My Lords, I am not briefed by the NSPCC but I have a brief from the Magistrates’ Association, which makes it clear that it also supports the 26-week time limit but also agrees that there should be specific extensions for eight weeks where people can apply to the court. It would probably be most helpful if I raised the questions that the Magistrates’ Association has raised in the brief that it sent me. Before I do so, though, I want to make the point that the examples of exceptions that my noble friend Lady Jones gave are very far from theoretical, because two of those examples I personally dealt with in the past month. They were very real examples of something that I understood very clearly.
The first of the questions that the Magistrates’ Association raised in its brief to me is really a concern that an application for an eight-week extension should resist that extension being a contested hearing, and obviously the decision of the court should be final. If there is to be a contested hearing on an eight-week extension, though, it should be as short and focused as possible. The second point that the Magistrates’ Association made was that it is not clear, from the association’s understanding, that there is any limit to the maximum number of successive extensions. The association’s final point is to ask whether there is any right of appeal if a lower court—although perhaps “lower court” is not the right expression—decides not to grant an extension. Is there any right of appeal to a higher jurisdiction?