I salute my hon. Friend’s work as a magistrate over many years. What he says is absolutely true, and the Justice Committee report picked the point up at the time. When I practised in parts of east and central London, magistrates benches used to have a very high number of what we would now term blue collar workers—frequently trade union officials and public sector workers. They were given time off. Some of the major employers—Ford at Dagenham in the old days, for example—used to allow employees time off to serve as magistrates. The courts were much the better for that. I hope that that can be encouraged and we should make it easier to achieve.
We should also look at magistrates’ expenses, which have not been updated for very many years. We do not need legislation to do that, but we should make it worth people’s while to serve and not leave them out of pocket. That is important.
When the Committee published the report and considered why the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 had not been brought into force, we questioned the evidential basis. At that time, the Ministry of Justice’s line was that there was a risk of an adverse impact on the prison population, but we were never able to find any evidence to establish that. I think there is a bit of an urban myth that magistrates are heavier handed in sentencing than the Crown court would be. In fairness, when I first started, there might have been a bit of anecdotal evidence that I came across to support that view, but things have moved on over the years. The benches have a more sophisticated approach to sentencing and the guidelines have developed to such a degree that that dimension has changed.