Mr David Lammy

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I am very proud to bring this Bill back before the House, because it will drive long-overdue reform to effectively evolve our 20th-century criminal justice system so that it is fit for the 21st century. This House will recognise that a particular kind of silence now echoes through the corridors of our courts. It is not the silence of a jury carefully weighing the evidence, or the hush as a judge delivers their verdict; it is the silence of waiting. It is the silence of victims who have been told, sometimes for the third or fourth time, that their trial has been adjourned because there is no judge, no courtroom, and no capacity to hear it. It is the silence of people like Katie, who reported her partner for actual bodily harm and rape in 2017 but, staggeringly, did not see justice until 2024, after waiting seven years. Her life fell apart over that period—it left her mental health in tatters and caused her to lose her job. This is an injustice. It is Katie’s injustice and the injustice of thousands of victims across the country, and this Bill seeks to redress that today. It builds on Sir Brian Leveson’s thoughtful and considered review. I am grateful to Sir Brian for all his work, particularly in getting us to this point with part 1 and part 2 of this Bill. This Government inherited a justice system close to breaking point from the previous Government, who could and should have reformed it. The consequences of their inaction are clear: we have nearly 80,000 cases in the Crown court backlog. That is more than double the number in 2019. More than 20,000 cases wait for more than a year, and that includes around 2,000 rape cases. It is an average of 255 days before a Crown court case gets heard and finishes. For rape, it is a staggering 423 days. If we do nothing, the backlog is projected to reach 200,000 within the next decade. That is five times what it was in 2019. This is not a matter of efficiency; the progressive case for court reform is about whether the institutions of the British state can still deliver justice. For the people we were elected to represent in Parliament, when we speak about the rule of law, we do so as though it is a lofty constitutional principle, but the rule of law is not abstract. It is a public service. If that service cannot be delivered in a timeframe that allows victims to move on with their lives, the law is not ruling, but failing.