HC Deb 10 April 2000 vol 348 cc159-66

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pope.]

1 am

Mr. John Burnett (Torridge and West Devon)

It is 1 o'clock in the morning, and I am grateful to the hon. Members who are still present, especially my hon. Friends the Members for Lewes (Mr. Baker), for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) and for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed). Throughout the country, especially in country towns and rural areas, there is great concern about the future of our magistrates courts. That is especially so in Devon and Cornwall. If my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he wishes to emphasise the disquiet that is felt in our part of the south-west.

I speak tonight to highlight the problems of funding for magistrates courts. I have had meetings and correspondence over the past few months with the Minister on that point, especially as it affects the two counties. First, the Government's policy is to insist on 3 per cent. per annum savings from magistrates courts budgets. I have taken that point up in writing with the Minister and she tells me that 3 per cent. is an efficiency savings initiative. I have been informed by her that an efficiency target of a minimum of 3 per cent. was set out for the Lord Chancellor's Department and magistrates courts in the comprehensive spending review in 1998, which covers three years, from 1999–2000 to 2001–02.

At a meeting on 2 March 2000 in the Minister's office, I was accompanied by several hon. Members and some magistrates. The Minister made it clear to the meeting that the cuts being imposed on Devon and Cornwall were not cost driven.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Jane Kennedy)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way so early in his speech. I would like him to acknowledge that at no point did I accept his definition of the efficiency targets as being cuts.

Mr. Burnett

That is exactly what the Minister did say, but they are, in effect, cuts and I shall say exactly why they are. Many magistrates courts committees believe that they have to cut their budgets by 3 per cent. a year for at least three years. That is the impression that the Minister, or her Department, has given magistrates courts committees in Devon and Cornwall, and elsewhere. Those cuts are even greater when one considers that no allowance will be made for inflation. If inflation is 2 per cent. a year, that means that the cuts will be 5 per cent. per annum.

If that is the policy, it is utterly irresponsible of the Government to impose it.

Jane Kennedy

indicated dissent.

Mr. Burnett

Well, I look forward to hearing the Minister's views and I hope that she can contradict the impression, which all magistrates courts seem to have, of the need to make cuts of 3 per cent. per annum. After all—in a move that makes the policy even more paradoxical—the Government have sanctioned pay increases for the staff of magistrates courts of 3 per cent. per annum. How can cuts of 5 per cent. per annum for three years be reconciled with increases in staff costs of 3 per cent. per annum? I hope that the Minister will address that specific point in her response to the debate.

There is complete confusion. Magistrates courts committees believe that they must cut expenditure by at least 3 per cent. per year. However, not only have staff costs risen by 3 per cent. per year, but the work of magistrates courts is set to increase substantially, thanks to the incorporation in our law of the European convention on human rights, and thanks to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

In a letter to me dated 16 March, the Minister did not define efficiency savings. I hope that she will do so when she responds this evening. She wrote: Improving efficiency does not mean cuts in funding. It is about ensuring that the money that is available provides value for money. She went on to say that, on current plans, there would be about £379 million in revenue and capital expenditure on magistrates courts for the year 2001–02, an increase of just over 5.25 per cent. in the three years covered by the last spending review.

If that is so, why is this year's budget for the Devon and Cornwall magistrates courts committee to be cut? Where is the increased expenditure being applied? I am also anxious to know exactly what an efficiency saving is, how it is measured and who measures it.

My final point about funding and the pressures imposed on the Government to close courts is one that I have raised with the Minister in the past. It has much to do with the Lord Chancellor's liaising with other Government Departments—joined-up Government, in other words.

At the meeting on 2 March, I asked the Minister a question that I reiterated in my letter of 7 March. I asked what cost-benefit analysis is done when efficiency savings give rise to court closures. In Devon and Cornwall, it is proposed to close 13 courts. What will the effect of those closures be on the budgets of the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, magistrates, the probation service, the Legal Aid Board, and the other users of the courts? Small savings by the Lord Chancellor's Department will be far outweighed by significant increases in the budgets of other central Government Departments, and in those of local government departments.

