I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) on his promotion to the office of Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. I look forward very much to working with him and going toe to toe on the important issues of the day. I put on record how grateful I was for the manner in which his predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland), pursued his role. We were able to have very good Privy Council discussions on important issues relating to the justice system during the pandemic. I wanted to put that on record.
Hon. Members may have seen that I am joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), who returns to the Front Bench to assist the Opposition in all matters legal. I pay tribute to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who does so much to advance the case for legal aid.
To govern is to choose, and all Governments must choose what they will prioritise. No Government can do everything at once—not even this Government—and
the Bill could not be a clearer indication of what they have chosen to prioritise and what they choose to ignore. As we come to debate the Bill, the justice system is at breaking point with more than 60,000 Crown court cases delayed, victims dropping out of the process due to waiting years for their case to go to court, and women up and down the country rapidly losing confidence in the criminal justice system. Yet here we are debating judicial review. Government Members might say that this is a manifesto commitment. Then again, so was not clobbering ordinary people with tax rises. What the Bill says about the Government’s priorities is that they are more concerned with constitutional vandalism than with fixing the mess they have made of the justice system.