Have been meaning to write a short post observing that the Prison & Courts Bill, which contained draft proposals to deal with the vexed issue of direct cross examination of alleged victims of d.v. by their alleged perpetrators and enabling provisions to allow the online court reform programme to move forward, has been ditched in light of the election.

That is to say, it is no longer going to be considered in this Parliament, and we will have to wait and see whether the new Government (either a “stronger and stablerer” May Government or some other sort of Government) has the time or inclination to put this back on the table. Once can foresee that other priorities such as the “Great Repeal Bill” might take priority (much like disguised compliance which means the exact opposite of what it says, this would be a Bill that would repeal one thing and enact a million others into our law, but hey), but it’s difficult to tell what sort of space in the timetable will be left for other ongoing work. Other factors which increase the uncertainty are the increasingly frequent news articles speculating that our Lord Chancellor Liz Truss, who is of course responsible for this legislation, is not going to last much longer in that post.

So we will have to wait and see. But at best this means some delay in getting these reforms through. At worst it means they disappear into the long grass of Brexit.

For those who enjoy an exercise in futility you can read what I said about the Prison & Courts Bill when it was still a thing here, and what David Burrows said about it in a guest post here.