Kieran Mullan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 23 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of amendment 17, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Chichester. I acknowledge the progress that we have made on the issue; it has not been as fast or as good as personally I would like, but it has absolutely been progress. The hon. Member has laid out some of the important points. The idea that we will record these proceedings and that the transcripts will exist, but that the victim cannot have them, is obviously not sustainable. If they do not exist at all and nobody has them, that is one thing, but when they are available and some people might be accessing them—defendants, for example—it is really not reasonable that victims cannot, for all the reasons that we have discussed in relation to the Crown court. The existence of recordings will make that less of an excuse. Again, the interaction of different elements of the Bill, with longer sentences, restricted appeals and more serious cases being heard, builds an even stronger case for victims to have access to the transcripts. The hon. Member for Chichester mentioned the unduly lenient sentence scheme. As we talked about in the context of Crown court appeals and the current use of the scheme, it is pretty hard to appeal an unduly lenient sentence if we do not even have access to the route to sentencing that the judge laid out to explain why they gave the sentence that they did. In my understanding, we have a later amendment that asks for an expansion in the use of the scheme in order for it to be meaningful. We talk about the unduly lenient sentence scheme, but people cannot access it in the magistrates court, even though we are about to put more serious cases into that court. At the minute, people are able to access the scheme when a case is heard in the Crown court. For those reasons, we enthusiastically support the hon. Member’s amendment.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  We now come to a series of considerably less contentious clauses, including clause 8, relating to the admissibility of evidence in our criminal courts. This area of the Bill deals with the sensitive and often contentious issue of sexual history evidence. Of course, we want victims of rape, sexual violence and domestic abuse to experience a justice system that treats them with dignity and protects them from irrelevant, prejudicial attacks. Complainants can be subject to questioning that is invasive and distressing, that may not be relevant or may hold little or no genuine relevance to the legal issues at hand. Clause 8 seeks to tighten and clarify the rules governing when a complainant’s previous sexual behaviour can be introduced as evidence. The underlying principle is that a complainant should not have their credibility undermined through assumptions, stereotypes or what are often described as rape myths regarding their past. To achieve this, the clause will replace the current model with a more rigorous admissibility framework. Under the new rules, such evidence may be admitted only if it meets one of two criteria: it must have substantial probative value in relation to a matter of substantial importance to the case as a whole, or it must constitute important explanatory evidence. This shift is intended to ensure that only genuinely relevant material is put before the court. Furthermore, the clause explicitly requires the court to consider whether the suggested value of the evidence relies on inferences that cannot be properly drawn, to avoid the situation in which evidence is admitted with the defence knowing what inferences be drawn even if it would not be proper to do so. That is another important safeguard designed to prevent the trial process from being distorted by prejudice. Although the Opposition support the aim of ensuring better protection for complainants, our role in Committee is to ensure that the law is not only well intentioned, but clear, workable and consistent with the right to a fair trial. I am sure the Minister agrees that there cannot be a blanket ban on the admission of this sort of evidence where it meets those tests. I have a number of questions in relation to the need to ensure that the measure does not create any unintended procedural hurdles. To forewarn the Minister, this will be a consistent question across these clauses, but what assessment has been made to ensure that the substantial probative value threshold is sufficiently precise—not sufficiently high or low, but sufficiently precise—to meet both sides of the coin, and that it is workable in practice? How do the Government intend to monitor the application of the new framework to ensure that it delivers the intended protection for complainants? Is the Minister confident that the drafting strikes the correct balance between protecting victims from inappropriate and invasive questioning and upholding the fundamental right of a defendant to a fair trial? The need for reform in this area has been well argued, and protecting victims from irrelevant and prejudicial questioning is a goal we all share. However, as I have said, the Committee’s task is to ensure that this clause is the right approach. That is something we should continue to explore throughout the later stages of the Bill.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I direct the Minister to the report from the Law Commission, which said that there was no significant evidence of people abusing the system or lots of unmeritorious appeals. The point is that someone has looked at this in detail, on an independent, non-party political basis, and they do not support the suggestion that there are lots of appeals going through that should not be in there.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is about the combination of those concerns, along with the fact that there are unrepresented people. The Minister is right to say that people who have representation, if their appeals are valid, will be able to carry on, because they will continue to meet the test. The reason the Opposition support the broader approach is because there are people who do not know the detail of the law or how to make a successful application. That is why there should be a freer approach. The concern is about those two things combining. