Speeches by Vaughan.

“Thank you. Chair, if I may, I have one last question on unmet need, etc., before I move on to legal aid remuneration. Within this general duty to make arrangements under section 1 of LASPO, I have heard it suggested that the Secretary of State could have the power to make a grant to create a legal advice centre; say, t…”

“Thank you, Chair. Thanks for all your answers so far. I want to ask about legal advice deserts. I know, Richard, that you mentioned that already. We have had a very large number of legal aid providers disappear, and we have areas of the country where, as you said, there is virtually nothing around. In Kent, we have zer…”

“Thank you. I want to ask about remuneration, with Ms Brimelow first. Barristers in criminal legal aid have had a 15% increase and solicitors have had a 24% increase since the criminal legal aid review. To what extent is that enough? Is it going to stabilise the position or not?”

“There is a power in section 2(2)(c) of LASPO to make arrangements to secure legal aid in areas where it is not being met. I was going to ask about remuneration for legally aided work.”

“That is useful. I want to ask also about housing and immigration. Now we have had recent increases, the first since 1996.”

“It seems to me that everyone agrees about the importance of buses generally and to their local communities. I was glad to hear from the Minister about the addition of a rurality element to how bus funding is allocated. In areas such as mine, in Folkestone and Hythe, route after route has been cut, because we are told t…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petition 702845 relating to free bus travel for people over 60. Happy new year, Mr Mundell. It is, as always, a privilege to serve under your chairship. I start by thanking the petition’s creator, Mrs Karen Hickman, and the 101,000 people who signed the petition—including…”

“I completely agree with the hon. Member. Central Government have to support local government in properly funding bus services. As I will come on to say, that is exactly what this Government have been doing, but the critical question will be whether those local authorities spend the money in a way that benefits passenge…”

“The situation my hon. Friend describes is symptomatic of what I call the begging bowl approach of trying to reinstate routes, where a private company decides how it will run the service, it cuts the routes that are more difficult to make money on but which people really need, and we all go with our begging bowl, bangin…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. That is exactly why the Government introduced the Bus Services Act: to allow local authorities to be held to account for the decisions they make about how to fund bus services. I completely agree that bus services are a fundamental public good and a public service. In my con…”

“6. What steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Education to support young people to develop AI skills.”

“Research commissioned by DSIT estimates that by 2035 approximately 10 million UK workers will be in jobs where AI will be part of their responsibilities. PwC estimates that 18% of existing UK jobs face a high probability of automation by 2035, so what steps are the Government taking to ensure that young people in my co…”

“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 …”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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 sai…”

“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?”

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

“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?”

“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 fa…”