I congratulate the hon. Lady on her rise to Parliament. I hope that she will attend Justice questions regularly. I refer her to the answer that I gave a short time ago: defendants who are acquitted in criminal trials should normally receive their reasonable costs, unless the court decides otherwise.
I listened to the Minister’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), prior to her complimentary remarks, for which I thank her very much. But surely the Criminal Cases (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2009 do indeed prevent an acquitted defendant from recovering their costs?
As I have said, it is essential that we target our resources effectively. Costs are available to defendants in criminal cases in the Crown court where they have been acquitted, but those costs are staged at the level of legal aid costs. In other words, they should get the same as they should get had they been legally aided.
It is not legally aided.
Of course they are not legally aided—that is the point—but the level of costs that they will get back from the taxpayer from central funds will be the same as if they had been legally aided. That is fair both to them and to legally aided defendants.
Order. I very gently say to the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) that the shadow Justice team, of all shadow teams, should behave in an orderly manner.