Kieran Mullan MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q I want to ask you something else; I do not mean to put you on the spot, but this is in the public domain. You might know that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) has said publicly online that he understands that some of the organisations that put their name to the letter, or wanted to put their name to the letter, were put under pressure by either officials, Ministers or advisers at the Department not to do so, or to withdraw their names. Are you familiar with any of that? Have you heard anything about that in any way, shape or form? Fiona Rutherford: We have not participated in any of the conversations that may well have happened with or without Ministers or officials. Emma Torr: Not within my knowledge at all, no.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I will come back to you if I get time.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q We are talking about the forward-looking modelling. For example, as you said, you have the data for what we do now and how we do it. But we are proposing reforms. If we wanted to say that a judge would do the consideration and summing up of evidence and the writing up of his thoughts on why he came to a decision, there is no evidence within our system for how long that might take? Daniel Flury: No—we have obviously never operated in this way, or this potential way, before. As all projects and programmes do, we are currently relying on assumptions. I know that teams have tested these assumptions with a whole variety of people who work in the criminal justice system—judges and so on—but they still are assumptions.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q You have given two, which is great. Would you agree that neither of those has anything to do with jury trials? Daniel Flury: Yes.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q My opening question for all three of you is this: what are the best and most positive features of jury trials, and how and why do we use them in our system? Lord Burnett of Maldon: Public involvement. Sir Richard Henriques: I do not disagree with that, but it is also the fact that the world at large is able to observe justice and what is going on. In the present context, they will be extremely unhappy. Clement Goldstone: I agree and have nothing to add.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to get to the specifics of the question. I guess what I want to ask you is what you think is really important about the magistrates element, and how you are currently risk-rating your ability to deliver it. Is there a low probability that you will be able to deliver it without issues, or a high probability? How are you risk-rating that programme? Daniel Flury: Our biggest risks around this programme are retaining legal advisers and recruiting magistrates. We need 7,000 magistrates over the next three years and 100 more legal advisers each year. We have mitigations in place, especially on magistrates.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Hello, Mr Downey. I am Dr Kieran Mullan, the shadow Justice Minister. I want to begin by asking you about what read-over we might get in relation to challenges you have had with court backlogs. Do you have experience of waiting times and backlogs that increased from an ordinary level and were brought back down again? What did you do to secure that? Doug Downey: Absolutely. As we went into covid, we were developing backlogs, and then of course through covid we had more. I can share some specific numbers with you if you wish. For a sense of scale, we have about 250,000 cases a year that come into the system, and the backlog made that grow quite significantly. We are chunking our way through it, if I can put it that way, and employing technology processes and increasing capacity across the system.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q You talk about a judge and two magistrates as something you favoured, and that is what Sir Brian recommended, but it is not what the Government are proposing. They are proposing a judge sitting on their own. Can you see any disadvantages to that proposal versus the one that you supported? Lord Burnett of Maldon: Again, the Government well know my view on this—I see the Minister nodding. It seems to me that if one is going to reduce the involvement of the general public, as members of a jury, in the relatively low-level cases that go to the Crown court, maintaining public involvement through the magistracy is a good course to follow. It also has the great advantage of simply replicating a constitution and jurisdiction that exists in the Crown court at the moment. When there is an appeal from the magistrates court against conviction or sentence, including an appeal against conviction in an either-way case, it is heard in the Crown court by a judge and two magistrates. They take very little time. Both Sir Richard and Judge Goldstone are much more experienced, over many more years, in what happens in the Crown court than I can pretend to be, but those cases take very little time and the judge, on behalf of the court, gives an immediate judgment, just as in the Crown court generally the judge gives an immediate summing up. That struck me as being a much better course.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q I have asked you twice, and you have given the answer, and people can make up their own minds about what can be implied from that. Moving on to some extent, I can say to you, “This modelling says this,” and you can point to other modelling that says otherwise; I can say that court judge X disagrees with you, and you can point to a judge who agrees with you, and we can go back and forth. I am not seeking to do that, because I do not think it would be particularly productive. I will instead try to pique your intellectual curiosity about the challenges for any Minister. Let us say we all agreed with your proposals in principle and that, if you were able to secure the changes you are seeking, they would be positive. The question is how you secure reform in Government—particularly major systems reform—successfully, and the challenges and unintended consequences that can arise. Have you spoken to any current