A total £1.3 billion would be needed to get the courts estate up to standard in Wales, the lady chief justice has revealed during her first evidence session with the Welsh Parliament. Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill was appearing before the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, the first time any chief justice has given evidence to a Senedd committee.
In her introductory speech, Lady Carr highlighted an ‘overwhelming operational case for a new civil justice centre in Cardiff, a fit-for-purpose building bringing together civil, family, public, law, and tribunal work’.
She added: ‘Lord Thomas [then lord chief justice] warned back in 2019 that the then facilities, the still current facilities, were quote, “unfit for purpose”. The capital city of Wales needs a court building suited to the trial of civil, administrative law and family cases. The current position in Cardiff is untenable. That was 2019. This is 2026. Things have not changed.’
She said that delivery of a modern centre would ‘require collaboration’ and the ‘judiciary stands ready to play its part’.
Asked by committee chair, Mike Hedges MS, how long it would take to get the estate ‘up to a required or acceptable standard’ at the ‘current rate of expenditure’, the LCJ estimated ‘decades’.
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She said: ‘The figure I have for the estimate of the maintenance backlog is £1.3 billion so, I have no way of putting years on that, I’m afraid. It is decades. It’s taken decades to get here so I don’t think it’s going to be an easy, quick fix, I’m afraid. There has been historic underfunding as a matter of record across the board.’
Alun Davies MS said it was a ‘real failure’ that Lord Thomas’ comments in 2019 were still relevant today. The LCJ said ‘failure is a word that it would not be for me to say’. Improvements were ‘about having the money to invest in a proper, fit-for-purpose estate’, she told the committee.
She added: ‘In order to find the solution here in Cardiff, I think everybody would agree that what we need is cross-governmental collaboration, collaboration with the professions, some creative thinking about investment between the governments, finding the right site, and reaching the right terms.
‘I can’t tell you why it’s taken so long, but what I can tell you is that there is a fresh sense of energy around the issue. I couldn’t agree more with you that it is long overdue. It’s something I’ve been saying since my very first appearance.’
Though she acknowledged ‘good work’ in individual projects’ including improving security in the courts, there are ‘fundamental problems’, she said. ‘You’ve got very, very old lifts in nearly all of the buildings…and they’re very expensive and very difficult to repair and maintain so I think accessibility is a real problem.’
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