What steps he is taking to bring forward legislative proposals to tackle strategic lawsuits against public participation.

What steps he is taking to bring forward legislative proposals to tackle strategic lawsuits against public participation.

Who is answering? Come on, Secretary of State.

Sorry, Mr Speaker; I was so excited giving that last answer. SLAPPs involve abusing the legal process to shut down legitimate investigations and criticisms that wealthy individuals might find inconvenient. We will introduce a new statutory definition, an early dismissal process to strike out SLAPP litigation and protections against excessive legal costs. We are looking closely at a number of legislative avenues to pursue that.

For too long, Russian oligarchs have used SLAPPs to attempt to frustrate journalists from exposing their actions. Journalist and author Catherine Belton and her publisher were left with a £1.5 million bill after libel actions were brought against her for her book “Putin’s People”. Will the Minister agree to do as much as possible to prevent this exploitation of the UK courts?

I thank my hon. Friend for making that case so powerfully, and she is right. SLAPPs do represent an abuse of the legal system, as they rely on threatening tactics to silence individuals who act in the public interest. The Government are committed to preventing exploitation of UK courts by legislating against SLAPPs at the earliest opportunity, and we are considering that in legislation already before Parliament.

As the new chair of the all-party parliamentary group on media freedom globally and a former journalist myself, I am very concerned about SLAPPs. The name says it all: they are strategic litigations against public participation. They are abusive lawsuits designed to shut down the exposure of important facts by journalists, among others. I am pleased to hear what the Lord Chancellor has said. Could he give the House a little bit more detail on the potential scope of the legislation, and just reiterate what a difference it will make for the freedom of the press?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right in his use of the word “scope”, because we have to take care with this legislation. There is a balance between speed and ensuring it is sufficiently comprehensive to achieve the policy aim. It is right to note that, if we look around other common law jurisdictions, we see that there are some occasions when such legislation has had unintended consequences that we do not want, so we want to consider that learning carefully. We will proceed carefully but quickly, with all due diligence and expedition, to make sure that it achieves the policy aims.

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s answer to the question from Nicola Richards, but how can he introduce fresh challenges for the Department when the backlog is so severe? A visit to Wandsworth prison at Easter with a cross-party group of MPs showed that 75% of prisoners were still waiting for a basic sentence. [Interruption.] While he is reassessing his priorities—and introducing new things such as legislation on SLAPPs—will he reconsider the day job and the bread-and-butter work of getting through the backlog, so that three quarters of prisoners actually get their sentence and victims get justice?

Order. Can I just say that I love the imagination, but we have to be careful not to overstretch these questions. Secretary of State, are you happy to have a go?

I will give it a go, Mr Speaker. The question was ingenious, and I commend the hon. Member for it. Capacity is critically important—absolutely—and I want to stress, because people will be listening to this, that in 90% of the cases that take place in magistrates courts there are not those difficulties. However, it is true that we are expanding capacity, which is why there are more judges and there are 24 Nightingale courts. List officers are ensuring that we are getting through some of these most sensitive cases as quickly as possible, and the backlog in the Crown court—the case load in the Crown court—is coming down. We are seeing progress, and it is going to accelerate.

Getting back to SLAPPs, they are, as the Secretary of State has accepted, closing down public debate and public exposure of corruption. They are also being used against people who work for the enforcement agencies, such as the Serious Fraud Office, where individuals have been targeted. The Secretary of State has said that he intends to legislate, but can he tell us when he is likely to do that, because the Government have been making these noises for a very long time and what we need is action?

Absolutely. The position is that we will do so at the earliest opportunity. As I said before, we are even considering this in legislation before the House at the moment, so I hope that that gives the hon. Member an indication of the urgency. However, the point to note is that it is very easy to say “anti-SLAPPs legislation”, but if we look at other jurisdictions, we see that that can be in the form of costs orders that can have unintended consequences in respect of the law of defamation. I am not suggesting that is any reason not to move quickly—we are going to move quickly—but we have to move quickly and with care. If we do not, we risk undermining the very policy objective we want to deliver.

I will remind the Lord Chancellor that we have debated this matter a number of times in this House over more than the last year, so I do encourage haste. On scope, SLAPPs encourage a lot of other bad practices. For example, we are now the global centre of illegal hacking in this country. We have a very bad record for poorly regulated private investigation, so can he make sure his review covers that as well?

As always, my right hon. Friend absolutely has his finger on the pulse of this important issue. He makes a powerful point, and I can assure him that it is being borne in mind.