or former Ministers who have embarked on a major reform programme similar to this? What lessons or points did they raise about how it can go wrong? Sarah Sackman: There is no doubt that reform is challenging, but defending a status quo that—I think of the words used earlier—is producing shameful outcomes should shame us as a society. The first job of the state is to provide a justice system that is there for the citizen, whether accused of a crime or a victim. We are not doing that at the moment, in my view. As you know, I was appointed a Minister on becoming an MP in July 2024, and I have always tried to approach that with a degree of humility, taking soundings from those with greater experience—including, by the way, Ministers from the previous Government, with whom I do not share politics but whose experience I respect. Over time I have met the likes of Alex Chalk, Jeremy Wright and Dominic Grieve and spoken to them about the state of our justice system and the challenges they faced in Government. Of course, I have also spoken to Ministers in the previous Labour Government, who did a huge amount as a reforming Government. I am always somebody who asks questions. I hope I am intellectually curious and that I have asked questions of those who have administered the justice system, and so know how resistant it has been to reform. I will be really blunt and candid with you: I know when we have undertaken some reforms in the justice system—for example, before my time, the attempted digitisation of the civil justice system—billions of pounds of taxpayer money were spent and, frankly, it was a flop. It is still not digitised. You still go to county courts and they are covered in paper. A number of—I do not want to say bodies, because that is a bit crude—attempts at reform have been made in the past, and they have failed. I am realistic about the challenge we are facing, but I am also clear that the status quo is broken and that if we do not act, it would be a dereliction of duty.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I know that these words will not necessarily shift your view, but I do not think anybody in this room would think that any of that was your fault, or that you should share any of the blame for what happened to your children. Your testimony is really powerful.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Right. You mentioned the letter. It also refers to these reforms as a potential distraction from some of the hard work that you talk about. You may have heard that this morning the Victims’ Commissioner characterised that letter as being purely about the perspective of women and girls in relation to their being defendants. Do you think that is a fair and accurate characterisation of that letter? Kirsty Brimelow: No, it is not, because that is not actually what it says. The letter sets out that they are against curbing jury trials because of the lack of trust in the criminal justice system, and that impacts those from minoritised communities in particular. We know from the statistics that black defendants and women by majority elect to go to the Crown court. Those are the ones who have trust in the jury system. That is the objection within the letter. I am sorry to see that she is mischaracterised in that way, because that is not what the letter is about. The letter does say that it is a crude approach to characterise victims as simply those who are complainants: victims can also end up as defendants, and we have had many examples of that. I had a case at the end of last year representing a woman who was subject, clearly, to coercive control and, in part, physical abuse. She ended up a defendant, and the jury heard from her about how she ended up getting in the position she did alongside the man who was controlling her. They acquitted her; they convicted him.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Hello. I am the shadow Minister. With witnesses such as you, I think it is important to be really clear about the areas about which you can and cannot comment. Does that make sense? Chief Constable Hatchett: Yes.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q To be frank with you, I was unhappy with the acquittals in all the cases that you have given examples of, so I am not necessarily sympathetic to the aim that you are putting forward. How important do you think it is that the system allows someone like me to be frustrated and not agree with what the jury end up doing or with what the judges and the establishment might think is right, versus what ordinary members of the public do, as a check and balance against people like me? Tim Crosland: It is a vital component of democracy. The classic example that comes up a lot is Clive Ponting. This is going back few decades—I remember it. In the 1980s, he was a civil servant who heard an account of what happened to the General Belgrano being presented to the public and Parliament that he knew was not true. He knew that the Belgrano was driving away from the British forces when it was sunk, so he leaked that information and was prosecuted for breach of the Official Secrets Act. The judge said, “You have no defence in law.” If it was down to the judge, Clive Ponting would have been convicted as a criminal and jailed. The jury saw somebody who had acted to get good information to the public, so they disregarded the judge’s ruling—a principle known as jury equity—and Clive Ponting was acquitted. That sent a powerful message to politicians about the standards that the public expect: standards of honesty and integrity. If we do away with the principle of jury equity, we do away with a vital democratic safeguard.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Thank you, Tim. I am Kieran Mullan, the shadow Justice Minister. To pick up on your final remark, what was it that made you think this issue could be coming down the track? Tim Crosland: There had been a pattern of jury acquittals in protest cases. In April 2021, the Shell six, who had spray painted “Shell Lies” on Shell headquarters, were acquitted by a jury. In January 2022, the Colston four, who toppled the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol harbour, were acquitted by a jury. In November 2022, members of Palestine Action, who had defaced Elbit Systems—suppliers of drones to the Israel Defence Forces—were acquitted by a jury. In January 2023, members of Insulate Britain were acquitted by a jury for blocking roads. It goes on, and we were seeing the reaction to that. It was nothing to do with the efficiency of the courts; it was the reactions from companies like Shell and Elbit, the meetings with Ministers, and the call, “How do we stop this happening because this is deeply embarrassing?”

