One thing you gotta do

According to our analysis, following new data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the value of UK legal services exports increased by almost 40% between 2021 and 2023.

What you need to know

1. Announcement of a review of the criminal courts

The Ministry of Justice announced a review of the criminal courts to try to catch up on the delay accumulated on Thursday, December 12.

The review will be led by Sir Brian Leveson, a retired judge, who will present recommendations and options for reforming the courts to ensure cases are dealt with proportionately in light of the pressures on the courts.

This could include the option of intermediate courts, which would be heard by two magistrates and a judge instead of a jury at the Crown Court.

The review will present these recommendations in the spring of next year.

The review was announced alongside the publication of new figures showing the Crown Court backlog has reached a record high of 73,105 cases, with more than 16,000 outstanding for more than a year.

This data arrives after a long period without publication of statistics following a data quality problem noted by the Ministry of Justice.

We welcomed this review as a step in the right direction. However, we have made it clear that it must aim for fair and effective justice, rather than just efficiency.

We are not convinced that intermediate courts are necessarily the right solution to clear the backlogs.

Introducing them will take a lot of time and resources, with questions about how they work.

Rather, we believe that investments in our existing courts should be made immediately.

We look forward to participating in Sir Brian’s review as it progresses.

2. Justice issues: MPs press for court backlog

Commons MPs used Justice Questions on Tuesday 10 December to put pressure on the government to clear the backlog at the Crown Court.

Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick questioned why the courts were not operating at full capacity, citing the Chief Justice’s comments that there could be 6,500 more sitting days.

The Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, hit back by questioning Jenrick about the last Conservative government’s record on justice and highlighting the increase in sitting days and sentencing powers for magistrates.

Conservative MP Rebecca Smith has questioned why Truro Crown Court is being forced to close one day a week due to budget and sitting day cuts.

In response, Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones highlighted the additional government-funded sitting days and noted that additional support for rape victims, including independent lawyers, would come next year for support them in the justice system.

Finally, Justice Select Committee chairman Andy Slaughter (Labour) highlighted the extensive use of paper records in county courts and asked when civil justice would be digitized.

Newly appointed Justice Minister Sarah Sackman said it was a priority for the government and she was working on it.

3. Data bill: the minister insists on “recognized legitimate interests”

Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat) noted ministers’ own criticism of the previous government’s Data Bill when considering similar provisions during a committee debate on the data (use and access) bill Tuesday, December 10.

An important proposal in the bill is to create “recognized legitimate interests” that allow government agencies to bypass the test of balancing the interests of the data subject against the legitimate interest of the controller.

Examples of “recognized legitimate interests” include matters of national security and crime prevention.

This clause was originally introduced by the previous government as part of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, but was transposed by Labor in its Data (Use and Access) Bill.

The clause also allows the Secretary of State to add other “recognized legitimate interests” through secondary legislation.

Lord Clement-Jones pointed out that “when considering the legitimate interests recognized in the DPDI Bill…the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, who now leads this Bill as a Minister, expressed her concerns that to the broad nature of the objectives.

She rightly said: ‘There is no good reason to need this extra power.’

Baroness Jones did not give a detailed response, noting only that the grounds on which data could be processed without the balancing test would be very limited and that agencies would still have to be treated in accordance with “other principles of data protection”.

Viscount Colville (crossbench) also rose to speak on his amendments to strengthen the definition of “scientific research” in the Bill.

Under Article 67, scientific research is excluded from certain regulations on the grounds that it encourages innovation.

However, Viscount Colville argued that the broad definition of “scientific research” included in the bill leaves the door open to cleaning data with the aim of training large linguistic models.

He expressed concern that companies training AI systems are being allowed to circumvent the data protection framework under the guise of “scientific research” and proposed a group of amendments to ensure data protection. data and privacy in training AI models.

Baroness Jones responded to this amendment by highlighting the reasonableness test attached to this clause, which the government believes will strengthen the basis for attributing data processing to “scientific research”.

Viscount Colville therefore withdrew his amendments.

Future

We work closely with MPs and our peers to influence a number of bills before Parliament: