Speeches by Mahmood.

“I am listening very carefully and taking under advisement all these lobbying requests, including from the Speaker himself, about courts in Members’ areas. I thank both you, Mr Speaker, and my hon. Friend for that. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need radical reform. Without radical reform, the backlog, no ma…”

“The right hon. Member will know that it would be inappropriate for the Lord Chancellor to comment on individual judgments. On some of the decisions in the immigration chamber, which have been the subject of some public discussion, he will know that the Prime Minister has been very clear that where a policy or a legal c…”

“I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that reassurance. This Government will deliver 13,000 extra neighbourhood police officers, because we are absolutely clear that we need neighbourhood policing and bobbies back on the beat in this country. He is right to note that the size of the backlog and the structural problem wi…”

“I absolutely understand the hon. Gentleman’s frustration and that of his constituents. I understand that the problems at Harrow relate to RAAC, and that the delays are due to contractor issues. I will make sure that we write to him with a full plan of what we anticipate will happen to get the Crown court back into use.…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the figure that he notes is a damning indictment of the last Conservative Government. The announcement we have made today will bear down on the courts backlog, and it will mean that some rape victims get their cases heard as cases move through the system more swiftly. We have already…”

“The Texans had similar problems to those we face today, but they had theirs 20 years or so ago. Their system of good behaviour credits incentivises offenders to engage in rehabilitation activity and to get help for their drug addictions, alcohol problems, mental health issues and so on. If offenders engage with that sy…”

“I can tell my hon. Friend that many expressions have come to mind as I have been listening to the drivel from some Conservative Members—not all of which would not fall foul of “Erskine May”, so I will keep my counsel on that. My hon. Friend refers to the Public Accounts Committee report, and I gently observe that I was…”

“I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that the concordat process, which I have concluded with today’s announcement, has concluded earlier than the one that I inherited from his party would have done, so we have been cracking on. I have been getting on with the job: I increased sitting days immediately, I have taken every …”

“On the possibility of a court that sits between the magistrates and Crown courts, Sir Brian is considering that. My hon. Friend will understand why I want to wait until he has made his recommendations, but that is one of a range of ways in which we could change policy in order to bear down on the Crown courts backlog i…”

“The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise issues relating to remand. We do have a problem with the remand population, which is why I have made the changes that I have highlighted, and why both reviews—the one being conducted by Sir Brian Leveson, which looks at once-in-a-generation court reform, and the one…”

“Sorry does seem to be the hardest word for Opposition Members, and I have long since stopped waiting for that apology. All I would observe—I say this with experience of 14 years of opposition under my belt—is that parties that do not acknowledge their mistakes and sort themselves out rarely get elected.”

“The right hon. Gentleman is right: the remand population is growing, and currently stands at 17,000. That has a big impact on prison capacity, which is why I increased magistrates court sentencing powers a few months ago, why I have increased the number of Crown court sitting days, and why we have a record allocation n…”

“The shadow Lord Chancellor is having such fun with his audition for leadership that it would be a shame to deprive him of it. My hon. Friend has said that Conservative Members do not understand the mess that they have left behind, but I wonder whether they simply do not want to understand it. Members of a party that wa…”

“My hon. Friend is right to make that point about digitisation and efficiency. Following the first phase of the spending review, I have funded ongoing work to improve digitisation of all our court processes, because, as my hon. Friend has said, we need to move away from our current paper-based and paper-heavy systems. P…”

“We are talking about the highest ever funded allocation in the Crown courts, and 110,000 sitting days, which is a record. The hon. Gentleman says that is small beer; I wonder whether he had been imbibing something before getting to his feet.”

“My hon. Friend is right. In order to deal with all the problems in the criminal justice system relating to policing, prosecutors and the situation in the Crown courts, we need a system-wide approach. That means taking action on the crimes that affect neighbourhoods up and down the country, which is why the Home Secreta…”

“The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right. All the mechanisms at our disposal to reduce the cost of people going to court should be on the table, and we have already been acting to try to amplify the availability of mediation and other ways in which issues can be resolved. Going to court is always very expensive, some…”

““Flabbergasted” is one way of describing it, and it is probably the only one that you will find to be in order, Mr Speaker, so I shall refrain from using other language. My hon. Friend is a former prosecutor, so she knows whereof she speaks, and I pay tribute to her for the work that she did in her former profession. T…”

“My hon. Friend will know that there is a difference between system capacity and maximum judicial capacity. He is right that the Lady Chief Justice has said that the maximum judicial capacity is 113,000 sitting days in the Crown court. We are funding 110,000 sitting days there, because in my role as Lord Chancellor, I m…”

“The right hon. Gentleman should welcome our seeking to learn from a tough law and order state in America, which 20 years ago had the same problems that we inherited from his Administration, and which has embarked on criminal justice reform that has seen reoffending at a level that we could only dream of in this country…”