The phone-hacking scandal started out as a story affecting the rich and the famous, and therefore of little relevance to the general public. Then came the revelations that Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked, as had the phones of the relatives of war casualties, the murdered Soham girls and 7/7casualties. Suddenly it became a scandal of how news is gathered, one which could have touched any family, and there was a wave of national revulsion at what Nick Clegg called the “fundamentally corrupted relationship between politics, the media, and the police.”

News International thought that the surest way to distract people was to create a compelling diversion. Closing the News of the World was intended to hold off criticism, but it was never going to be enough, and the fall-out continues. The Metropolitan Police have questions to answer over shelving an investigation that they should have pursued vigorously. They failed to tell thousands of people whose names appeared in the books of a private investigator that their phones might have been hacked. Their excuse was that they were far too busy with other matters – particularly terrorist plots – to plough through the mountain of documents they had recovered in the sketchy first enquiry. Perhaps they should have handed the lot over to Wikileaks for analysis. It would seem that the police were afraid of endangering their cosy relationship with the Murdoch papers. More seriously, some police were corruptly paid by the Murdoch press.

David Cameron made an astonishing statement on Wednesday when he admitted that the relationship between media executives and the politicians had become unhealthy. He said: “It was too close. Too much time was spent courting the media and not enough time confronting the problems.” Margaret Thatcher was the last Prime Minister who didn’t give a toss about the media. Since then it has been a sorry catalogue. Kingmaker Murdoch saw off Neil Kinnock, John Major and Gordon Brown, while ensuring the coronation of Tony Blair and David Cameron. No wonder there was a climate of fear, a reluctance to take on the power of the tabloids which used illegal intrusions into privacy to sell newspapers and to secure political influence. Even Tony Blair was eventually moved to castigate the “feral beast” of the media.

One politician who did not cosy up to the Murdoch empire was Vince Cable. As business secretary he had legal responsibility for deciding whether to accept any Competition Commission decision that a takeover of BSkyB could go ahead. Then last December he was caught by a ‘Telegraph’ sting when he revealed his true feelings. He told the undercover reporters: “And I don’t know if you have been following what has been happening with the Murdoch press, where I have declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we are going to win…His [Murdoch's] whole empire is now under attack…” He lost his BSkyB role for his indiscretion and was considered lucky to hang on to his cabinet post. But who would argue with his judgement now. On Wednesday Rupert Murdoch capitulated to parliament and abandoned News Corporation’s £8bn bid for BSkyB. So a celebratory lap of honour in the Cable household would be in order.

Also on Wednesday David Cameron performed another U-turn and announced a sweeping public inquiry, to be presided over by Lord Justice Brian Leveson, into widespread lawbreaking by the press, alleged corruption by police, and the failure of the initial police investigation into phone hacking. The inquiry will also look at a new system of independent regulation of the press and the potentially critical issue of future cross-ownership between press and television stations. So that’s alright then.

Or is it? Inquiries under The Inquiries Act 2005 can still be subject to ministerial interference on the relevance of evidence and even the terms of reference. They also grind exceedingly slow. No results are promised in under a year. The danger is that, once the initial outrage has passed, and the general public is otherwise distracted by such as the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Games, we will again settle for half-measures, half-implemented, as happened with the impulse for constitutional reform that came out of the parliamentary expenses scandal.

Photo courtesy of bisgovuk

At the moment, anyone is entitled to free advice in the police station if they are arrested. For minor cases they may get only telephone advice, for more serious cases they get a lawyer in the police station for any interview. The universal right to representation by a solicitor at a police station was enshrined in section 58(1) Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 in response to a series of serious miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 80s involving unrepresented defendants.

But clause 12 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill appears  to say that advice in the police station will in future only be available if the Government decides in the individual case that it is in the ‘interests of justice’ to do so. There would also seem to be a financial barrier to negotiate, requiring both a ‘merit’ and a ‘means’ test to be applied at the point where someone has been arrested and is in police station custody. Writing in the ‘Observer’, Jamie Doward says that legal experts, including Lord Ken Macdonald QC, a former director of public prosecutions, have expressed alarm at the proposal and questioned how it would work in practice.

