David Lammy – 2020 Comments on Chaos in Criminal Justice System

The text of the comments made by David Lammy, the Shadow Justice Secretary, on 19 July 2020.

The government clearly does not recognise the scale of the crisis in our justice system.

The backlog in criminal cases was in the tens of thousands before the pandemic began, Coronavirus has only made an existing problem worse. The fact that several of the new ‘Nightingale’ courts are former courts which the government closed down exposes the cost of ten years of cuts to the justice system.

The government must do much more to ensure victims of crime are no longer denied justice because of delay.