Spare a thought for Robert Jenrick. A few hours after being appointed shadow justice secretary — with Kieran Mullan alongside him as the shadow justice minister — Jenrick was bounced back onto his bench by the formidable Alex Davies-Jones. His questions may read well in Hansard but the two minutes of video that I have posted above show how badly the defeated leadership candidate misjudged the position he now finds himself in.
Davies-Jones, MP for Pontypridd since 2019, may be no more than a junior minister at the Ministry of Justice but she dominated her department’s Commons questions yesterday, showing full mastery of the justice brief.
Her secretary of state didn’t get a look-in for half an hour — literally so, as this image shows:
While Davies-Jones was at the despatch box, just about all that could be seen of Shabana Mahmood was a sliver of light-blue fabric behind the junior minister’s right elbow.
Separation of powers
Many of MPs who asked questions yesterday were new to their jobs. But inexperience is no excuse for a failure to understand the proper limits of parliament. Here are a couple of examples:
Peter Bedford (Conservative): A lady from Northampton was recently given a 31-month sentence for a tweet, whereas an individual who incited physical violence on the streets of Birmingham as part of a pro-Palestinian protest received a far lesser sentence. Does the secretary of state agree that such inconsistencies create the perception, at least, that we have a two-tier justice system?
Shabana Mahmood: It is incumbent on members to ensure that such a perception does not take hold and not to inappropriately compare sentences handed out in different types of cases. As the hon gentleman well knows and every member of this house should know, sentences in individual cases are a matter for the independent judges who hear those cases; the trials unfold in front of them…
Robert Jenrick (shadow justice secretary): While of course respecting the judicial process and not commenting on the individual facts of the case, can the secretary of state explain the reported two-week delay between the Crown Prosecution Service making a charging decision with respect to the alleged Southport attacker and it being announced to the general public?
Shabana Mahmood: As the right hon member is now the shadow lord chancellor, may I remind him that we do not comment on cases that are sub judice? That includes commentary that everyone is aware relates to cases currently going through our legal processes. What I will say is that those are independent decisions for the Crown Prosecution Service, which ultimately decides what charges to bring. In live police investigations into complex cases, it is appropriate that those investigations, the charging decisions and, ultimately, the cases are done by the independent parts of the process and that there is no interference from government.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, made it clear that ministers would indeed have to answer the concerns raised by Jenrick — but not until the case he was referring to had been concluded.
Single justice procedure
As usual, not much emerged from ministers’ answers. But there was an announcement about the much criticised single justice procedure, under which a lone magistrate processes a long list of undefended prosecutions with the assistance of a legal adviser. The list of defendants and the penalties they receive is available to reporters but the cases are not dealt with in open court.
“I have listened carefully to concerns raised about the single justice procedure,” said Heidi Alexander, the minister of state.
She continued:
As a first step, I have asked the Courts and Tribunals Service to redesign the single justice procedure and make it clearer. I will also call in single justice procedure prosecutors to discuss ways in which we can ensure that they consider the public interest in advance of making prosecutions…
I am clear that the single justice procedure is vital for the efficient running of the magistrates court. However, it must operate fairly and effectively. I will not tolerate poor practice and I will not hesitate to fundamentally reform the system if that is required.
Alexander’s announcement was welcomed by the chief executive of the Magistrates’ Association, Tom Franklin.
He said:
In March, we called for single justice procedure reform and published 12 recommendations to improve its operation, transparency and fairness. Our recommendations included making it a requirement that prosecutors see all pleas and mitigations from defendants before the cases are heard by the magistrate and improving communication, through a review of the paperwork sent to defendants, to make it simpler and easier to understand.
However, reform needs to go further. We are also urging the government to boost transparency by making provision for single justice procedure sittings to be observable by accredited journalists and by publishing more data on the single justice procedure — such as how many defendants plead guilty, how many make no pleas and how many ask to come to court — nationally and broken down by region.
Shadow cabinet
Who’s missing from this picture?
I can see no sign of Sir Jeremy Wright KC MP, shadow attorney general in Rishi Sunak’s caretaker opposition.
Who, then, will replace him? Will it be an MP to shadow the solicitor general Sarah Sackman KC MP in the Commons or a peer to question her boss Lord Hermer KC in the Lords? We should know soon.
Update 1640: the shadow attorney general will be Lord Wolfson of Tredegar KC, who resigned as a justice minister in Boris Johnson’s government over the “scale, context and nature” of breaches of the criminal law in Downing Street.
He will remain in practice at the bar.
Update 1800: Helen Grant MP, a solicitor and former justice minister, will be shadow solicitor general.