Richard Miller, head of legal aid policy at the Law Society, is quoted as saying: “When someone is arrested they are in the power of the state, subject to the mercies of the police officers involved. The purpose of having a solicitor acting for them is to ensure their rights are respected, that they are not physically abused, that their confessions are not forged and they are not detained for longer than legally allowed.” He pointed out that the presence of a lawyer also protects the police from a defendant making up allegations about what happened, for instance during the course of an interrogation, and he cautioned the government against interfering in any way with the absolute right to representation in police stations. “It’s there for a very good reason. When we didn’t have it, we saw the consequences,” he said.

But then things are never quite what they seem. An interesting exchange took place in the Commons on Wednesday during the debate on the second reading of the bill. Tory MP David Burrowes declared an interest as “one who has been a duty solicitor in the police station.” He asked Ken Clarke to consult carefully about the practical implementation of proposals to limit legal aid for advice and assistance in police stations, as “losing the benefit of the informed legal advice that one needs in the police station can lead to inefficient justice.”

Mr Clarke’s response is worth quoting in full: “We will look at that and consider it carefully as we proceed. At the moment, the Bill replicates a provision taken from an earlier Bill by the Labour party. It appears to give a power to take away the right to legal aid. It appears to give a power to take away access to legal advice in the police station. The last Government legislated to do that but never did it. We have no current intentions of doing it. We will consider the issue and no doubt my hon. Friend or others will return to it in Committee. I realise that there has been some concern.”

There would seem to be some room for manoeuvre here.

The government is pressing ahead with plans to cut £350m from the more than £2bn annual legal aid bill, despite lawyers’ and campaigners’ opposition. A record response of over 5,000 consultation submissions, universally unfavourable, has produced no U-turn. Under the plans, some 600,000 cases of legal aid in England and Wales will no longer be funded if the full package goes through Parliament.

There have been some minor changes to the government’s earlier proposals. The definition of domestic violence in family disputes has been broadened to include providing legal support to those who have suffered psychological abuse. And legal aid to help children with special educational needs has also been restored. Excluding it would have saved the Ministry of Justice barely £1 million and had already caused a political outcry. Jolanta Lasota, chief executive of Ambitious about Autism, said: “For many of the parents we support, using the legal system is the only way to get a good education for their child with special educational needs. They will be hugely relieved by the government’s decision to support their right to justice for their children.”

The bill proposes the abolition of the Legal Services Commission (LSC), a non-departmental public body which looks after legal aid in England and Wales. It will be replaced by direct government administration of the legal aid system under a Director of Legal Aid Casework, who will be a civil servant answerable to government ministers. The bill also plans wholesale implementation of the Jackson reforms of civil litigation costs, which will have implications for small businesses and access to justice.

In the Commons, the justice secretary said that he would not abolish, as originally proposed, the current capital disregards for pensioners and for equity in the main home in assessing an applicant’s eligibility for legal aid. In response to expressed concerns he also dangled a carrot when he said: “On citizens advice bureaux and other forms of general advice, I hope to be able to say something on Second Reading—I am making advances, but we will see how much we can come forward with.” But he went on to confirm: “Legal aid will no longer be routinely available for most private family law cases, clinical negligence, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, some education cases, and welfare benefits. It will also no longer be available for squatters resisting eviction.”

Needless to say the proposals have had a thoroughly bad press. Linda Lee, president of the Law Society, said: “The government has failed to consider alternatives which would make bigger savings without removing civil legal aid from some of the most vulnerable people in society.” Stephen Cobb QC, chairman of the Family Law Bar Association, said: “The threats posed by the government’s proposals are real and potentially brutal.” Gillian Guy, of Citizen’s Advice, predicted that those in greatest need would suffer. Richard Hawkes, Chief Executive of disability charity Scope, said: “As the government presses ahead with its welfare reform agenda – which will hit disabled people hard – it is probably more important than ever that disabled people have access to legal aid and advice.”

The Legal Action Group believes the legal aid cuts are penny-wise but pound-foolish. They calculate that £1 of expenditure on civil legal help saves the government around £6 in other public expenditure. As Zoe Williams writes in the ‘Guardian’: “This might be a cut, but it isn’t a saving. It will cost us a fortune.”

Twelve months ago in the Rose Garden we were promised a coalition government guided by progressive values and reason. Justice secretary Ken Clarke seemed to have been so guided, with a green paper setting out a rehabilitative revolution in penal reform, driven by the prohibitive human and financial cost of the current regime. After the Prime Minister’s rewriting of this bill that rehabilitative revolution lies in ruins.

