Justice Secretary Alex Norris has said the government’s Courts Bill will return to parliament a week on Tuesday, without his predecessor David Lammy’s plans to drastically reduce the number of jury trials. Those proposals had faced a significant backlash, and many Labour MPs abstained when the Bill came before the Commons.
On Sky News, Helen Lewis asked Norris whether the government had watered down the legislation. Norris said that while ‘the delay of justice is the denial of justice’, the public had been particularly concerned about the proposal to create a new form of judge-only trial. He said dropping it would help maintain public confidence and get the Bill through parliament and claimed the same backlog savings could be made by bringing forward other provisions.
Norris said the court backlog now stands at over 80,000 cases, double pre-pandemic levels, and could reach 100,000 without reform. He listed measures including removing defendants’ right to choose whether their case is heard in a magistrates’ or crown court, restricting appeals from magistrates’ courts to the crown court, and increasing the length of sentences magistrates can pass.
Kemi Badenoch: ‘We don’t want you to be punished for working harder’
The Conservatives have pledged to remove the £100,000 income threshold above which parents lose access to free childcare. On the BBC, Kemi Badenoch said that people earning over £100,000 can lose £10,000 to £20,000 worth of childcare and claimed that this discourages them from working more.
Laura Kuenssberg asked whether someone earning £1 million a year would get free childcare under a Conservative government. Badenoch said, ‘it doesn’t matter what you earn,’ and that the policy was about growing the economy. Kuenssberg asked why it was right for ordinary taxpayers to fund childcare for millionaires when many people are struggling with their bills and suggested that a taper could solve the problem of the cliff edge. Badenoch said the number of parents of young children earning tens of millions of pounds was ‘negligible’ and that the party would set out policies at its conference for everyone ‘out there working’.
Laura Trott: Labour’s triple lock plan is a ‘distraction’
Andy Burnham used his conference speech to announce that he would pass legislation to scrap the state pension triple lock in order to finance his plans for free national care. On Sky News this morning, Helen Lewis asked shadow education secretary Laura Trott about the Conservatives’ position on the triple lock. Trott said the policy would remain in the party’s next manifesto and that while debate within the party was welcome, it had reached a ‘consensus position’.
Trott described Labour’s plans to save £15 billion from changes to the triple lock as a ‘distraction technique’, claiming the working-age welfare bill would rise by £50 billion by the next election. Lewis noted that critics within Trott’s own party, such as former cabinet minister David Gauke, have questioned the policy and asked why the Conservatives, as the party of fiscal responsibility, prioritise pensioners when one in five lives in a household worth over £1 million.
Trott said the issue was about ‘values’ and warned that future pensioners face a ‘very bad situation’ as defined benefit pensions decline and home ownership falls. She called Labour’s proposal a ‘gimmick’ that would not produce savings until 2040. Lewis pointed out that working-age poverty is higher than pensioner poverty. Trott said the full state pension is around £12,000, roughly half the earnings of someone on the national living wage, and argued that the triple lock had been effective in reducing pensioner poverty since 2010.
Alex Norris: ‘We need to have the best possible relationship with the EU’
The Prime Minister has said that Brexit caused ‘more harm than good’ and suggested that the UK could ‘go all the way’ and rejoin the EU. On GB News, Camilla Tominey asked Justice Secretary Alex Norris how relitigating Brexit could pass Burnham’s ‘Makerfield test’, given that his constituents voted 65 per cent Leave. Norris said the Prime Minister had ‘levelled with’ the country that the EU is the UK’s biggest trading partner and that Britain needs ‘the best possible relationship’ with the bloc. He said Burnham would set out options in the future and that any policy which leaves the public better off would pass the ‘everywhere test’.
Tominey argued that Labour’s narrative was contradictory, as the government blames Brexit for slow growth while chancellors boast that the UK’s growth is the highest in the EU. Norris said businesses report that Brexit has had an impact, and the government should work to ‘ameliorate’ it. Tominey asked what mandate Burnham had to suggest rejoining the EU in the next Labour manifesto or a second referendum. Norris declined to rule anything out, saying the Prime Minister would ‘say more on that’ in due course.
Alex Norris: Manchester City process ‘must be allowed to run’ in full
Manchester City have been found guilty by the Premier League of more than 100 breaches of its financial rules. Andy Burnham faced criticism this week after he responded to the verdict by saying he would be ‘really concerned’ if Manchester City’s owners were to sell the club. Government officials from the United Arab Emirates have intimated that they could pull billions of investment out of the UK as a result of the charges.
On Sky News, Helen Lewis suggested to Justice Secretary Alex Norris that the government’s position appeared to be that investing in Manchester excused wrongdoing. Norris said there was ‘a good reason’ why politicians were not involved in the independent process and that the Prime Minister had been clear it must be allowed to run its course, with consequences if wrongdoing was found. Lewis asked if Norris would be worried about the UAE pulling investment from he country. Norris said he wanted everybody to see the UK as ‘a great place to do business’, but added, ‘I wouldn’t see why the two things would be linked’.
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