Liz Saville Roberts

From March to June this year, the Ministry of Justice held a public consultation on proposed reform of local justice areas. The consultation sought responses on a range of proposed structural changes set to affect magistrates across England and Wales. Among those proposed changes is the merging of three magistrates benches into a single north Wales bench to serve six local authorities covering an area totalling 2,383 square miles. As the Member of Parliament for a significant portion of the north-west Wales magistrates bench area, this plan is of particular concern to me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to debate it today. The local justice system in the north of Wales currently comprises three magistrates benches—north-east Wales, which serves Wrexham and Sir y Fflint; north-central Wales, representing Conwy and Sir Ddinbych; and north-west Wales, covering Gwynedd and Ynys Môn. The north-west Wales bench is based at the Caernarfon justice centre in the largest town in my constituency. Magistrates are familiar with this court, and with making the journey to that location to undertake their duties. Under Ministry of Justice plans, however, magistrates will be expected to sit at other courts outside their so-called home court between 20% and 40% of their time. In some areas and in more urban constituencies, that may not result in significantly increased journey times and distances, but that will indubitably not be the case for individuals in the north-west of Wales. For example, if a magistrate lives in Pen Llŷn, a journey to the Caernarfon magistrates court would incur a drive of about 40 minutes. If the same magistrate is called to the next nearest court in Llandudno as part of the 20% to 40% requirement, their journey time would nearly double to an hour and 15 minutes, and if they were called to the north-eastern courts in Mold or Wrexham, the journey times would be one hour and 40 minutes or two hours, respectively—and I must say that that is on a good day.