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q We have covered jury trials and changes around that, but if you were going to pick one or two other things that you did that you think had the biggest impact on reducing your backlog, what would they be? Doug Downey: Increasing capacity across the system. We have different levels of court: the Ontario court and the superior court. The Ontario court has a complement of approximately 300 judges. We have added 52 to that complement. In addition, when we add a judge, we add seven full-time staff, whether it be Crown prosecutors, victim service workers or whatnot. In total, we added about 700 full-time staff over that period. Building that capacity has helped. The challenge we have is the increasing rate of intake. There are theories on why that is, but it is a fact that we are dealing with.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q I have a question for Cassia from the Institute for Government. Thank you very much for the work you have been doing on this. You have been quoted left, right and centre in Parliament. You produced an initial report and then a second one. Your second report was characterised in Parliament, for example by the hon. Member for Gloucester, as moving away from your previous criticism and that you now accept the Government’s model and think that what the Government have said is accurate. Do you accept the Government’s modelling and think what they have said about what will be achieved is now accurate, fair and reasonable? Cassia Rowland: The approach that the MOJ has taken in thinking about the modelling totally makes sense and is very similar to what we did. I want to make it really clear that our numbers are the same in our first and second reports. We are looking at the numbers in a slightly different way from the MOJ. The 19% overall saving in the Crown court is specifically for the Crown court. Our figure that is a 10% to 13% saving takes into account the increase in demand in magistrates courts as well. That is a big part of the difference. I just wanted to clarify that.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q I want to start with a question that I raised with some of the earlier witnesses. It has been suggested that the Ministry in some way, through civil servants, Ministers or advisers—I do not know who—placed pressure on groups that were either signatories of the letter against the Government’s proposals or were persuaded not to be. Can you confirm that in no way at all did anybody connected with Ministry of Justice seek to exert any influence on those signatories, either to withdraw from the letter or not to sign it in the first place? Sarah Sackman: We are having, including today, an incredibly open and robust debate on an issue of real national importance. We have had robust debate in the Chamber and we have heard from witnesses with very different perspectives, some of whom are clearly against these proposals—I welcome their contribution to the debate— and some who favour them. There is clearly a spectrum of opinion, and I welcome that debate; I have never shied away from it. Over the last year, on behalf of the MOJ, I have personally engaged with stakeholders, including—this is probably the most engagement I have had—with people and groups that oppose the measures we are bringing forward. They include the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association, for example, with which I have good relationships, although we disagree quite significantly on these proposals. In respect of the letter, which was signed by 70 groups, all of those groups can speak for themselves. In advance of the letter being published, engagement took place with those groups to hear them out. Many of them maintained their objections, particularly Rights of Women, which led the objection. But it was important to have that engagement and dialogue on where there were areas of consensus and where we could work together. I would never—you heard the exchange I had with JUSTICE—put pressure on anybody to withdraw their objection. If people have objections, those objections need to be heard. There needs to be constructive engagement, and we have sought to have that in this debate. I think that people would agree that that is what has taken place.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Good afternoon to you both, and thank you very much for coming. Ms Karmy-Jones, I want to pick up your remark about having victims at the heart of your thinking. You will have heard evidence, either through the earlier hearings or in the public debates surrounding this issue, that some victims’ advocates are insisting that these reforms are necessary to support victims. Has that give you any pause for thought about the positions that you have taken? If not, why not? Riel Karmy-Jones: We start from a presumption of innocence in a criminal case, so if I say “victim” and “complainant”, no disrespect is meant. Hearing any victim speak about what they have been through is shocking and has a huge impact on all of us at the criminal Bar, but we are the ones who, day in and day out, deal with them and have to explain to them why things have gone wrong. One of the things that I heard this morning gave me pause for thought, in the sense that some of our processes are poor. Clearly, the processes in place are not being properly followed. That does not change my approach to the Bill, because fundamentally there is a disconnect between clauses 1 to 7, on the right to jury trial, and clauses 8 to 16. As I will be arguing, we have issues with clauses 1 to 7 and think they should be struck out. We largely support clauses 8 to 16—the victims measures. They are good measures, and in fact there are some things that we would propose to strengthen them further. I would encourage you to look that way. This Bill is about making cases move more swiftly, and jury trials do not impact on that question, as even Sir Brian Leveson acknowledged this morning.