David Lammy – 2021 Comments on the Criminal Justice System

The comments made by David Lammy, the Shadow Justice Secretary, on 18 February 2021.

The collapse in cases dealt with by the criminal justice system in the past year is a result of the government’s slow and incompetent response to the pandemic.

The Government has failed to listen to Labour’s calls for a rapid extension in Nightingale Courts, reduced war time juries while pandemic restrictions are in place, and the immediate roll-out of testing in courts that would have allowed more justice to be done.

A decade of failed Conservative ideology has wrecked the justice system, leaving it vulnerable even before the pandemic began. We now need to rebuild the justice system so that the UK can become the fairest country in the world.