Westminster update: criminal courts review announced

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What you need to know

1. Criminal courts review announced

The Ministry of Justice announced a review of the criminal courts to try and address the backlog on Thursday 12 December.

The review will be led by Sir Brian Leveson, a retired judge, who will put forward recommendations and options to reform the courts to ensure cases are dealt with proportionately in light of pressures on the courts.

This could include the option of intermediate courts, which would be heard by two magistrates and a judge instead of a jury in the Crown Court.

The review will bring forward these recommendations in spring next year.

The review was announced alongside the publication of new figures showing the Crown Court backlog has reached a record high of 73,105 cases, with over 16,000 outstanding for more than a year.

This data comes after a long period without the publication of any statistics following a data quality issue found by the Ministry of Justice.

We have welcomed the review as a step in the right direction. However, we have made clear that it must aim for fair and effective justice, rather than simply efficiency.

We are not convinced that intermediate courts are necessarily the right solution to solve the backlogs.

They will take extensive time and resources to introduce, with questions about how they will operate.

Instead, we believe investment in our existing courts should be brought forward immediately.

We look forward to engaging with Sir Brian’s review as it moves forward.

2. Justice questions: MPs apply pressure on courts backlog

MPs across the Commons used Justice Questions on Tuesday 10 December to pile the pressure on the government to address the backlog in the Crown Court.

The shadow lord chancellor, Robert Jenrick, asked why the courts were not operating at full capacity, citing comments from the lady chief justice that there could be an extra 6,500 sitting days.

The lord chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, struck back asking Jenrick about the last Conservative government’s track record on the courts and highlighting increased sitting days and magistrates’ sentencing powers.

Rebecca Smith, a Conservative MP, asked why Truro Crown Court is being forced to shut one day a week due to budget and sitting day cuts.

In response, the victims minister Alex Davies-Jones highlighted the additional sitting days funded by the government and noted additional support for rape victims, including independent legal advocates, would be coming forward next year to support them through the justice system.

Finally, the chair of the Justice Select Committee, Andy Slaughter (Labour), highlighted the extensive use of paper files in the county courts and asked when civil justice would be digitised.

Newly appointed justice minister Sarah Sackman said this is a priority for the government and is being worked on.

3. Data bill: minister pressed on 'recognised legitimate interests'

Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat) noted ministers’ own criticisms of proposed data legislation introduced by the previous last government when scrutinising similar provisions during a committee stage debate on the Data (Use and Access) Bill on Tuesday 10 December.

A significant proposal of the bill is to create ‘recognised legitimate interests’ which allow government agencies to bypass the balancing test between the data subject's interests and the controller's legitimate interest.

Examples of ‘recognised legitimate interests’ include matters of national security and crime prevention.

This clause was initially introduced by the previous government under the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill but has been carried through by Labour into its Data (Use and Access) Bill.

The clause also allows the secretary of state to add further ‘recognised legitimate interests’ through secondary legislation.

Lord Clement-Jones highlighted that “during the scrutiny of recognised legitimate interests in the DPDI Bill… the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, who is now leading on this bill as the minister, raised concerns about the broad nature of the objectives.

She rightly said: ‘There is no strong reason for needing that extra power’”.

Baroness Jones did not give a detailed response, only noting that the grounds under which data could be processed without the balancing test would be very limited and that agencies would still have to be processed in compliance with ‘other data protection principles’.

Viscount Colville (crossbench) also rose to speak on his amendments to strengthen the definition of “scientific research” in the bill.

Under clause 67, scientific research is excluded from certain regulations on the grounds of incentivising innovation.

However, Viscount Colville argued that the broad definition of “scientific research” included in the bill leaves the door open for data scrubbing for the purpose of training large language models.

He noted his concern that companies training AI systems would be allowed to bypass the data protection framework under the guise of “scientific research” and proposed a group of amendments to ensure data protection and privacy in AI model training.

Baroness Jones responded to this amendment by highlighting the reasonableness test that is attached to this clause, which the government believes will tighten the basis for attributing data processing as “scientific research”.

Viscount Colville therefore withdrew his amendments.

Coming up

We are working closely with MPs and peers to influence a number of bills before parliament: