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Mr. Leslie: Amendment No. 8 would make it clear that the Lord Chancellor's powers to give direction on the places where magistrates courts may sit should include family proceedings courts and youth courts. I assure Opposition Members that the term "magistrates court" already includes those courts unless an Act states otherwise. Section 67 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 and section 45 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 describe that more fully. I am more than happy to provide hon. Members with copies of the relevant sections. In short, I assure hon. Members that the issue dealt with in amendment No. 8 is already covered, so it is redundant.
I do, however, appreciate what the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said about the London specialist family proceeding centres. Clearly, Lady Woolf's involvement has helped to raise that issue in the public arena. The Greater London Magistrates Courts Authority is reconsidering its position, in particular to take account of accessibility. At the moment, location issues are entirely a matter for the authority. The best I can do now is to note the hon. Gentleman's representations.
8.15 pm
Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 would allow cases to be heard outside the local justice area only if specific facilities are not available and are needed in the interests of justice. Let me set clause 30 in context. It is necessary to make courts more accessible by removing restrictions on where magistrates courts may sit and by allowing the use of non-court buildings where appropriate. The new
unified administration of the entire court estate will allow more opportunities for the co-location of county courts with magistrates courts, especially in rural areas that have no criminal court nearby.It is true that clause 30(5)(d) allows a case to leave a local justice area if it raises similar issues that are being dealt with elsewhere. That is not simply for reasons of batch-processing the mass of standard cases, as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome implied. The Government intend to strike the right balance between running an efficient and effective court system. Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 would fetter the flexibility necessary to run such a system by restricting the transfer of cases outside a locality to circumstances related solely to court facilities rather than to the nature of the case itself. Serious criminal cases that cross a wide area of the country, as organised crime and drugs cases often do, might require specific magistrate training or prosecuting or defending needs. In such similar but numerous cases, why should court administrators be inhibited from co-locating them in a place best suited to the circumstances? Why should facilities be the only determining factor, allowing cases to cross a local justice area boundary?
Mr. Heath: The Minister's rhetorical question goes to the heart of the amendments. There may be a case if facilities are the issue, but the mere similarity of cases, with no crossover of people, is not an argument for reducing the accessibility to the case for local people who are interested in seeing justice done in their area. A crossover of people is, of course, allowed for in other subsections of clause 30.
Mr. Leslie: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman's amendment is framed in such a way as to allow cases to go outside the local justice area only because of the facilities provided. They do not relate to the services for victims and witnesses that might need to be tailored to particular cases and are not classed as facilities. We need to retain flexibility to allow the courts better to serve the needs of court users. Let me give examples of cases other than terrorism that may need to cross boundaries: serial cases might sometimes need committing across local justice area boundaries to ensure that defendants are tried in a single location for a string of offences; it might not be possible for a local court to cater for vulnerable witnesses or victims with special needs if the problem is not simply one of physical facilities; and consistency of sentencing is sometimes needed when violent demonstrations take place in different locations and could be tried in a single court.
Some Opposition Members seem to dislike the notion of processing certain cases in specialist magistrates courts. Many magistrates courts deal with a lot of cases and are, to be frank, overburdened with important but relatively routine minor offences, such as television licence cases and minor traffic violations. In my view, it would be wrong to force all such cases to be dispersed across the whole country, potentially clogging up some courts and delaying more important cases or preventing them from being heard more swiftly locally, where it matters most. We need flexibility in the system to allocate cases sensibly, with the vast majority of offences heard locally, but keeping open options for specialist courts to hear cases that raise similar issues. I believe that the Bill as framed strikes the correct
balance, and I trust that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome will think again and withdraw his amendment.
Mr. Heath: First, let me deal with the lead amendment. I am grateful to the Minister for stating explicitly that family proceedings courts and youth courts are included within the definition of magistrates courts for the purposes of this part of the Bill. That is a clear undertaking that the provisions of clause 30(2) about accessibility apply just as much to family proceedings courts and youth courts as to magistrates courts. We will hold him to that undertaking in future. The opportunity to have that put explicitly on the record was a useful end in itself, and I do not intend to take the matter further.
I am also grateful to the Minister for his comments on the position in London. I hope that that will be resolved, but many of us will watch carefully to see what the end result will be and hope that it is acceptable to the very large number of people who reside in London but not in central London. Their needs must be catered for just as much as the needs of residents of the City, Soho or any other part of central London. Many hon. Members will carefully scrutinise any proposals that emerge.
On amendments Nos. 6 and 7, the Minister has entirely failed to persuade me of his case—in fact, he has made matters worse by his comments. Having suspected that what is proposed is batch-processing, we now know that what is proposed is batch-processing of those minor cases that are apparently such an administrative bore for local justices that they have to be put into a central receiving centre and dealt with there. Never mind the interests of defendants, witnesses, or anyone else involved—that is how such cases will be dealt with.
I listened carefully to the examples the Minister gave of what he has in mind. First, he mentioned serial offences. They already come within the provisions of subsection (5), because the offences will have been committed elsewhere, so it entirely proper that they be dealt with on that basis. Secondly, he spoke about cases involving terrorist offences, wherein the main requirement is facilities to house the proceedings properly. Clearly, such facilities are covered by amendment No. 7. Then, quite extraordinarily, the Minister posited that if there were demonstrations in several parts of the country, it would obviously be for everyone's convenience if a single court were to deal with them. That is so far from local justice administered locally that it is laughable.
It is surely not the Government's intention or the intention behind the Bill that, for administrative convenience, cases involving different offences—or allegations of offences—committed in different parts of the country should be heard by a single court that is not aware of local circumstances or the context in which the offences took place, which would cause great inconvenience to all concerned, whether defendants, witnesses, victims or representatives of those involved. Yet that is what the Minister says he is legislating for through the provisions of clause 30. That may be what the Minister wants, but it is not what I want, nor, I suspect, what many hon. Members want.
Mr. Leslie: I realise that the Liberal Democrats do not always have to consider issues of efficiency and
effectiveness, but can the hon. Gentleman envisage circumstances in which, for example, training for specialist magistrates or specific prosecution or defence needs might require cases to be heard outside local justice areas, the issue being not facilities, but particular services that might be needed? Is he really arguing that we should never, in any circumstances, consider such cases outside local justice areas?
Mr. Heath: In the first instance, the matter should be for magistrates for the local area to determine. We are not discussing proceedings in Crown court or the higher courts; we are talking about magistrates courts—the local bench hearing cases involving local offences and applying local justice to their considerations. If the Minister does not understand that, all our debates on the Bill have been a complete waste of time.
Now, stripped of rhetoric and pretence, we see the reality of the Government's proposals. I am not sure that it will profit the House to continue to debate this matter, but I am glad that we now have clarity about the Government's purpose, which gives us a clear objective to vote against. I have listened to the Minister's comments on amendment No. 8 and, in the circumstances, I am prepared to seek leave to withdraw it, but my views on amendment No. 6 have been strongly reinforced by his remarks and I am now determined to press it to a Division.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: No. 6, in page 14, line 33, after 'place', insert
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