Member

I come back to a wider concern of mine. We know that the criminal justice system is under real stress at the moment, so much so that the Secretary of State for Justice is considering that fewer convicted offenders will be imprisoned and that those who are will be imprisoned for a shorter period. But prisons are only part of the criminal justice system; an offence for which a convicted offender can be sentenced for a term of up to two years also relies on substantial time from the CPS, police, court staff, solicitors and barristers, and judges and recorders. This is at exactly the moment when we have people waiting for years for serious cases of rape even to be considered.