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate pointed out, not only are things being made more consequential—longer sentences and a lower likelihood of a jury trial—but at the same time it is becoming more difficult in the other direction. That feels counterintuitive and not in line with what the Government are saying about making the system fairer. On that point, the Government are moving in directly opposing directions.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. Clause 7 and schedule 2 represent a fundamental and troubling departure from the way that our justice system corrects error. As the Minister said, we have tabled a number of amendments, which essentially form two groups. The first group seeks to reconstitute the existing right of appeal, and amendment 37 aims to stop the Government’s proposal until we have a more substantial and better understanding of how to drive the appeal success rate down, which is our primary aim. As the Minister outlined, at present a defendant convicted in the magistrates court has an automatic right of appeal to the Crown court, where the case will be heard as a full rehearing before a judge and two lay magistrates. The Bill proposes to replace that long-standing framework with a permission-based model, whereby the defendant must first prove that their appeal is reasonably arguable before a single judge, often based only on written papers and transcripts. I rise to oppose that restriction on access to justice. I will argue that, where an appeal is successful, justice is best served by providing the option of a retrial before a jury. I will reflect on the Minister’s remarks about how our amendments would operate. I always listen very carefully to what she says and, as I will explain, I think there is some merit in some of her points, so we can reflect on those. The Minister has pointed out the difference between the magistrates court and the Crown court, and processes elsewhere, but my contention is that that is not an accident or happenstance; that is by design, because the magistrates court is very different in many other ways from those other elements of the courts. That is why there is a difference there—for very good reason. Because efficiency must be balanced with accuracy and fairness, the current automatic right of appeal is not simply a source of unnecessary delay; it is a vital check on a part of our system that others have described as being, to some extent, “rough justice”—a forum in which decisions are swift but carry a higher risk of mistake. The evidence—because let us look at the evidence; this is not just what people might say about it—is that the current system is performing a very necessary function. Around 40% to 42% of appeals against convictions from the magistrates court are successful, and roughly 44% to 47% of appeals against sentences are also successful. That is an extremely high rate of successful appeals. These are not marginal or trivial figures; they indicate, I am afraid, that the lower courts are making meaningful errors in nearly half of the cases in which they are challenged. The Law Commission actually considered this issue in detail. It rejected the proposals that a permission stage should be introduced and highlighted a number of key points in relation to that. On the importance of correcting error, as I have mentioned, it emphasised the critical role that those appeals are playing. It also highlighted the low volume of appeals. The Minister talked about 4% of receipts in relation to one element; I think 1% of the total number of magistrates court cases are being appealed, so that demonstrates that this measure will make a transformative difference to the backlog. We can talk about receipts, but the other thing to keep in mind is how long the actual appeals take. Although receipts are one way of looking at it—on a numbers basis—that is also distortive, of course, because appeals are much shorter hearings than the ordinary business of the Crown court. The Law Commission pointed out that it found no meaningful evidence that this process was being abused, even without that permission stage in place. As we have talked about previously in the Bill, legal representatives cannot support an appeal that is completely without merit. As I have said, due to a combination of the low volume of appeals and the shorter hearing times, our contention is that there would be minimal efficiency gains to weigh against this erosion of an existing right. Actually, the introduction of a permission stage is something that we welcome, but the work that will have to be done to support it, with the introduction of recordings and making available transcripts, will probably—or could—cost significantly more than will be saved. By introducing a permission stage, the Government are creating a multi-stage system that is complicated and potentially more inefficient than the current situation. We know that many of those facing imprisonable offences in magistrates courts are currently unrepresented. The Bill simultaneously increases sentencing powers in clause 6 while narrowing the ability to challenge those decisions in this clause. The Bar Council has described this as a “comprehensive rolling back of safeguards”. An unrepresented defendant, potentially facing up to two years in prison, will now be expected to navigate the practicalities of reviewing transcripts and preparing permission grounds for appeal without professional help. The legal aid gap means that many defendants who would have qualified for a solicitor and legal aid in the Crown court will be ineligible in the magistrates court due to the different low-income thresholds—£22,325 versus £37,500. Requiring those individuals to purchase costly transcripts just to ask for permission to appeal is a significant