Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

My Lords, there is a great deal to be said for the need for justice to be done, as the noble Lord has been saying, but there is another side to the coin, which is a trial within a reasonable time. That factor has been exercising the minds of those who have been trying to progress trials through the desperately difficult situation created by the Covid epidemic. I hope those times have passed but, in the defence of those who have been setting out remote proceedings, they have been doing so under great pressure. People have been languishing in custody for far longer than they should have been, awaiting trial, and that factor has to be taken into account in deciding what is the right thing to do. The noble Lord is absolutely right, of course, that the worst option is the one they were driven to—but they were driven to it for very good reasons.