Catherine Atkinson

I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. I acknowledge that there are many categories of people who we want to ensure have real priority. The Government already have the ambition to halve the number of prisoners who are released into homelessness, but, if we are to end rough sleeping and break cycles of offending, that ambition is not ambitious enough. Just as it is morally offensive to us when we see someone sleeping rough in the doorway of a really high-end hotel, it should also offend us when we see the global elite and blue chip companies coming to Britain for our world-class justice while our own citizens are often left outside that justice system, getting rough justice. We should be rightly proud—and the Treasury mindful—of the huge contribution that international cases make to our country’s economy. In 2024 alone, the UK legal sector contributed £42.6 billion to the economy, and the UK is the largest legal services market in Europe and second only to the US globally, but we should be using some of that revenue to improve access to early legal advice and to legal aid, and to address the dire shortage in duty solicitors for our own people. Lastly, there was positive news for our high streets, with the Budget taking many of our cafés, pubs and beauty salons completely out of business rates. The Home Secretary is putting police back on the frontline, and we have reversed the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting under the previous Government, but the justice system needs to work much faster for all of us, including on our high streets and in our town and city centres, where people need to feel safe if they are to want to be there and spend money. But as well as fast, justice needs to be fair. It is not right for people on the minimum wage to face custodial sentences—potentially going up to two years’ custody—and not qualify for legal aid, leaving them unrepresented in court.