The way it happened on Tuesday is as noteworthy as what happened. It is, to say the least, unusual for the introduction and first reading of a major bill to be prefaced – and thoroughly upstaged – by a Prime Ministerial press conference. Having backed the Clarke plans in private, he emerged to trash them in public as the justice secretary was forced by Downing Street to ditch more than 60% of his original proposals. In a brief exchange in the Commons debate, Ken Clarke confirmed that: “The proposals that I presented for consultation and the Green Paper were the proposals of the Prime Minister, the whole Cabinet and I.” The craven capitulation that followed was caused by the outcry from the Tory right and the tabloid press, and falling poll ratings on law and order. David Cameron defended his actions thus: “It is absolutely vital that the public have confidence in a criminal justice system that the state puts in place. Public confidence is not a side issue in this debate. It is the issue.”

The headline policy reversal was the complete abandonment of the proposed 50% sentence discount for guilty pleas, now deemed “too lenient”. Going beyond the scope of the current bill in some cases, the Prime Minister announced plans to impose a surprise tough “two strikes and you’re out” mandatory life sentence. He also announced that anyone guilty of a sexual or violent offence would spend two-thirds of the sentence in prison, rather than the current half.  The justice secretary has also quietly dropped his original plan to restore the discretion of judges on sentencing, which had proposed the scrapping of David Blunkett’s minimum mandatory sentences. A Ministry of Justice impact assessment estimates the redrawn sentencing package will save just 2,650 prison places each year – or £80m – compared with the original 6,450 and £210m saving. So there is a shortfall to be found, and probation looks vulnerable.

Speaking in the Commons, Clarke said: “Public confidence in the criminal justice system is unacceptably low. That is why we want to take forward plans for a new offence, with a mandatory minimum prison sentence of six months, for adults who use a knife to threaten and endanger. We will also consult on proposals to criminalise squatting, and we will bring forward legislation to clarify the law on self-defence. In addition, I can confirm our intention to improve the use of remand and reduce the number of foreign national prisoners in our jails….We are reviewing so-called indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection, with a view to replacing them with a more sensible, tough system of long, determinate sentences.”

Curiously unremarked is clause 12 of the bill. This introduces an “interests of justice test” for police station advice. At the moment, anyone is entitled to free advice in the police station if they are arrested. For minor cases they get only telephone advice, for more major cases they get a lawyer in the police station for any interview. Clause 12 appears to say that advice in the police station will only be available if the Government decides in the individual case that it is in the interests of justice to do so, and there would also seem to be a financial barrier to negotiate. The role of “Director” in this context will be crucial. At best this will be a bureaucratic nightmare, at worst it creates scope for official abuse. Not a good day for Magna Carta or Human Rights legislation.

Soon we will have Tesco Law. On present plans, 6 October is the date on which the first alternative business structures (ABS) will be able to open for business in the legal services marketplace in England and Wales. This will mean that for the first time non-lawyers can fully own and invest in law firms.

An ABS is a firm where a non-lawyer is a manager of the firm, or has an ownership-type interest in the firm. A non-lawyer is defined as a person who is not authorised under the Legal Services Act 2007 to carry out reserved legal activities. A firm may also be an ABS where another body is a manager of the firm, or has an ownership-type interest in the firm and at least 10 per cent of that body is controlled by non-lawyers. Under the proposed rules, ABS are not limited in the services that they can offer to the public.

It has been a long road since Sir David Clementi was appointed to conduct a review of the regulatory framework for legal services in England and Wales. He presented his report in December 2004. One of his terms of reference was:

“To consider what regulatory framework would best promote competition, innovation and the public and consumer interest in an efficient, effective and independent legal sector.

The outcome is ABS. The expressed belief is that ABS will bring benefits to consumers through increased competition, the development of new services and ways of delivering them and the integration of the delivery of legal services with other related services.

Enterprising firms have been positioning themselves to be in pole position when the starting gun is fired. A clear example of what Clementi had in mind is the online conveyancing service set up by Rightmove founder Harry Hill. His In-Deed Online operation allows people buying or selling a home to track the legal process from instruction to completion. The website was launched by Hill, the former chief of estate agents Countrywide, and Peter Gordon, a former partner at private equity group 3i. The firm has signed up two law firms to do the conveyancing work, which will operate under the In-Deed Online brand, and hopes to sign up another two. Their claim is: “Our online system was designed to make conveyancing simple and transparent. You can track every step towards completion online or on your mobile. We tell you what to expect, what we’re doing and what we need from you.” 