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Is it accurate to say that you reject the Government’s central assertion about the time saving? Cassia Rowland: There are a lot of uncertainties behind the modelling. Some of that is inevitable because we do not have the information available. In particular, the bulk of the savings come from moving cases into the magistrates courts, rather than from the bench division, the judge-only-trial element, and there are quite substantial questions as to how feasible it is to move that many cases into magistrates courts if the Bill passes and as to the amount of time that those cases might take once they are in magistrates courts.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Thanks ever so much for coming, and for your patience with the parliamentary procedure. I know that these things are really challenging sometimes, so I want to thank you in advance for talking about difficult things. Also, rather than being dependent on what we may ask you, I want to give you the opportunity to lay out two or three points that you really want to get across to us today. Claire Throssell: Thank you for the question, and I have four points that I really want to get across this afternoon. First, I want to make it clear that presumption has no place when it comes to children’s safety. Presumption has no place when it comes to children’s lives. Presumption has no place when it comes to our lives. What happened to Jack and Paul was based on a series of presumptions under practice direction 12J, and you have to ask the question: why did a professional working for CAFCASS, after being barricaded in her office, presume that Jack and Paul were safe to go on a visit? Why did she presume that I was exaggerating, despite me telling her and a court—let us be clear that I did—that he was capable of killing? Why was it presumed that it was okay to ignore my voice? Why did they presume that two children would be safe when they had clear evidence in front of them that they would not be? We are talking about presumption, and people say, “Yes, the practice direction is there in the Children Act 1989.” Let us be clear: there are 68 children who have died under that Act. There are 68 children who have died under practice direction 12J. I say again: presumption has no place when it comes to children’s safety. I am going to show some evidence now, and I show these pictures not to shock or upset people, but to show the reality of presumption of contact. I would like to show you two photographs, the first of which shows Jack and Paul. They were never child A and child B in a serious case review. They are child 18 and child 19 in a Women’s Aid report that looked into how many children have died at the hands of known perpetrators of domestic abuse. This 12-year-old boy, Jack, died believing that he had saved the life of his younger brother, because I never told him differently—I held both my sons in my arms as they died. Jack’s voice was never heard; the day he was supposed to have his interview with CAFCASS was the day that he died in my arms. The only time this boy’s voice was heard was on a landing, when he spoke to a fireman and a doctor. Although he was dying, he used as much of his strength as he could to tell as many people in that property, “My dad did this, and he did it on purpose.” This was taken by the police as a dying testimony. Why did they not take his words in life? Why did they take his words in death? This second photograph of Jack is again evidence of what happens with presumption of contact. The first photograph of Jack was taken in the July, and this second photograph shows Jack in the October. CAFCASS and a court presumed that this boy would be safe. Social services presumed that this boy would be safe. This boy died believing that he had saved the life of his brother, and more importantly, he thought of everybody else but himself. When people should have protected him, he went back for his brother. He gave his brother his hand. He gave his brother his strength. He was there for his brother, but who was there for him at 12 years old? Not the court that ordered contact because of the culture in the family courts that contact is in the best interests of the child—that they should see both parents. Jack had nobody, and he thought about me—he made sure that everybody in the property knew that I was not to blame. As a parent, I am ashamed of that, because it was my role to protect them. Let us be clear that I have to live with the fact that they died only because a domestic abuser wanted to punish me. A family court allowed him to do that, but these two beautiful boys only lost their lives because of me. When we talk about repealing presumption of contact, let us look at it: over 30 years, children have died. In 2014, Jack and Paul were child 18 and child 19. Let us face the fact that, in 2026, we are at 68 children. That is not good enough, because every child deserves to live. Every child deserves to have a childhood, and their childhood should not be allowed to be torn apart piece by piece by seeing a perpetrator of domestic abuse—by seeing a person who just wants to hurt them, humiliate them and punish an ex-partner. Children have one childhood. Children at risk of harm only have today; they do not have tomorrow. You have a chance—a lifesaving opportunity—right here, right now to make a difference to children’s lives, not just today, not just tomorrow, but for generations of children to come. It is no surprise that there are many people in their 20s with mental health issues. Mental health has never been as bad as it is right now in young people. And why is that? It is because they are made to see a parent who is hurting them. They are made to see a parent who is harming them. It might not be physical, and it might not be the ultimate act, like it was for Jack and Paul, but if a child comes back from a visit and they are different from how they were when they went on the visit, let us be clear: that is child abuse. Children are supposed to have a voice. Children