Lord chief justice Lord Burnett giving evidence to @CommonsJustice says "vitality & independence of legal profession is essential hallmark of a society governed by the rule of law. Lawyers have duties to act fearlessly for client & to court & shouldn't be attacked for doing so.

He quotes Lord Irvine on what should be gov response to litigation -- when you get a decision that favours you you do not clap & when you get one that goes against you, you do not boo. Burnett says that's wise observation for politicians to adopt

Burnett says only a "tiny minority" of lawyers cross the line and their failings do not begin to justify a general attack on the integrity of lawyers.

@hammersmithandy notes "chilling effect" of repeated criticism of lawyers by PM, home sec & AG. He says it's leaving firms feeling vulnerable. He asks Burnett if he's aware of the "genuine feeling of unease” felt by lawyers.

Burnett says he's aware of unease felt by lawyers, having been told by chair of @thebarcouncil & @TheLawSociety president. Says he expressed his earlier stated views in October, but says his comments are not always picked up & reported.

Burnett, says tech facilities in court prior to covid, were “pretty dreadful" & most judges didn't even have telephones that allowed them to do conference calls. He says the overarching problem even in Royal Courts of Justice is that the technology fails us.

Burnett says he was told of a trial where three jurors tested positive for trial – says it is "deeply regrettable" and will become an increasing problem. He says the recent news ofa vaccine means it is too soon to have discussed possibility any preferential access.

Burnett suggests the backlog of cases in magistrates courts will be retrieved to where it was in March, by Easter -- says the "story in the magistrates court is very positive".

In crown court Burnett says "picture is turning out to be more difficult" with "very substantial" backlog -- now about 50,000 up from under 40,000 pre-covid.

Burnett says HMCTS target of 250 courtrooms by end of October, has been reached. By last Monday he says there were 255 rooms in the court estate capable of hearing jury trials, plus 11 in Nightingale courts. He says the plan is to have 300 courtrooms by the end of the year.

Burnett says even if we able to run flat out we’ll be retrieving the crown court backlog a little, maybe by 50 cases a week & says it will take a long time to recover the backlog. (Lord chancellor originally said they would need 200 Nightingale courts -- there are about 17)

Burnett says there's no constraint on sitting days this year & hopes it will be the same next year. (In previous years, to save £, MoJ has reduced judges' sitting days, leaving half of all courtrooms empty while the backlog of cases rose)

Burnett says he would be disappointed if funding from the Treasury to the MoJ did not for an unrestricted number of sitting days. Without that, he says there's a danger that "much larger backlogs are baked into system".

For next year, Burnett says court funding in every jurisdiction should be looked at based on a realistic of the likelihood of work coming in & an awareness of backlog we have got to clear

In family courts, Burnett says backlog since last year has gone up by 17% for public law cases & 22% in private cases. Says he's "extremely concerned" to avoid position of covid backlogs being viewed as new normal – funding must be provided to deal with work coming in & backlog

Burnett warns that from December chief constables have said they will no longer facilitate video remand hearings from police stations, that they have been doing since lockdown. Burnett says it will "deeply regrettable" if video remands are "unilaterally stopped".

Burnett says stopping video remands will increase risk (due to covid) for those in magistrates court & slow down work. He says there should be law change to allow PECS staff (who transport defendants) to supervise video hearings, which must now be done by police officers.

Burnett says he "deeply regrets" decision by chief constables to stop video remands. He says if the problem is money, he says the lord chancellor @RobertBuckland & home secretary @pritipatel "should be in a position to sort it out".

Sorry, I've got to stop listening to the lord chief's evidence now, as I have to do something else. But will tweet some highlights from the rest of the session later.

Moving to civil courts, Burnett says there are too fee district judges in the county & family courts – last 2 competitions resulted in JAC not being able to recommend the number of judges needed to staff the courts. Says work being done to sort it out.

"Most striking" thing about county court is that it's "entirely paper-based" - there is no digital filing of dox. Hopes the court reform, now in its 4th year, will address this.

It is "unthinkable" that we could contemplate in the 3rd decade of 21st century that a court that does over 90% of all civil work relies on "people filling out long forms, putting them in envelopes & sending them in".

"It would be extremely unfortunate, to put it as mildly as I feel I can, were there to be any difficulty raised by the Treasury over funding the modernisation problem properly." (re county court)

Multiple reasons for lack of district judges -- real cause is that not enough people who met the standard applied. Pool of suitably qualified people had been fished almost dry. Work of district bench is "extremely hard" - they do difficult & emotionally difficult cases.

"The conditions in which many of our district judges work, in buildings which .. are frankly an embarrassment, with technology that wasn't working, one can well see that all of these combined t make some people wonder do I really want to do it."

Data capture for county court is "exceptionally poor" - no system to record cases. Burnett says nobody can tell you the backlog of county court cases, because collection of that data is not possible. But he says timeliness of hearings, even before covid, was not that good.

Burnett: "In what sort of justice system would somebody not be able to interrogate a computer system and discover how many cases are outstanding in any particular court ...

Burnett: "The answer is one that has not had any money spent on it for decades & which has technology & data systems which are antiquated to the point of uselessness."

Asked by @hammersmithandy if there are enough court staff, Burnett says HMCTS seeking 16,000 - he says it's taking a long time to recruit them, but says it will not be enough to run all jurisdictions to capacity & to do would need more staff

Intensive recruitment campaign for magistrates' court -- 1,000 appointed & in process of being trained, but Burnett says we don't have enough and he hopes recruitment will continue.

Concern that at times of economic difficulty, people are more reluctant to become magistrates because they fear it will put them in difficulty with employers -- Burnett says he's not aware of this happening yet, but need to keep an eye on it.

Burnett says there's been a "significant turnaround" in recruitment to High Court, but still not up to statutory number. Says government commitment to sort out technical problems that "engulfed" pension scheme, has been "very significant change" that increased recruitment.

Chair @neill_bob asks about raising judicial retirement age. Burnett says 3 options: stay at 70, increase to 72 or 75. He says judges favour raising age to stay on to 72 - almost everyone "still firing on all cylinders" between 70-72 & some "go off the boil" after that ...

If retirement age raised to 75, Burnett says concern where, for constitutional reasons judges can't be removed, may have a few who are unwell or not performing as we would like them to.

Asked again about court staff numbers, Burnett explains they're linked to sitting day allocations. He says the judicial view is that "staff numbers have been cut to the bone, to be perfectly honest, and thus there is not a lot of resilience in the system."

"One of the real difficulties" created by shortage of court staff, says Burnett is organising cloud video platform hearings. He says it's quite intense, but in some areas there aren't the staff to do it & judges are doing it themselves. Repeats that staff numbers need to go up.

Burnett says "particular problem" is that HMCTS staff are low paid compared to equivalent staff in other government agencies at the same level. Endemic problem seen for years is that people come into HMCTS, then move to job that pays more - no one can blame them for that.

Burnett hopes that funding arrangements will see that raising the salaries of HMCTS so they are equivalent with others, will be seen as a cost-saving, as you won't keep losing experienced staff, needing temporary staff or needing to keep recruiting.

"Some of the computer systems -- I barely dare call them that -- that are still used in the court system, are 20, 25 years old. Maintaining them is more expensive, I suspect in the end than changing them. It's a constant voyage to make things better."

Burnett closes paying tribute to HMCTS staff, judges & magistrates for how they've coped over last few months -- says you shouldn't underestimate the intensity & fatigue for people, including lawyers - says it's bee "a quite remarkable achievement". [Ends]