As they rightly point out, “You bank online, you shop online. Now you can do your conveyancing online.”
And so we come, finally, to the tipping point for the commercial future of the legal profession. In-deed.net is the tip of the iceberg. The difference is, perhaps for the first time, we now see how non-lawyers will seek to change the way law is practiced in England. The battleground will be online and the future belongs to anyone who uses it well.

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Out will go the existing Serious and Organised Crime Agency, and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, and in will come the National Crime Agency (NCA) under plans announced by the Home Office. The NCA will become fully operational from December 2013.

Last Wednesday Home Secretary Theresa May told the Commons: “Our law enforcement agencies assess that there are some 38,000 individuals engaged in organised crime, involving 6,000 criminal groups (but) law enforcement is impacting in a meaningful way on only 11% of those 6,000 organised crime groups. We must do better.” She said that for too long national and international crime was neglected and our borders became porous, and the overall effect was a fragmented and patchy law enforcement response. She added: “The National Crime Agency will be a crime-fighting organisation. It will tackle organised crime, defend our borders, fight fraud and cybercrime, and protect children and young people. Intelligence will be at the heart of what the NCA does…All other agencies will work to the NCA’s threat assessment and prioritisation, and it will be the NCA’s intelligence picture that will drive the response on the ground.” The new head of the National Crime Agency will effectively become the most senior police officer in Britain with powers to order other chief constables to undertake investigations.

The new agency will be made up of four distinct parts, or ‘commands’, dealing with organised crime, border policing, economic crime and the child exploitation and online protection centre (CEOP). The commands will be linked to the NCA’s intelligence centre to ensure information flows to and from the police and other law enforcement agencies in support of tactical operational activity. Last-minute negotiations led to the exclusion of the Serious Fraud Office from the new agency, although the NCA will have a lead role in tackling economic crime. The City of London police, the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Services Authority had already been excluded from the merger.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvonne Cooper was particularly critical of the proposal to replace the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. She told the Commons that, despite good results this year, Jim Gamble, its successful head, resigned from the agency after seeing the Government’s plans to merge CEOP with the NCA. She quoted him as saying: “I don’t believe that the rebranding or the submerging of CEOP within a far greater entity will allow the critical child protection focus that we need,” making the point the point that CEOP will also suffer a 10% per cent reduction in its budget by 2014. On the National Policing Improvement Agency she said that the Home Secretary has said nothing at all, but she is disbanding it in 2012, a year before the NCA starts.

The full text of ‘The National Crime Agency – A plan for the creation of a national crime-fighting capability’ can be found at:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/crime/nca-creation-plan?view=Binary

On Tuesday the government unveiled sweeping changes to the libel laws aimed at protecting freedom of speech and bringing an end to so-called ‘libel tourism’ from abroad. The declared aim is to bring libel law up to date, striking a balance between protecting people’s right to free speech – including responsible journalism and scientific debate – from unjustified libel actions, while enabling people who have genuinely been defamed to protect their reputations.

Launching the draft Defamation Bill, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said: “The right to speak freely and debate issues without fear of censure is a vital cornerstone of a democratic society. In recent years though, the increased threat of costly libel actions has begun to have a chilling effect on scientific and academic debate, and investigative journalism. However it is never acceptable to harm someone’s reputation without just cause, so the Bill will ensure defamation law continues to balance the needs of both sides and encourage a just outcome in libel cases.”

The draft Bill includes provision for a new ‘public interest’ defence which can be used by defendants in defamation cases. It also includes a new statutory defence of truth which will replace the current common law defence of justification, and a statutory defence of honest opinion replacing the current common law defence of fair and honest comment. There will be a requirement for claimants to demonstrate substantial harm before they can sue. ‘Libel tourism’ will be reduced by making it tougher to bring overseas claims which have little connection to the UK in the English courts. In addition there will be a single publication rule, meaning repeat claims for libel cannot be made every time a publication is accessed on the internet. The bill signals an end to the use of juries in libel trials, apart from in exceptional circumstances.