barrier that risks entrenching injustice. If the error rate in the magistrates court remains high, restricting access to the remedy is a recipe for uncorrected miscarriages of justice. I will move on to our amendments about the case for retrial by jury. If we accept that the current appeal system exposes weaknesses in the original summary trial, we must also look at what happens after a successful appeal. As the Bill stands, if the Crown court quashes a conviction and determines that a retrial is necessary, the case must generally be returned to the magistrates court. We believe that that is a rigid approach that ignores the complexity, which does not exist at present, of what might have been revealed by the appeal. Because we are introducing a new system of allocation and decisions around allocation, that is a new area of the law that could be contained within appeals. A successful appeal may demonstrate that the case was too complex, or the evidence too sensitive, for a summary disposal in the new division. Returning cases to the same level of court that originally fell into error will do little to restore public confidence.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wimbledon, who is not in his place, for the advice received in relation to amendment 54, which was drafted with the assistance of the Clerks. The Minister is right that our intention was to unpick the barriers at the permission stage that the Bill introduces. I think her point applies just to the first amendment; the other amendments fit because they are about what happens after a successful appeal and how it might be re-instigated. On that basis, I will not press amendment 54 to a vote. We will table a suitable amendment at a later stage.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I mentioned this point in my speech, but I will repeat that these clauses interact with the other elements of the Bill that will remove juries. Under the older jury trial system, the judge decides on things that the jury will never hear, so if something is made inadmissible, there is no question at all of it colouring the judgment. Of course, if we remove the jury in potentially more serious cases, we can have all this legislation and all these things that become technically inadmissible, but as we have talked about, we are then relying on the intellectual operation of the judge’s mind. Whether or not people think it is right for them to draw a direct conclusion, it is a matter of fact that judges are a group of people who are more distant and removed from the people we are concerned about. For example, if we are talking about women and girls, judges are more likely to be men. Those are the issues that will become more contentious as a result of the other changes in the Bill.

• 23 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have always struggled somewhat with the question of redaction. If reporting restrictions are in place, what can be shared and so on will be controlled, but anybody can sit in a court and listen to the whole thing, unredacted. I am not quite sure that I understand the absolute focus on transcripts being redacted. If someone could have sat in that court and written down what was said, word for word, why are we worried about its being redacted? The judge is the person who can say, “You can’t report that, beyond what you’ve heard,” but, separately, why are we so much more concerned about transcripts than we would be about open court, where everyone can hear the whole thing?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am sure we will get to hear from the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington shortly. The proposal in clause 3 is being framed as a mere administrative adjustment—a common-sense fix for a system under strain. The Government’s plan to introduce a Crown court bench division, where a judge sits alone without magistrates to decide the fate of those accused of either-way offences, is being sold to the public as a remedy for the backlogs that currently paralyse our courts. But we must be clear from the outset that the crisis in our courts is not the result of the jury system. The backlog, which sees tens of thousands of cases waiting for a hearing, is the result of long-term challenges and the unprecedented impact of covid on our justice system. Eroding a defendant’s right to a trial by their peers is not a fix; it is a fundamental reconfiguration of the English legal system. Across the Bill, we see a pattern emerging: a shift away from what we are clear is the gold standard of justice towards a swift model. The evidence supporting it is dangerously thin, and we must resist the permanent eroding of a right that has stood for hundreds and hundreds of years. The right to a jury trial is often described as fundamental. It is not merely a traditional quirk of our system; it is an important constitutional safeguard. The core of the Government’s plan, as outlined in their impact assessment and the Second Reading briefings, is to remove the right to elect. Currently, if someone is charged with an either-way offence—crimes like theft, assault or certain drug offences—they have a right to choose whether they are tried by a jury in the Crown court or by magistrates. The Government’s plan to strip away that choice in clause 3, under a new bench division model for when the sentence outcome is likely to be three years or less, will remove even the role of lay magistrates from the decision. The briefing provided by the organisation JUSTICE, which I have referred to several times, makes a compelling case against that. JUSTICE points out that the right to elect is a long-standing protection that ensures that a defendant can seek the judgment of a diverse group of citizens when they feel the state’s power is being unfairly applied. By removing that right, we are effectively saying that the state knows better than the citizen how they should be judged. This is not unheard of, as we have talked about before, but clause 3, combined with previous clauses, represents it being done at