Government stall on rape courts

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/04/labour-retreats-on-rape-courts-pledge-amid-fears-over-shortage-of-lawyers

'Labour pledged during the election campaign to use vacant rooms and buildings on crown court sites to fast-track rape cases and reduce the numbers awaiting trial.

But government sources and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) appeared to confirm this weekend the idea had in effect been put on ice, with consideration of how to tackle the backlog set to be folded instead into a wider review of courts policy'

Colour me surprised.

🤦‍♀️

They also need to tackle the issue of securing a guilty verdict. Rape has effectively been decriminalised.

Politicians were roundly and correctly criticised for suggesting that the 'shortage of NHS/social care beds' could be resolved by popping down to the local Dreamland.

The 'shortage of NHS beds' is conventional shorthand for the entirety of what it means to support a person in that bed (nurses, doctors, HCAs, ancillary and support staff, buildings with safe spaces to put them, hook-ups to oxygen etc.). Ditto social care services to support discharge, re-enablement, return to independent living or otherwise etc.

I'd genuinely have expected a manifesto commitment to have been supported by some understanding of the scale of personnel that would be needed to achieve this and a check on the plausible availability of such and their willingness to support the initiative.