Sarah Sackman

The hon. Member is right: a backlog is a backlog, irrespective of the offence. The victims in all these cases might be of a different nature— they might be animals, or they might be humans—but local a

Early legal advice is absolutely essential to access to justice, and that is why one of the first actions we took when I became the Minister responsible for legal aid was to give legal aid lawyers del

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that cross-criminal justice system working between the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the judiciary and our Courts Service is vital. I know that steps

We recognise the vital role that high street law firms play in serving communities such as Scarborough and Whitby, and I greatly valued the meeting that we had, in which my hon. Friend raised a number

In Croydon, as elsewhere, we are taking a three-pronged approach to reducing the Crown court waiting list. That involves increasing Crown court capacity, removing the financial constraint on sitting d

As the right hon. Member has just heard me say, what we need is action and investment in our workforce now. That is about fair pay; it is also about ensuring that our workforce, whether in prisons or