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Yvette Cooper: I do not know the details, but that sounds like exactly the sort of problem that a new single agency ought to be able to solve. It is crazy that one court can be bursting at the seams while another nearby is half empty. In other circumstances there might be two underused courthouses. Neither the county court nor the magistrates court might be viable on its own, but the sharing of accommodation might allow both courts to be retained in the community.Such arrangements have already been made informally, for instance in Bolton and Salford. We have recently upheld several appeals against the closure of magistrates courts, one of the grounds being that the MCCs had not fully explored other possible options with the Court Service, and had not thought enough about the implications for the various courts. What the hon. Gentleman suggests would allow better use of resources.
Stephen Hesford (Wirral, West): My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) mentioned answerability to the House. Under clause 1(4), the Lord Chancellor will have to lay before the House an annual report about the work of the new agency.
Yvette Cooper: That is true, and I think it will make the work of the courts and the new agency more transparent than it would otherwise be.
The courts boards will consist of magistrates, judges, court users and representatives of the local community. We intend them to have a vital and continuing role in the
strategic management of courts in their areas. They will be involved in the development of business plans at the start of the year, and will receive regular performance reports so that they can propose remedial action where necessary. The plans will set out how resources will be used to deliver services locally, and will include any proposals to open or close courthouses. We expect the boards to have a say in decisions about the court estate, including decisions about closures. That is, I think, a more involved role than the role envisaged by the Select Committee.
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham): Can the Minister confirm that it is not an executive role, and that the most that a board can do is express its views?
Yvette Cooper: The boards will not have executive powers. Some have argued that they should have such powers in their own right, but that would mean establishing separate statutory bodies to run the courts. We would have a version of the current framework for the MCCs, covering all the courts rather than just the magistrates courts. That would not allow us to address the problems identified by Sir Robin Auld, or the unacceptable variations in performance, without complex legislation that would probably cause further problems in terms of inflexibility. I think it would also be strongly opposed by those currently involved in work on the civil and family side and in the Crown courts.
The courts boards will provide statutory backing for the non-executive role that will be played by their members, in partnership with the executives. We expect them to work very closely on proposals with local managers. The Bill specifically requires them to look at such matters as the business plan.
Mr. Allen: I thank the Minister for her generosity in giving way again. She will have heard the remarks of our noble Friend Lord Falconer, the Minister of State, Home Office, in the other place, who said that we must place victims at the centre of the criminal justice system. Will victims' organisations have a place on the board, or will that be left open? I am thinking particularly of an example in my own area, where the youth court has converted a crèche into a waiting room. The alleged offenders and the victims sit in more intimate proximity than I am to the Front Bench, which obviously leads to intimidation of many witnesses. A victims' organisation would be the first to pick up on such problems.
Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have discussed that problem in detail during regional consultations across the country, including with court users. We have not specified at this stage exactly who the members of the courts boards will be, but the Bill allows for at least two representatives of the wider community and two people who have knowledge of the courts. We put that wording in so as to include representatives of victims' groups or those who work with witnesses. That representation is possible under the current framework, and it is one of the issues that we thought through in drafting the legislation, but it is not one on which we have taken a final decision.
Mr. Beith: I want the Minister to consider what the magistrates said to us in the Select Committee on the Lord Chancellor's Department. The Magistrates Association said of the boards that
- "they are neither one thing nor the other; they are trying to be both consultative, representative and, partly, management. What we are seeking are proper management boards".
Yvette Cooper: The right hon. Gentleman is right that there are disagreements about that. Different stakeholders take different views. Although there is broad support for the overall process of unification, as a result of the debates that took place in the House of Lords, there is growing consensus behind the arrangements that the Government have set out. The alternatives to that were either to establish a single Executive agency or to set up separate bodies that would each have boards that have executive powers. If the boards had executive powers, that would result in the creation of separate organisations and would replicate many of the problems with the existing magistrates courts committees. We were keen not to have a traditional Executive agency.
I concede that we are doing something new: this is not the model of the traditional Executive agency on which many public services are run. We thought it important to have a voice for the local community, but not one that was set apart and detached from the courts—not a separate committee that had no direct close links with the management of the courts—rather one that would involve non-executive members working in close partnership with the local managers of the courts.
There was some discussion about whether we could do that without putting such a provision in the Bill, instead including in the framework document the requirement that every local manager would need to work in partnership with a local committee or a local board. We thought it was important to give them statutory backing, permanence and a stronger voice. That is why the courts boards are being established.
We will establish an Executive agency, and it will ultimately be accountable to Parliament, and the buck will stop with Ministers and with the Lord Chancellor. We need to ensure that the views of local courts boards are taken seriously throughout the organisation to ensure that there is local decentralised decision making and that the local community is properly involved in those decisions.
Much of the work involving different stakeholders is about how to make the system work in practice. It already has growing support as people have become more involved in the nature of the arrangements that are being put together. For example, the Magistrates Association said in May that
- "the new courts boards, despite their non-executive status, do appear to have an effective role and the ability to make genuine decisions".
Hon. Members have raised many issues about the structure. That was discussed in detail in the House of Lords. Interestingly, one of the other things that was raised in the debates in the other place was the concern of the Magistrates Association that even under the current system of magistrates courts committees, magistrates do not feel sufficiently consulted and involved in decisions. That is why, after representations from the Magistrates Association, we agreed in the other place to an amendment that provides statutory backing to consultation directly with the magistracy, not simply via courts boards and via the management structure of the organisation.
The Government strongly support the lay magistracy. They are extremely grateful for the tireless contribution that magistrates make to the unique system of lay justice. Our 28,000 lay magistrates represent one of the greatest commitments to volunteering in Britain. Although the Court Service has what I think is regarded as a very good relationship with the judiciary, we felt it important to recognise that the magistracy, not being professionals and not being in the courts at the same time, needed further statutory reassurance that their views would be properly taken on board in the new organisation.
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