a scale never seen before. This is a dangerous path. When we move cases from juries to a bench division, we are moving from a system of community participation to a system of professionalised adjudication. The jury is the part of our constitution where the greatest number of ordinary citizens have a direct, hands-on role in the administration of justice. It is the primary way that the public grant their consent to the upholding of criminal law. If we remove the public from the process, we risk the law becoming something done to people, rather than something that belongs to them. The Government’s narrative suggests that a judge-led bench division will be just as fair as a jury, only faster. But it ignores the fundamental and unique aspect of fairness delivered by a jury trial, which they acknowledge by continuing to maintain jury trials for what they describe as the “more serious” offences. A jury is, by definition, balanced. It consists of 12 people from different backgrounds, with different life experiences and different biases, in the crucible of the jury room. Their diversity is its greatest strength; a single judge, no matter how well intentioned, cannot possibly replicate that breadth of perspective. There is also the phenomenon of being case-hardened: when a professional judge or magistrate hears 50 similar cases of theft or assault in a year, there is a natural human tendency to begin seeing patterns rather than individuals. Evidence that might seem fresh or potentially exonerating to a jury can seem like the usual excuse to a professional who has heard it hundreds of times before. Juries bring fresh eyes; they are not jaded by the grind of the system. They are instructed to look only at the facts of the case before them. That is why juries are considered—by the Opposition, at least—to be the gold standard. The evidence submitted to the Committee warns that we lack clarity as to why the Government are so eager to discard this standard. If the jury is the best way to ensure an accurate and fair verdict, the burden of proof for removing it must be exceptionally high. Furthermore, the bench division model threatens to undermine the lay element of our justice system. Originally, as recommended in the Leveson review, the idea was that a judge would sit with two magistrates. That was intended to maintain at least some form of community involvement. However, clause 3 moves towards judge-only trials for many cases, discarding even the judge-plus-two compromise. I will now address the primary argument made by the Minister in her opening remarks. The Government claim that moving to the bench division will significantly reduce the backlog. However, the Institute for Government has produced an insightful analysis, which we have referred to frequently, suggesting that the evidence for those savings is incredibly weak. The IFG points out that the vast majority of Crown court time is not actually spent on the types of trials that the Government want to move to the bench division. The cases being targeted are the less serious ones, which already take up less time than more complex cases such as murder, which will remain subject to jury trial. According to the IFG’s modelling, if judge-only trials are 20% faster than a jury trial, the total impact on the overall Crown court backlog would be a reduction of 2%. When we consider the constitutional cost of us losing, at this unprecedented scale, the right to access a jury, that is simply not sufficient. The backlog is not caused by juries being slow; it is more often caused by ineffective trials that are postponed because witnesses do not show up, because solicitors or barristers are unavailable, or because courtrooms are not fit to operate in. These are systemic failures, and moving a trial from a jury to a judge does not make a witness appear or fix a broken courtroom. The Bill proposes a threshold of cases likely to attract a sentence of up to three years being diverted to the bench division. Predicting a sentence before a trial is never an exact science, and that is something that magistrates actually have more experience of than judges. That unprecedented scenario—without the safeguards that we sought to add through a right of appeal, which the Government rejected—will create huge questions of impartiality and bias. A three-year sentence is not a minor matter. Three years in prison is a life-altering event. It can mean the loss of a home, a career and a family. To suggest that a person facing such a consequence does not deserve what they consider to be the fairest possible trial betrays that principle of fairness in our justice system when the consequences are so severe. There is also the issue of the absence of a sunset clause. If these measures are truly a temporary response to tackle an emergency backlog, they should include a sunset clause that ensures that rights are restored once the crisis has passed. As I have said previously, changes were made during world war two and then reversed when the war was over. The fact that the Government have resisted such a clause suggests that this is not a temporary fix, but a permanent land grab by the state. Once the right to a jury is surrendered for either-way offences, it is highly unlikely that any future Government will be in a position to restore it. We must see the Crown court bench division for what it is: a policy of convenience, not a policy delivering justice. It is a policy that ignores the findings of the IFG, which would require us to focus more heavily on other elements of the system. It is a policy that ignores the warnings from JUSTICE, which highlight the erosion of the defendant’s right to elect and its impact on public confidence and fairness in the judicial system. It is a policy that even ignores the original, more balanced recommendations of the Leveson review, which at least sought to keep lay magistrates involved. We are told that we must modernise and that we must be efficient. The purpose of a criminal trial is not to process cases as quickly as possible; it is to arrive