Schedule 2 - Abolition of magistrates'
Courts Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Shipley, Labour)
I have not seen sufficient reason to believe that that would be the case. We have an obligation more in the other direction: to ensure that we do not have disputes over the future ownership of buildings whose functions are closely connected to but distinct from the primary function—I stress the word ''primary''—of the magistrates courts.
Amendment No. 117 would leave out paragraph 1(2)(g), which is intended to cover two situations. There may be circumstances under which a public body other than those mentioned in sub-paragraph (2)(a) to (f) has a freehold or leasehold interest in property used for the purposes of, in connection with or otherwise attributable to magistrates courts. Under such circumstances, it is intended that the interest should pass to the
Department for Constitutional Affairs—the DCA. The national probation service was envisioned in constructing the schedule. The service has a significant presence in magistrates courts and in at least one known instance owns the court building. There may be similar situations involving other public bodies, but those have not yet been discovered, and I am certainly not aware of them, so we must err on the side of caution.
In many cases, areas of magistrates courts are occupied by other parties with a connection to the court function, such as the Crown Prosecution Service. Those arrangements are generally on an informal basis for the mutual benefit of the parties. However, it means that in several situations a significant proportion of space available in a courthouse or another building, the function of which is connected with the magistrates courts, is occupied by bodies other than the MCCs themselves. While it is intended that in general those occupancies should remain in place, for the avoidance of complications, the interests of those subsidiary bodies should nominally transfer to the DCA, which will re-grant them back to those bodies. I hope that with that level of assurance and with those particular examples that I have been fascinated to learn about, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome will withdraw the amendment.