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By Monidipa Fouzder2021-01-28T12:10:00+00:00
Shadow justice secretary David Lammy MP has defended his party’s controversial call to the government to
Speaking at the latest evidence session of the Westminster Commission on Legal Aid today, Lammy said: ‘What are we to do with this problem we’re seeing? Some would suggest that the backlog has existed before, it’s not a problem people suggest, frankly we should do nothing. I personally do not accept that.
‘When we had a backlog we have in place like this in the past, thinking back to the early 2000s, the truth is there were substantially more sitting days in the system. There were substantially more magistrates’ courts and Crown courts in the system. Not just buildings but courtrooms. There were more judges in the system, so the system could deal with a backlog of that size.