are supposed to have opinions. But all too often there are too many other voices in this complex system that are louder than the child. We hear about parental rights all the time, but around children’s rights there is a deafening silence. We have an Act that protects them: the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. They are supposed to be seen as victims in their own right, and yet, up and down our country, their rights are still being walked over—not only their rights under the Domestic Abuse Act, but their human rights too. They have the same rights as we do. They are people; they are humans; they are themselves. Their basic rights—to live, to thrive, to live in privacy, to live in peace—are being broken in courts up and down the country. That is not good enough. They are the future of this country, and if we get this wrong, what does the future of our country look like? What have we got for the future? They are not being allowed to live as they want to live. They are not being allowed to be free. They are certainly not allowed to thrive. If you go to school, college or university and you have suffered that morning, how are you going to learn? How is that conducive to achieving in life and being who you could be? I used to tell the boys, “Be the best that you can be today.” They only had today. Right now, with this Bill repealing presumption of contact, we can give every child in this country the tomorrow that not just Jack and Paul, but 66 other children will never see. This issue is bigger than Jack and Paul, but they were my reality. They were my children. They were the better parts of me. But 66 children are anonymous. Successive Governments have made them a child A or a child B in a serious case review, to gather dust in a file in Whitehall or around here, just brushed under the carpet. Serious case reviews—lessons must be learnt. I can ask everybody in here, “What lessons have we learnt?”, because every year we are losing more children, and we are losing more children because of practice direction 12J, because of presumption of contact. There should never be presumption—not in law, not when it comes to safety, not when it comes to lives. You would not go in a court and presume that somebody is guilty.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Would I be correct in saying that it should not be inferred from anything you say today about the issues that need to be addressed, the challenges that victims are experiencing and the challenges in policing that you support, for example, a reduction in jury trials? The National Police Chiefs’ Council does not have any views on that. Chief Constable Hatchett: No, we do not.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Lord Burnett, when, as Lord Chief Justice, you were considering how to improve the efficiency of the service and the experience of victims, did you ever consider reductions to the jury element of trials? If you did, what were your conclusions? Lord Burnett of Maldon: I have spoken publicly on many occasions about my personal belief that there is a need to rebalance the work between magistrates courts and Crown courts. I was aware of the detailed work done 25 years ago by Sir Robin Auld. He made certain proposals which, even then, although I was not a criminal barrister at the Bar, I took an interest and many of them struck me as being quite sensible. During covid, I had detailed discussions with the then Lord Chancellor, Sir Robert Buckland, about adjusting the way we did trials, because it seemed to me that it was not a sensible approach to assume that covid would be over within weeks or a few months, which is what most people were doing, I’m afraid. Robert Buckland floated the idea of trying either-way cases in the Crown court with a judge and two magistrates—something I personally have favoured for a long time—but it did not fly politically; I think that is the best way of putting it.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Let me move away from the court to policing, which obviously is the area that you are most familiar with. What one or two things could policing do better, or be allowed to do differently, to enable you to shorten the timeframe on your side of a victim’s journey? Chief Constable Hatchett: I am really conscious that the Bill takes it from the point of charge and into the court system. We are working with the Crown Prosecution Service and in policing to see how we can decrease the time from the point of the recording of the crime to when we actually get a charge. There are initiatives going on with the Crown Prosecution Service, so maybe more will come into policing for charging. Some work is being done on redaction and on rebuttable presumption disclosure. There are a number of pilots going on to see how we can streamline the system to make that part as short as possible, recognising that no matter what we do there—and there is complexity in policing in terms of the investigations, the digital forensics and the third-party evidence that all adds to the delay—once there is a charge, there is a challenge in how you get through the process as quickly as possible, so that we do not have victims and witnesses who are not prepared to give evidence because of delays.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Do you think it is unfair to characterise people like you, who oppose those elements, as being in any way not concerned with victims—as being anti victims’ rights or experiences? Riel Karmy-Jones: Absolutely. I have sat and held the hands of many, many victims of really serious sexual offences. I have talked to them before, during and after the cases. Trust me when I say that those who prosecute these cases feel very intensely about the victims, so that would be a complete mischaracterisation—and frankly, it has hit the criminal Bar very hard and made us quite angry.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Similarly to the question that I asked of the chief constable, it is important that we understand the constraints on your evidence. This is stated Government policy; would I be correct in saying that it is not within your remit to criticise or say that the stated Government policy was wrong? Daniel Flury: It is not within my remit, no.