at the truth through a process that the defendant, the victim and the public have trust in. If we allow the Government to erode the jury system in the name of the backlog on this occasion to this extent, we are sending a message that this constitutional right is highly conditional, and that it can be traded away whenever the state finds it too expensive or too cumbersome to maintain. As the Minister frequently points out, lots of countries do without it; “Why shouldn’t we?” will be the next argument. Instead of stripping away rights, the Government should be more focused on the areas that we can all agree on: prisoner transport, early legal advice, more efficient listing, Crown Prosecution Service reviews of cases in the backlog, facilities that work and IT that works. We do not fix a house by tearing it down to its foundations because the roof is leaking; we fix the roof. Jury trials ensure that our laws remain grounded in the common sense of ordinary people. Let us apply some of that common sense to tackling this issue. Common sense will lead us to oppose clause 3.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member for Gloucester pointed to what the Bar Council said, but let us be fair and talk about what it said in its completeness. It may well have said that the people currently practising dropped out, but the Minister quite directly asked how it was going to train these people up and get back to that point, and it made the point that the people who have dropped out of practising criminal law have not evaporated into thin air. They are still there; they are just practising in other areas of law, and when the situation is right for them, they can just come back into practising criminal law.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  We are leaning heavily on the points made by the Criminal Bar Association. The Government seem quite rightly to be extremely concerned about the training of future barristers, but the Criminal Bar Association has made the point that that training often takes place in what the Government are describing as less serious cases. That is where the more junior people get the experience they need to work on the more serious cases. If those cases are not available, how do the Government expect barristers to be trained to the level required to take on the more serious cases with a jury trial?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of amendments 58 and 52; I will start with amendment 58. We find ourselves at a significant juncture in the history of our legal system, and the Government have presented us with a Bill framed primarily as a pragmatic response to the current record-breaking backlog of nearly 80,000 cases in our Crown courts. The central justification for their reforms, specifically the restriction of the right to a jury trial, is efficiency; the Government argue that by moving towards judge-led trials, we can streamline proceedings and reduce the demand on the Crown court by almost 20%. However, when we are asked to curtail a right that has stood as a cornerstone of our democracy for more than 800 years, we must move with extreme caution. We must ask whether this fundamental change is based on robust data or merely an intuitive sense of speed and individual opinions. It is not only reasonable, but essential to ask the Government to conduct an independent formal study into the actual time savings achieved by judge-only trials before they are implemented. Amendment 58 focuses on one of the more easily measured elements, which could be properly studied. The Government’s case for reducing jury trials is predicated on the idea that it means the trials will be 20% shorter, yet when we examine the source of this figure, its foundation begins to look unstable. Sir Brian Leveson, whose review informed much of the Bill, stated that the estimate of a 20% reduction is subject to “very high levels of uncertainty”. He further stated that “seeking to model how much time would be saved is extremely difficult.” That point is reinforced by the Government’s impact assessment. Their attempt to quantify the time saving found that it was likely to be in the range of 10% to 30%—potentially half the time saving that Sir Brian claimed—and even that figure is born of what we might call a light-touch engagement session with judges and others, rather than rigorous comparative data. If the primary justification for stripping away a constitutional right is a 20% efficiency gain, then Parliament is entitled to see clear, verified evidence that that gain is actually achievable. While the Government promise a transformation of the system, independent experts argue that the actual time saved will be marginal. The Institute for Government has analysed the proposals and suggests that the judge-only trials in the new bench division might save only 1.5% to 2.5% of total Crown court time. Furthermore, the Criminal Bar Association has pointed out that the Government’s impact assessment assumes that the average length of a trial in scope is six and a half sitting days when, in reality, these trials typically last closer to three days. By doubling the realistic length of those trials in their modelling, the Government have likely overestimated the potential savings. When we look at these figures, we must ask whether it is right to curtail a fundamental safeguard for a gain that may be as low as 1.5%, when today alone we have 10% of Crown courts sitting empty for no other particular reason than a lack of efficiency. The Government’s efficiency narrative is focused almost entirely on the front end of a trial, the time it takes to empanel a jury and deliver legal instructions, and the time they claim is taken up by what some have described in evidence as playing to the jury. It ignores the back end of the process, the delivery of the judgment. In a jury trial, once the evidence is closed, the jury deliberates continuously and provides an immediate verdict of guilty or not guilty. Importantly, in that time, a judge can be otherwise engaged, hearing other cases and