How is Labour planning to clear the courts backlog?

Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, appointed Brian Leveson, a former leading judge, in December to come up with a plan to tackle the record backlog in the courts.

- JOHN RENTOUL

Leveson has acted quickly - seven months is fast for this kind of review - and claims that his proposals are “the most sweeping transformation of criminal courts in a generation”. His plan will, he says, “transform the justice system into one that delivers swift, proportionate and fair justice”.

Despite record funding for the Crown Court, the review found that “demand for court time continues to outstrip available capacity, causing significant delays for victims, witnesses and defendants”. According to the Ministry of Justice, “the review has concluded that money alone cannot fix the problem, and that radical structural reform is needed”.

That sounds as if Leveson understood his brief from Mahmood, which was to find ways of cutting the backlogs without asking the Treasury for more money.

What is the problem?

Too many cases and not enough court time means that delays get longer. The disruption of coronavirus lockdowns worsened a bad situation, which has failed to get better since. Some of the changes to court procedure during the pandemic, such as the greater use of video, seemed to offer the prospect of speeding up the justice system, but those hopes have not been realised.