Speeches by Mullan.

“Will my hon. Friend give way?”

“On the basis of that discussion, the Opposition do not oppose the clause. We can explore the issue on a good faith basis. I do not think it is critical to the importance of the Bill, so we are happy to proceed. We would, however, welcome some further clarity.”

“We now come to a series of considerably less contentious clauses, including clause 8, relating to the admissibility of evidence in our criminal courts. This area of the Bill deals with the sensitive and often contentious issue of sexual history evidence. Of course, we want victims of rape, sexual violence and domestic …”

“I understand that since 2014, as we have heard, too many children have died—approximately 50—while subject to a court order granting contact with a parent. Each of those deaths is a tragedy, and many, if not all, could have been avoided. We must also recognise that, over the same period, more than 450 children died aft…”

“In summary, clause 7 represents a substantial recasting of appellate rights that prioritises administrative throughput over the correction of error. We should not trade away, without any evidence of abuse and with little evidence of meaningful efficiency savings, a safeguard that is successfully correcting mistakes in …”

“The justice system depends on the belief that mistakes can and will be fixed. By restricting access to appeals and forcing successful cases back into the summary system, we risk creating a parallel system that simply displaces the backlog, while degrading the quality of justice. We must maintain the automatic right to …”

“On amendment 37, I have talked about the high rate of error and injustice that is being corrected by the current appeal mechanism, and I have talked about the unrepresented defendants who will have to navigate a more complex and subjective system, such as by reviewing transcripts. On the whole, we do not think that we …”

“We must give great weight to the evidence we have heard, but the Government’s own position is that it is unlikely to materially change outcomes; they are repealing a provision that their own assessment concedes will not make a material difference to what happens.”

“I understand the Minister’s criticism that the defendant making the appeal may be perfectly content to have their case reheard in the magistrates, and insisting that an appeal be reheard in a jury trial gives no flexibility in that direction—that is a fair point. In response, we will not press amendments 55 to 57 to a …”

“If the defendant is successful at appeal, we might say that they are doubly aggrieved: they have gone through the process and it has not worked for them. Surely we should want to do everything we can to support that group of people, so that they have a route to the mode of trial that they think is fairest, considering …”

“I accept the Minister’s point that to insist on that being the remedy is not necessarily what the defendant would want. We absolutely want to support defendants who have been through the process of a trial and a successful appeal. Where they could have had a Crown court trial with a jury, prior to the Government’s refo…”

“I rise to speak in support of clause 20, which is a technical and geographic provision necessitated by the significant infrastructure developments currently under way in the City of London. As new law courts are developed, specifically at the Salisbury Square site—we mentioned the specialist fraud court earlier in the …”

“As we have discussed in debates on previous amendments, the grounds of an appeal may very well relate to an allocation decision. Someone could successfully appeal on the basis that their trial should never have been heard by a magistrate and that they should have had a jury instead. Providing the option for a jury retr…”

“The Bar Council and other stakeholders have emphasised that justice must be even handed, and that a supporter must not be a legal participant. The emphasis on independent supporters is welcome. It suggests that the individuals must be from specialised non-governmental organisations or victim support services, and that …”

““power is also never concentrated in the hands of one individual.””

“It has a few times.”

“By formalising the role, the Bill acknowledges that the legal system is not just an arena for competing arguments but a human endeavour with all those involved having real psychological needs. While the Opposition support the principle under discussion, the task of the Committee is to ensure that the court retains prop…”

“We must recognise that we have an adversarial justice system, which includes potentially robust cross-examination; nothing in this provision should stop that. However, the clause moves the practice of witness accompaniment from a patchwork of different local approaches and practices to a clear statutory basis. The clau…”

“We have heard about the need for judges to receive better training, but I observe that the CAFCASS officers and social workers who advise the courts are already trained. They are the professionals on whose expert reports judges rely. In every one of the cases we have talked about, those trained professionals were invol…”

“If the answer to those failures is training and systemic reform—and I believe that absolutely has a role—that reform should be directed at the failing institutions. We do not necessarily need a statutory provision that cannot, as we have heard from the Government’s own admission, be consistently shown to be the cause o…”