Member

I turn to something on which we can all surely agree, which is that sentencing remarks matter. They are how judges explain the seriousness of the offence, the harm done to victims and the reasons for the sentence imposed. For victims and offenders, a sentenced passed in a Crown court will be a moment of extreme seriousness in their lives. We can surely agree that people should not simply have to rely on their memory or on scribbled notes by those in court on their behalf unless they can afford to pay for a word-for-word record. That is a good example of how, for decades, our justice system has been doing things that no one from any party can really justify, and those things must be changed.