Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)

I will not take many minutes to wind up—there is another debate to begin and we have heard a wide range of speeches from noble Lords with a whole range of experiences. I congratulate my noble friend on her inaugural speech as a Minister. She showed that her experience, and the fact that she still remembers it, is crucial and will stand her in good stead. She said she could remember with some trepidation—I forget the exact word she used—when things had gone wrong; if I have one word of advice, it would be to never forget that feeling, because the minute you do is the minute you stop trying to solve the problems. The committee understands the complexity of this, the length of time that these problems have been in existence and that the court system has not been well funded by Governments of any party for far too long. So it is difficult, and we are grateful and appreciative of the progress that has been made. But this big contract is almost like a brick wall in front of us and, to be honest, I remain unconfident that some of the fundamental improvements will be made until we see the contract. I live in hope as far as that is concerned. I will just respond very briefly to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett. I take seriously his criticism of the report; the irony is that we probably spent longer talking about it than is reflected in the report. It started with just the noble Lord, Lord Willis, speaking about it, and then we gradually realised that he had a bit of a good idea. Part way through, the Government published their road map on artificial intelligence, which we felt gave us a good hook to go forward with. Perhaps our committee did not reflect in the report our understanding of how crucial this is. It has got to happen, because it will happen whether or not the Ministry of Justice decides to take charge of it. I thank everybody who has contributed, especially those who are not members of the committee. It shows huge commitment. I look forward to keeping in touch with the Minister and her department so that we can monitor further progress. I beg to move.