In her letter of 16 March, the Minister stated that that information was not collected centrally—an outrageous reply. It is like a company director who has dismissed half the sales force without consulting anyone then being surprised at a dramatic fall in sales. Central Government provide 80 per cent. of the costs of magistrates courts. They should not cut the budgets of those courts, unilaterally and arbitrarily, without a clear knowledge of the impact that those cuts will have. Costs for other central Government Departments and agencies, and for local government departments, will be significantly increased. Central Government should make a proper cost benefit study or impact assessment and should give sensible guidance on the matter to magistrates courts committees.

Finally, I must stress that the Government should understand the particular difficulties faced by sparsely populated counties such as Devon and Cornwall. Courts are located many miles from each other, roads are poor and public transport is scarce or non-existent. Such rural counties are a special case.

This country has a lay magistracy of which we can all be proud, and efficient courts. The Minister must not be party to measures that will undermine a crucial part of our rural infrastructure.

1.10 am
Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) and to the Minister for allowing me to make a short contribution to the debate. I must first declare a special interest. Not only is my area greatly affected by the proposals, but my wife is a justice of the peace, so I am particularly well briefed on the subject.

I wish to underline two points that my hon. Friend made. As he said, the Minister was gracious enough to receive a deputation of representatives of benches from Devon and Cornwall and a number of Members of Parliament from all parties in the area. She spelled out in no uncertain terms what the Department considered to be efficiency savings. I want to explore that a little further.

I should first explain that Cornwall has been through this process before. In my own part of Cornwall, under the Conservative Government, eight courts were closed and similar arguments were used at the time. We know all about trying to make efficiency savings. They have been made with great difficulty. Preventing any deterioration in the service has placed great strain on the magistracy and the clerks. However, there comes a point when one can go no further.

Let me briefly illustrate the sort of savings that are being considered. The closure of the court facilities at Launceston, in my area, is estimated to result in savings of some £13,500. However, in a letter to some of us in the area, the magistrates courts committee has already acknowledged that, of that £13,500, an additional cost of £9,000 will immediately be incurred by the magistracy and the clerks, thereby reducing the figure to £4,500. As my hon. Friend has said, that takes no account of the costs of all the other services to the court. Even before one starts talking about those who give voluntarily of their time to attend court as witnesses, or in any other capacity, the added costs of the police, the probation service, the Law Society and legal aid come to a great deal more than £4,500. So the savings are not merely notional, but non-existent.

What does the Department mean by efficiency? Is it more efficient if witnesses are not prepared to come forward when they know that there is no public transport to the new court house to which they are summoned? Will it be more efficient justice that more and more lay JPs will simply not be prepared to serve? That is already the case in my area. A working farmer cannot give up the amount of time necessary to go a longer distance to the court house. Most importantly, how can we guarantee that the quality of the justice dispensed from a more remote court system will mean that we will get real justice?

Efficiency is a word that is much thrown about in the Chamber. When it comes to providing local justice, if it is not truly just justice, it is clearly not efficient. In those terms, efficiency savings are simply a chimera. They do not exist, because we are not providing the service to the community.

Devon and Cornwall are at the forefront of the problem. That may be as well, because when the chairs of the various benches came to see the Minister, along with my hon. Friend and myself, it was made clear that Devon and Cornwall are special cases. The Minister has told me previously that the Department is prepared to be flexible in terms of the efficiency savings and the consequences for particular rural areas. Devon and Cornwall will require that flexibility. It is already inevitable that people will have to travel very long distances.

The Minister said at our meeting that she wanted a higher standard of court facilities. She wanted to prevent, if necessary, a witness and a defendant from being in the same part of the building together for any length of time. The chair of one of the benches pointed out to her and to us that if that witness and that defendant had already spent two hours on a bus together getting to the court, it was complete folly to worry about what would happen in the building.

Sometimes seeking perfection means that we do not make any real improvements at all, and that is the case that we are putting before the House tonight.

