B

Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 2 December 2025

Debate

Criminal Court Reform

Contribution

My Lords, the Justice Secretary repeatedly emphasised the lengthy waiting times in bringing cases to court. I am not a lawyer—I am one of the non-lawyers in the Chamber today—but I was disappointed that the Statement did not acknowledge the difficulties that had been brought about by the Covid lockdowns, across two or three years, which should be acknowledged. Notwithstanding that, the Minister pointed out that all the evidence, including from social media, that now has to be collected for any trial these days takes an inordinate amount of time to collate. Nevertheless, when it comes to unnecessarily lengthy waiting times, this is pure hypocrisy, given that the same Justice Secretary supports bringing to court former British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland 50 years ago. In addition, the Government have certainly managed to find time recently to bring to court, pretty quickly, people who had maybe put not very nice posts on social media. Neither the public nor, I think, many in the judiciary support the steps that the Government wish to take—certainly from what I have heard. I therefore urge the Minister to reconsider this ill-judged proposal and defer bringing it forward.

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