doing other work. From their perspective, the fact-finding phase is over instantly. A judge sitting alone does not have that luxury. To satisfy the requirements of transparency and guard against appeals, a judge must produce a reasoned judgment that addresses every point of law and fact. In other jurisdictions, delivering a verdict and providing those judgments can be reserved, meaning that they are written weeks or even months after the trial concludes. Unlike a jury, a judge has a full docket of other administrative duties. We risk a situation where the time theoretically saved is then lost through another route. Without a comparative study of what I will refer to as the judicial deliberation gap, we are making systemic changes based on an incomplete set of metrics. Additionally, because a judge’s written reasoning provides a detailed map of their logic, we are likely to see a significant spike in appeals. A jury’s verdict is difficult to appeal on the facts; a judge’s written judgment invites scrutiny for any minor error in law or logic, further clogging the higher courts. The Government have spoken frequently about the lack of availability of professionals within the legal system to hear criminal cases, and it will be the same KCs and others who will be stuck in the Court of Appeal on these cases, instead of being in the Crown court hearing cases from the backlog. For those reasons, we propose a simple, pragmatic pause. We are asking the Government to commission an independent study of the length of time required for a judge sitting alone to deliver a judgment after conviction. This is a matter of sequencing: evidence first, implementation second. In any other field, be it medicine or engineering, we would never implement a change of this magnitude without a pilot study or a comparative dataset. We picked this element as something amenable to study; there is nothing preventing the Government from commissioning a series of either sitting or retired judges to sit in the public galleries of trials happening in the ordinary way and then to go away and consider what reasons they would present and how long that would take. The Government could then measure and study the reality of that. Of course, that would vary from judge to judge, but a study with sufficient statistical power, with enough people taking part, could give us a genuine insight into how long these things will take. If the Government are confident that this process will be short and sharp and able to save time, I see no reason why they would not want to know it for sure before proceeding on that basis. If that study showed that that 20% saving was a myth, and that the time taken on the back end cancelled out any gains made during the trial, of course the reforms should be paused or reversed. We should not trade a system that works for one that merely looks faster on a spreadsheet. Jury trials are not an obstacle to justice; they are a safeguard against its abuse. It is important that we gather the facts and measure the actual time it takes for a judge to provide a reasoned judgment. If the evidence does not support the Government’s assumptions, we must have the courage to stop these reforms before we permanently damage one of our most valued constitutional inheritances. I now move on to amendment 52. As I have mentioned, we are debating the important element of reforms that are historic in their reduction of our access to jury trials. They are predicated on the idea that that is the sole and only way that we can tackle the backlog in the Crown courts. If we are to accept the Government’s claim that trials without juries are a tool for efficiency, we must hold the system to that standard. For that reason, it seems sensible and necessary to require that, in any trial without a jury, the judge must provide their verdict and their reasons immediately. Allowing a judge to delay their reasoning is not just a procedural flaw, but a logical contradiction that undermines the very efficiency that the Bill seeks to achieve. The Government’s most frequent argument for restricting juries is that they waste time due to the need to go slowly through the evidence and the unpredictable length of deliberations. The Government promise that a judge, as a legal expert, will streamline the process. However, that argument collapses the moment that a judge says, “I will give my verdict, but you will have to leave it with me while I go away and write it up.” The goal is to save time but, if there is a separate process that requires significant enough time that it cannot be done as part of the trial, where is the saving? In written evidence, we were warned of what might be called a bottleneck shift, where we might clear courtroom space more quickly, only to move the delay into the judge’s chambers. As the Criminal Bar Association points out, the reasonable time provision is currently too vague. I understand that it is not unheard of in other jurisdictions with judge-alone trials, such as Canada and New Zealand, for parties to sometimes wait months for the full reasons to be given for the verdict. By contrast, a jury provides a benchmark of finality. They do not go home to handle other business for a month; they deliberate while the evidence is fresh and stay until the job is done. As I pointed out earlier, while they are doing that, the judge is free to carry on with other matters. A case awaiting a verdict is a frozen case. It hangs over the court’s docket. It prevents the defendant from moving to the sentencing or appeal phase and potentially requires the judge eventually to relearn and reacquaint themselves with the full details of the case, perhaps weeks later. We are told that judges are professional triers of fact and that, precisely because of that expertise, we should be able to expect a system that reflects it. A jury of 12 people must be taught the law from scratch, whereas a judge, who already knows the law, should be taking structured notes and filtering and identifying relevant and irrelevant information in real time. By the time closing