-18 to about 69,000 in 2022-23. Are you able to shed …”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t finished on mine yet, Chair. Director, you spoke about common assault as an offence that is often very closely associated with domestic abuse and domestic violence. Sitting in the very place you are a couple of weeks ago we had Lord Timpson and two officials to speak a little bit about this. I asked about the…”

“When you say that some cases come to you in a bad state, what does a bad state of a case look like?”

“What work are you doing to loop in and communicate with victims and survivors of domestic abuse in the pilots that you are doing? There is clearly an issue of confidence in our system, and that includes confidence in the Crown Prosecution Service’s ability to play its part in dispensing justice on their behalf. I am su…”

“Local leisure and sports facilities, such as the Sovereign centre where I learned to swim, deserve more long-term investment. I want Eastbourne to be able to invest its £20 million from the towns fund in such facilities, but it will not be unlocked by the Treasury until 2026. Will the Chancellor commit to accelerating …”

“If, hypothetically, a Royal Commission was set up to explore the issues, would you feel in your role that that could be a vehicle that could enable you to engage and feed in your insights?”

“I am Josh Babarinde, the MP for Eastbourne, and folks will be able to find my interests declared on the register.”

“I have been privy to some correspondence from judges and court workers who are deeply concerned about the reduction in sitting days. It would be good to get an idea from you of the extent to which the judiciary, and indeed court workers, were consulted about that decision.”

“Are you able to expand on that?”

“I agree that the work of those justice and court workers, in the context of an environment that was not of their shaping, must be commended. To clarify, you and the rest of the judiciary were not consulted, by the sound of it. You were informed and you personally—”

“To what extent do you feel that you were listened to?”

“We have spoken a lot about the Crown court backlog and reform. When you were last here in January, you spoke about the need for radical reform to take place, which might involve things like fewer either-way cases or the establishment of an intermediate court that involved a blend of judges and lay magistrates. Are you …”

“That was going to be my next question. It sounds like the existence of some kind of vehicle that is a safe way for you to be able to input without publicly jeopardising your position might be—”

“I agree with taking a parallel approach. It sounds to me that if additional resources were to be made available to rebuild magistrates courts, like Eastbourne magistrates court, that would not be unwelcome from the perspective of the judiciary.”

“I want to move to another branch of the reform agenda, which is around physical facilities. It is pretty well documented that there are some serious challenges. An umbrella one I would like to ask about is this. In light of the fact that we are going to see magistrates taking on more cases, do you feel that in order to…”

“To reassure victims, survivors and indeed others, can you give some essence of a deadline or a target by which—”

“What would you say are the blockers? We have spoken a lot about capacity being stuck. Without underestimating the scale of the job to be done, using artificial intelligence, or deploying it in some way, shape or form, feels like it could be a relatively quick win, compared to some of the alternatives.”

“By begin, do you mean it is not being used at all in that respect?”