The draft bill has produced a generally favourable press. Roy Greenslade’s blog in the ‘Guardian’ gave it three cheers. He is “particularly delighted that the bill includes a ‘public interest’ defence in order to strengthen the position of people who raise concerns about malpractice or dangerous products.” Slightly more reserved is Dr Evan Harris of the Libel Reform Campaign, who said: “Those campaigning for libel reform will want to see cross-party recognition that the draft bill is a welcome step forward, but also that it does not yet reflect the extent of full libel reform that is required to properly protect free expression.” And Jonathan Heawood, Director of English PEN said: “Our libel laws allow big corporations to silence their critics even though they do not ‘suffer’ damage in the same way that a libelled individual does. Whilst we’re delighted that the government has delivered a wholesale draft bill, for the first time in a generation, it’s essential that this opportunity delivers real reform that protects free speech for writers, publishers and the citizen critic.”

A consultation paper has also been launched alongside the draft Bill, which includes questions on a number of other areas. These include the role of the internet, and a new court procedure to cut the sometimes overwhelming court costs associated with libel actions by encouraging early resolution of key issues. The consultation is open until 10 June. The full text of the Draft Defamation Bill and the Consultation can be found at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/docs/draft-defamation-bill-consultation.pdf

Home Secretary Theresa May went to the House of Commons on Wednesday to announce the results of the counter terrorism review which was one of the main commitments of the coalition government. The headline announcement was the proposal to scrap the very controversial control order regime.

Control orders are to be replaced by “a new package of measures that is better focused and has more targeted restrictions,” to be known officially as terrorism prevention and investigation measures (T-PIMs for short). There will be the removal of those aspects of control orders that most resemble house arrest. Curfews will be replaced by an overnight residence requirement. Forcible relocation will be ended and replaced with the power to order more tightly defined exclusions from particular areas. There will be the power to prevent foreign travel. Individuals will have greater access to communications, including to a mobile phone and to a home computer with internet access. They will have greater freedom to associate and will be free to work and study, subject again to restrictions.

The review accepts that the normal maximum period of pre-charge detention should be 14 days but recognises that in exceptional circumstances this might need to be temporarily increased to 28 days. Draft primary legislation will be drawn up to be introduced for parliamentary consideration only in such circumstances. On the use of section 44 stop-and-search powers, the Home Secretary said: “I have concluded that the current provisions, which were found unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights, represented an unacceptable intrusion on an individual’s human rights and must be repealed. We therefore propose to repeal section 44 and to replace it with a tightly defined power that would allow a senior police officer to make an authorisation of much more limited scope and duration for no-suspicion stop-and-search powers to prevent a terrorist attack where there is a specific threat. This targeted measure will also prevent the misuse of these powers against photographers.”

On the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Mrs May promised implementation of the commitment to prevent the use of these powers by local authorities unless for the purpose of preventing serious crime and unless authorised by a magistrate. She expressed concern at “the use of counter-terrorism legislation by local authorities in respect of matters that clearly had nothing to do with counter-terrorism, such as dog fouling and whether or not children had the right to go to a particular school in a particular catchment area.” Surveillance will only be authorised for offences that carry a custodial sentence of at least six months.
Writing in the ‘Guardian’, Lib Dem MP Tim Farron said: “The ridiculous, heavy handed and easily abused powers brought in by the last Labour regime trampled over centuries of British tradition and liberty. That’s why the Liberal Democrats and other civil liberties campaigners fought to prevent them and railed against them once they were imposed. And that’s why we should all be proud of the steps taken by the coalition government today.” Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, was less fulsome. She said: “We welcome movement on stop and search, 28-day detention and council snooping, but when it comes to ending punishment without trial, the Government appears to have bottled it. Spin and semantics aside, control orders are retained and rebranded, if in a slightly lower fat form. As before, the innocent may be punished without a fair hearing and the guilty will escape the full force of criminal law.” On ‘This Week’ last night, former Home Secretary Charles Clarke called it “a complete fudge” that endangered national security.

The government is legally required to produce an equality impact assessment examining the effects of any proposed major reforms. The assessment relating to the proposed major reduction in legal aid was published in draft form when the green paper came out last November.

The government has proposed wide-ranging changes to reduce spending by excluding from eligibility legal advice and representation in some categories of case and save £350m a year out of a £914m annual civil and family legal aid budget by 2014. Out go private family law cases, including divorce and child residence cases, unless domestic violence, forced marriage or child abduction is involved. Out go clinical negligence cases. Other categories to face the chop are education, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, and welfare benefits, except where there is a risk to anyone’s safety or liberty, or a risk of homelessness.
 
The Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment makes no bones that the principal driver for reform is financial. It acknowledges that the key groups likely to be affected by the proposals are legal aid clients with matters falling in the categories of law to be removed from the scope of legal aid funding. It admits that tackling disputes in different ways, or of disputes remaining unaddressed, may lead to a deterioration of case outcomes, which might be less fair than beforehand. It also admits that legal aid recipients are amongst the most disadvantaged in society, reflecting both the nature of the problems they face as well as the eligibility rules for legal aid. “Clients who no longer receive legal aid might potentially experience a negative impact on their health. This may stem from the outcomes of disputes being resolved less fairly and this having an adverse impact on health due to the subject matter of the dispute, e.g. housing, employment.” Women are more likely to be affected by the proposals than men. Of those clients who would be affected by the civil proposals, 57% are women and 42% men.

Quoted in the ‘Guardian’, Emma Scott, director of Rights of Women, which is campaigning against the changes, said: “We know already that in family law women are the majority of applicants for legal aid. In 2006, 62% of all applications for legal aid were for women. If you remove legal aid for women to sort out the finances after marriages break down, we know it’s really difficult to represent yourself.”  She also warned against the redefinition of abuse under the proposals. “What they are saying is that legal aid for family law cases will continue to be available where domestic violence is a feature, but they define it as woman being at risk of physical harm. It’s absolutely far too narrow. Psychological abuse is widely recognised by this government, and the UN, as abuse, but this change doesn’t,” she said. The shadow solicitor general, Catherine McKinnell, said: “I believe that [these] legal aid proposals are part of a wider trend, evident under this government, whereby cuts – undertaken for political, not purely economic, reasons – are being targeted at vulnerable people not able to fight back.”

The full text of the MoJ’s Impact Assessment can be found at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/docs/legalaidiascope.pdf

On Tuesday MPs were told the results of the consultations about court closures. Public consultations were launched in June and produced 2552 responses. Decisions have been made to close 93 magistrates’ courts and 49 county courts, with ten magistrates’ courts and five county courts on the original list being retained.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Jonathan Djanogly, said that the court estate had not kept pace with the changing nature of society or with the demands modern society places on the justice system. An estate of over 500 court buildings is not now considered necessary, sustainable or a reasonable expense for the taxpayer. He said: “We are closing the worst courts in the estate – so we can concentrate our limited resources on the best ones. We are investing in the court estate with new buildings and with refurbishment of facilities.” He told MPs that the closures will not mean people losing access to local justice, and the provision of a better, more efficient and more modern justice system with good facilities and efficient courts would provide better local justice. He said: “Much has been said by Members about travel times to court. I can reassure the House that our plans will only very slightly reduce the percentage of the population able to access their nearest court by public transport in under an hour, from just under 90% to 85%.”

He estimated that the closures will save £41.5 million during the spending review period, excluding closure costs, and bring in £38.5 million in receipts from the sale of assets. He also announced that £22 million of capital will be reinvested to improve and modernise the courts to which work will be transferred. “The timetable is that the first courts will start to close on 1 April next year, and I can confirm that travel arrangements will be organised on a local basis. It is important to make the point that during these reorganisation proposals, we have been considering not just closures but how we can best reorganise the remaining Courts Service. That includes looking at how people can best get to their local courts.”

Responding to the announcement, shadow justice minister Andrew Slaughter said that courts are an important part of many communities. He added: “Claimants and defendants, witnesses and victims will all be inconvenienced and, in many cases, disconcerted by the loss of the local criminal or civil court, or both, only to find them replaced with anonymous court centres many miles away. Secondly, not everyone has the mobility or resources to travel long distances to find justice, especially in rural or remote areas.” He said: “The Minister said that some capital will be reinvested in specific projects, but there is no allowance for the extra pressures on remaining courts. Is that not proof that this is no more than a crude cost-cutting exercise with none of the benefits that he half-heartedly claims?” He quoted the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Justice Goldring, as noting that poor public transport meant it would be difficult for many people to arrive at court before 10am or return home after 4pm.

The full list of courts to be closed and those to be retained can be found at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/newsrelease141210a.htm