arguments are finished, a professional judge has been living with the facts and the law for days or weeks. They are in the best possible position to explain their logic at that moment. When a judge delays a verdict and the reasons for it, they are forced into double-handling the evidence, re-reading transcripts and notes to recapture their original thoughts. That is not efficiency—it is a waste of judicial resources. The requirement for immediacy is also a vital safeguard of the integrity of the law. There is potentially a subtle temptation for a judge who announces an initial verdict on a Monday, but writes the reasons for it on a Friday, to reverse engineer the logic of their original conclusions, even if inadvertently. Instead of the reasons leading the verdict, the verdict begins to dictate the reasons. The judge may subconsciously highlight only the facts that make their decision appeal-proof, rather than providing a raw, honest account of why they believed one witness over another. Members may well be familiar with the idea of confirmation bias; it is something that we are all affected by. If we make a decision and then come back to it at a later date, we have an inherent human failing of tending to dwell on, have our attention drawn to and be more mindful of things that reinforce our decision, rather than things that take away from it. Therefore, immediate reasoning ensures that judges are ruling on the evidence as it was heard. If the Government claim bench trials are superior because they are reason-based, those reasons must be robust enough to be stated out loud at the moment of verdict, forcing a level of intellectual honesty that is the only acceptable substitute for the collective common sense of a jury. Critics may argue that some cases are too complex for an immediate ruling. However, as some of the evidence suggests, very good reasons to delay should be defined strictly and should not include a busy schedule or a desire to write at another time. A very good reason should be limited to genuinely unforeseen situations. Indeed, as amendment 52 provides: “The judgment must be given at the time of conviction, except where an adjournment is necessary” for specific and well understood purposes, such as preparing medical or psychiatric evaluation reports, victim personal statements that were not available or that they sought to amend, or further legal submissions. However, the substance of why must be given when “guilty” or “not guilty” is uttered. The Government cannot have it both ways. They cannot strip away, to a great extent, the historical right to a jury trial in the name of streamlining the system and allow that system to grind to a halt while a judge reserves a decision for days, weeks or potentially even months.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister can probably anticipate what I am going to say: this situation is highly unsatisfactory, considering that we will again be asked to vote—not have a view or give an opinion, but be asked to vote—on the system of allocation and reallocation in relation to complex and lengthy trials. Members may have seen the evidence provided by the Bar Council, which makes absolutely clear its view that the Minister was wrong in her assessment that the decision to allocate will be subject to judicial review. That was my view, the view of the Bar Council and the view of the hon. Member for Wimbledon, with his expertise. It is not satisfactory to be told we will vote again later today not knowing what the Government’s clear position is. What the Minister said is now surely under very significant doubt, given what the Bar Council has told us. The Minister should have been able to come here today—rather than writing to us later—to give us the facts. We have had a big gap between Thursday and today, and we should not be left in the position of being asked to vote without the full facts.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The threshold that Sir Brian recommended was two years, not three years, and the forum that he recommended was a judge with two magistrates, but we are doing just one judge. The hon. Member should be more careful in making claims about what Sir Brian recommended to support what he is saying, because we are not doing what he recommended.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The consistent position is that unrepresented defendants can take up more court time and can cross-examine victims, and that is more difficult for victims. As other Members have touched on, this takes place in the context of the other things that we have been unsuccessful in changing this evening. Sentencing powers are increasing and the right to appeal is being watered down. There is a pernicious erosion of the fairness of our courts at the same time as the yardsticks are being essentially changed in relation to access to legal aid. This is important in the wider context of what is happening with legal aid. The Minister wants to say all the time that the Government are stretching every possible sinew to do everything else they possibly can to improve the backlogs in the courts. Yet we heard in evidence from the Criminal Bar Association and the Bar Council that the £34 million of legal aid announced in December still has not filtered through into the system and is still not available. We are now in April.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I think the Minister is accepting that there is no obvious route to judicial review, which is completely contrary to what she said to us on Thursday. I think anyone would interpret that as a significant reduction in rights compared with the existing status quo, so with that clarification from the Minister, I am happy to continue. Question put and negatived. Question put , That clause 3 stand part of the Bill.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  As I have talked about in earlier debates, uniquely in this situation we already know what the Lord Chancellor wanted to do. From leaks, we know that five years was the test, in terms of these proposals. The Opposition are being fair in suggesting that this is potentially the thin end of the wedge.