The Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA

29 June 2021

 

Dear Prime Minister,

CC: The Speaker, The UK Statistics Authority

 

Under the Conservative government rape convictions and prosecutions have fallen to a record-low, while the Crown Court backlog has risen to a record-high.

As a result victims are waiting years to get justice, if they get it at all. Violent criminals are getting away with rape as a result.

In Parliament you not only dismissed Keir Starmer’s serious questions about the record-low conviction and prosecution rates for rape as ‘jabber’, you misled the House on the amount of funding your government was providing to fix it.

You claimed:

“We are fixing that and we are fixing that by investing another £1 billion in clearing the court backlogs, in ensuring they have people they can listen to and trust who will help them through the trials of the criminal justice experience, Mr Speaker”

In fact, government figures show it you are investing just a quarter of this amount. As outlined in the spending Review, the government is investing:

“£275 million to manage the downstream demand impact of 20,000 additional police officers and reduce backlogs in the Crown Court caused by COVID-19.”

This is either a deliberate lie, or a terrible mistake which shows you have no grasp of the scale of the problem for victims in the justice system.

Will you come to the House urgently to correct the record and apologise, again, to rape victims for failing them?

I have cc’ed the Speaker and the UK Statistics Authority to investigate this urgent matter.

 

Yours sincerely,

Rt. Hon. David Lammy MP

Shadow Justice Secretary & Shadow Lord Chancellor

 

 

Related links:

Response from Sir David Norgrove to David Lammy: additional courts system funding