1.15 am
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Jane Kennedy)

Just over two months ago—in replying to a debate on magistrates courts initiated by the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery) and attended by the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett)—I said that I expected to return to this subject. Since that debate, I have met hon. Members from Devon and Cornwall constituencies and have written to them. I have also answered two parliamentary questions—one from the hon. Gentleman himself.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I welcome the opportunity to return to this important issue, and to set out clearly the Government's position. I want also to challenge the assertion that the efficiency targets for the Lord Chancellor's Department are cuts. In doing so, I will return to ground that has been very well trodden over the past few weeks. The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) will have braced himself with regard to that fact.

First, I should remind the House of the responsibilities of magistrates courts committees. MCCs are made up of magistrates drawn from local benches in their area. The committees are selected by local magistrates. They have a statutory responsibility for the effective and efficient management of the courts in their area.

That means that magistrates from Devon and Cornwall manage the courts in Devon and Cornwall; magistrates from Merseyside, where my constituency lies, manage the courts on Merseyside; magistrates from London manage the courts in London; and so on. Parliament has set a national framework within which the courts are run. However, the Lord Chancellor does not manage the courts, and does not tell MCCs how to manage the courts.

Decisions affecting the magistrates courts and the services that they provide, the way that they are staffed and the location of courthouses are taken by local magistrates—not by central Government. It is local people who are best placed to consider these issues from a local perspective.

Mr. Burnett

We are aware of the points that the Parliamentary Secretary has made. We are anxious to find out exactly what the Government's policy is on central Government spending; the impact of closures on other services; and the illusory savings that the Government think they will make.

Jane Kennedy

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to elucidate that point, and I hope to be able to satisfy him on it.

The Lord Chancellor, as the Minister responsible for magistrates courts, has certain specific functions. One of them—which I exercise on his behalf—is to determine appeals by the paying authorities, the local councils, against MCC proposals to close courthouses. That is why, in debates and exchanges with hon. Members, I do not and cannot comment on individual MCC proposals. In the event of an appeal, each case will be carefully considered on its merits. It would be wholly wrong of me to prejudge the quasi-judicial decision that I must make should an appeal be lodged.

Beyond those specific functions, the Lord Chancellor is concerned with the performance of the magistrates courts and the contribution that they make to the criminal justice system. That has a high priority, in accordance with the Government's aims for the criminal justice system. Those aims are: to reduce crime and the fear of crime and their social and economic costs; to dispense justice fairly and efficiently; and to promote confidence in the rule of law.

Accordingly, and rightly, performance standards and targets are set for the magistrates courts. Users of the courts are entitled to no less. It is for MCCs to decide how they achieve the targets. The Lord Chancellor does not dictate how they should do it.

Of course—this brings me specifically to the question of funding—MCCs, like every other public sector organisation, must operate within the budgetary allocations that they are given. I emphasise that they are not given any instructions about how to do that, and I hope that that answers one point made by the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon.

There has been some debate during the past weeks about the efficiency targets set for magistrates courts, which have been represented as cuts in funding. It is quite right that we should continue to seek better value for the money provided for running magistrates courts. The amount that we spend on magistrates courts is very significant. Before I give some figures, it may help if I remind the House that MCCs are funded by local authorities, and that the Lord Chancellor provides grants to those authorities to cover 80 per cent. of the cost.

For the year that began on 1 April, we expect total spending on magistrates courts to be in the region of £372 million, a figure already known to the hon. Gentleman. That includes the contribution from local authorities. Of that, £343 million is for the revenue costs of running the courts, and £29 million is for capital expenditure on buildings and information technology. In 2001–02, under current plans, we expect to spend £379 million, an increase of more than 5 per cent. in the three years covered by the 1998 comprehensive spending review.

Mr. Burnett

Why, therefore, do magistrates in Devon and Cornwall, the areas that I know best, labour under the impression that they must reduce expenditure by 3 per cent. a year for at least three years? Other MCCs are under the same misapprehension.

Jane Kennedy

I honestly cannot answer that. We are talking about efficiency improvements, not cash cuts. We are seeking more for the money available. It is possible to receive more money and be more efficient if the increase in output—the performance of the courts—is proportionately greater than the increase in spending. We are concerned about the quality of what is delivered, not just the volume.