Dear Joshua,
I’m surprised no-one has commented on the irony of Richard Jenrick, being made the new Shadow Minister of Justice. Clearly people have forgotten that in June 2020, he was at the centre of a controversial planning development involving the self-made billionaire tycoon, Richard Desmond.
Desmond was the owner of the Daily and Sunday express papers and was often described as the ‘Porn Baron’ because he also owned several pornographic magazines with titles like ‘Asian babes’. I include below the Guardian report on this unsavoury episode.
Jenrick’s declared donations also make interesting reading. In the 4 months from June to October these amount to over £360,000. He’s known to be a fitness fanatic and there have been 2 donations amounting to £45,000 from Spott Fitness Ltd.
But if you’re thinking about those people who have actually been in charge of our justice system as opposed to just a 'Shadow' Minister of Justice, there are some people whose reign has not been without controversy – like Tim Parker for example, the Chair of HMCTS from 2018 to 2023. His appointment was criticised because of a potential conflict of interest - he was at the same time, Chair of the Post Office! He was also christened the ‘Prince of Darkness’ by that left-wing newspaper, the Daily Mail. He acquired that nickname because of his ruthless ‘slash and burn’ tactics as a businessman. Such tactics were obviously successful: his wealth was recently estimated to be £237 m.
Curiously, he resigned as Chair of the Post Office, a week before Wyn Williams began his Inquiry. Here's the Guardian June 2020 report on the Jenrick/Desmond controversy:
Why is the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, at the centre of controversy over a £1bn building development?
Jenrick granted planning permission for a £1bn property scheme two weeks before the developer donated £12,000 to the Conservative party.
Jenrick and his housing department initially backed a plan by the billionaire for media tycoon Richard Desmond to construct 1,524 apartments on a site in the Isle of the Dogs, east London.
As documents released on Wednesday confirm, Jenrick knew that Desmond had only 24 hours to have the development approved before new council community charges were imposed that would have cost him about £45m. Desmond said the charge would have made the whole scheme unviable and put the accompanying social housing at risk.
Jenrick later accepted that his approval of Desmond’s project on the old Westferry Road printworks in January was unlawful.
What was the £45m charge that Desmond could have avoided?
The proposed property development was to be sited is in London’s poorest borough of London, Tower Hamlets. The £45m charge was part of the local council’s community infrastructure levy (CIL). This is a local “tax” on residential and business property developments in Tower Hamlets that the council reinvests in poorer communities, funding projects such as health clinics and educational facilities.
Always chuffed and reassured by support from David Simpson- if indeed it is the person of that name I had met and so much admired from Home Office Conferences in the long ago days when under Chatham House Rules those speaking uncomfortable truth to power routinely received invitations to those residential events where we all had had to sing for our supper in one way or another rather than what I suspect are now the pale and - to often- acquiescent shadows who check on the direction of travel before committing to ANY worthwhile contribution. I dare say there are those burning to protest at this particular diatribe of mine, to whom I say:”Be my guest”. As I understood it one Sir T. Blair had been desperate to find some dosh down the back of a settee so as to appear to be doing SOMETHING about CPS charging decisions and control thereof following upon the -so valuable- Glidewell Review. His recommendations in my judgment SAVED us from a return to prosecutions being handled by solicitors in private practice to whom far too often the term “independent “ had a bizarre meaning scarcely to be found in any dictionary. And so farewell Home Office Conference Unit.
Am I wrong? If so then pray tell me although in response I may not necessarily “ go gentle……”
1. The lacerating “put down” for Jenrick has to be welcomed because (a) it exposed the threadbare and wrong headed nature of both his team’s research and demonstrated the depth and muscularity of the government’s support and Justice Ministerial team; (b) exposed the heedlessness and/or ignorance of our elected representatives over constitutional and judicial issues. It is only a tad facetious to assert that so very many can neither understand nor care about such vital doctrines as the separation of the powers. As to even so much as being able to SPELL the rule of law and due process, forget it! I add immediately that this no politically partisan point- would that it were. The whole notion of those concepts as irritating, time consuming and over costly optional extras HAS to stop.
2. The more troubling aspect is that I very much fear that if Lord Timpson had been delivering his (on the whole) rehabilitative and “prison as a last resort” messages in the Commons it would have provoked derisory jeers from the opposition Benches and outright insults and- far too much- in respectful silence from the government side. Please, pretty please: may this administration’s commitment to constructive and adult sentencing reform remain steadfast. They are IN POWER NOW and no longer in timorous opposition seeking election. I believe itwas Hillel the Elder in the first Century AD who asked:” If not you then who? If not now when?”
3. As to the Single Justice procedure an urgent and probing review is of the essence of a justice system worth praising and Heidi Alexander’s statement is timely and welcome.Watch this space? Tom Baldwin has it right of course.