It may be helpful if I refer briefly to the way in which money is distributed, because funding for any MCC depends both on the total and the mechanism for sharing it. That mechanism is a calculation based on a formula that is currently being reviewed. We aim to have a new mechanism in place for the allocation of money for the financial year beginning in April 2001.

A substantial amount of money is spent on magistrates courts, but funds are not unlimited. The taxpayer's pockets are not bottomless, and that includes council tax payers as well as the payers of national taxes, because the courts are in part locally funded. Taxpayers—local and national—have a right to expect that the money provided should be spent well to obtain maximum value.

That brings me back to efficiency gains. MCCs are far from alone in being set an efficiency target. The target of 3 per cent. set for magistrates courts is exactly the same as the target for the Lord Chancellor's Department as a whole. It is also the target that was set generally in the last spending review for Departments responsible for the criminal justice system. That does not mean that expenditure is being cut. I have already given figures to show that spending has increased. Our policy is about doing better with the money that is available.

In the magistrates courts, we expect significant efficiency gains from our modernisation initiatives. That was made clear in the statement to both Houses in October 1997 about the MCC amalgamation programme. When the programme is completed in April next year, the number of MCCs will have reduced from 96 at the time of the statement to 42. That programme will make a large contribution to improving efficiency—leading to reduced overheads and to the promotion of economies of scale.

As I said in the House on 1 February, on the basis of an assessment by consultants of potential savings from a proposed merger of MCCs in the midlands, it is estimated that gains equivalent to 6 per cent. of the amalgamating MCCs budgets could be realised. Amalgamations will also contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of the criminal justice system as a whole by aligning the boundaries of MCCs with those of other agencies.

We are also improving information technology, which will benefit the magistrates courts and the criminal justice system as a whole. Improved procedures will be introduced—for example, early administrative hearings—which achieve quicker disposal of cases and, as a consequence, release resources.

Those central initiatives contribute significantly to efficiency gains, and provide the foundation on which MCCs can build. Efficiency does not necessarily mean getting the same output for less money. It is about getting proportionately more for any level of funding. That is not necessarily measured only in volume. A better quality of service for any given level of resources would represent a gain in efficiency.

That is important in relation to the courthouse location debate because MCCs' courthouse location proposals—which courts are placed in which localities—reflect the aim and expectation that services and facilities offered to all court users be brought up to the standards required in the 21st century. Cases should take no longer to pass through the system than is necessary and the process of administering justice should be improved.

Older courthouses do not have the facilities that should be expected. Of course, the needs of local justice must be considered very carefully—especially access to the courts. I should always expect that to be explored most thoroughly in any proposal that might come to me on appeal.

However, an MCC's responsibility to consider those issues must be accepted. As the hon. Member for North Cornwall pointed out, cost savings are often small in the case of old buildings which lack modern facilities, but where they can be made, they are available to be ploughed back to support improved services and performance. Provided that all the issues and legitimate concerns have been weighed in the balance, that, clearly, must be a factor in any decision about courthouse location.

Finally, looking to the future, I should mention the review of the criminal courts that Lord Justice Auld is conducting. He will produce authoritative advice on the lines on which the criminal justice system will be developed. He is due to report by the end of December and it is clearly too soon to say whether his advice will have any impact on the matters we have debated today. However, it is fair that I should remind the House of that review.

As I have said, we are reviewing the mechanism for allocating money to MCCs. One of the proposals that will be examined, which will be of interest to the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon, is a sparsity factor to reflect any higher costs of running magistrates courts in spread-out, sparsely populated, rural MCC areas. However, I can give no undertakings on that; we must await the outcome of the review.

The comprehensive spending review covered the three years from 1999 to 2002. The House will be aware that the spending review for the three years from April is now under way. The outcome of that will be known later in the year. The Lord Chancellor will put his case for the level of funding he believes is needed for magistrates courts, as he will for all the other matters for which he has ministerial responsibility. Of course, other Ministers will be doing the same and the outcome will reflect the Government's spending priorities. Whatever the outcome, the pressure to achieve greater value for money in magistrates courts will continue. It is right that it should.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past One o'clock.