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East for his remarks. I will paint a scenario for the Minister and ask whether she thinks it is one she will end up regretting if she does not accept at some point, if not at these stages, the idea that appeal is actually serving her own interests in reducing the backlogs. The scenario is that the Bill has passed, has been operating for a year or even two, and there have been multiple complex and lengthy cases heard without a jury under the schedules in this clause—potentially saving, in the Government’s own arguments of its merits, many days of crown court time—but then one of those people appeals post-conviction and successfully argues there was some error of judgment in the judge’s decision to allocate them a trial without a jury. My understanding of the law is that that would set a precedent and that anybody in those same circumstances allocated a trial without a jury would then be entitled to say that the law as then written by the Court of Appeal should apply to them. We could have a situation where dozens and dozens of cases were then ordered to be retried with a trial by jury. That would not only fail to have made the savings the Government wants to achieve, but make the situation even worse, leading to many more Crown court sitting days being taken up by these cases. The Court of Appeal approach on allocation will allow the case law to be built up quickly, ahead of trials and convictions, to bring the clarity that judges will need to make sure their decisions are not successfully challenged in the Court of Appeal. We made that argument in relation to clause 3, but it is even stronger in relation to clause 4, because it is just so much more subjective and open to interpretation, and there is so much more room for judges to make decisions that the Court of Appeal find erred against what the Minister is intending through her legislation. This amendment is a genuine attempt to save trouble down the line. I hope—even if not at this stage—the Minister reconsiders her view that these appeals are necessary. We know that people are not allowed to make meritless appeals. They have to have legal advice from somebody, telling them, “Yes, you have a reasonable case to be made”, and so this will not become some frivolous thing. We have talked about the magistrates court and the Government seeking to restrict that, but even without that restriction, the vast majority of people do not seek to exercise an appeal right—when they already have that right and exercising it comes at a low opportunity cost—even though the Government’s argument is that it can be used as appeal for appeal’s sake. The idea that an appeal right would flood the courts with those types of cases does not stand up to much scrutiny. Even if that were the case initially, as the case law developed, it would become harder and harder for people to make appeals on this element of the process. On that basis, we will push the amendment to a vote.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I want to pick up on a couple of points the Minister made, particularly the one that our amendment, in relation to a study, would require primary legislation. That is simply not the case. We specifically identified an element that could be studied without a need to change the law. No law would need to be changed to allow some retired or sitting judges to sit in on a court case and provide the judgment that they would have given had they been hearing it. No legislation is required for that. The Minister leans heavily on the experienced judges who agree with her, but more than 3,000 legal professionals, including senior retired judges, disagree with her. And of course, to move away from opinions, the Government’s own study, which attempted to turn opinions into a quantitative exercise, found that the savings could be half those that Sir Brian Leveson said are achievable. It found that they could be between 10% and 30%, whereas Sir Brian said they would be 20%. The Minister said that time would be saved on summing up. I sincerely hope the defendant will get to hear the same things a jury would have got to hear. If they do not, I suspect we will see a further increase in appeals. The Minister spoke about the time taken. A Bill that will have a seismic impact on our legal system has been introduced without a public consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny, and the Committee time has been less than that given to the Railways Bill. As I understand it, the Bill has been given roughly the same time as the Salmon Act 1986, which introduced the offence of salmon handling, so it is reasonable to ask whether it has been given sufficient time. If the Minister thinks there will be no real gap in time in terms of judgments, there is no reason for the Government to oppose amendment 52, which says that those should be immediate. Given the controversy and the varying opinions from experts on both sides of the debate, a non-legislative study is a perfectly reasonable thing for the Opposition to ask for. We will press amendment 52 to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  As I alluded to, it seems like the Government are convinced of the need for a review clause. If the review is undertaken and it finds that the reduction in jury trials has led to greater disparities in the justice system, will the Government commit to reversing the measures?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of Opposition amendment 46, which is in my name, as we debate elements of the Government’s proposals to remove jury trials and make use of the new Crown court bench division in relation to potentially complex and lengthy trials. To make sense of this debate, we must consider how the measures will apply. As we touched on earlier, the Government’s stated aim is to reduce the time taken to hear particularly lengthy and complex cases by permitting judge-alone trials and therefore—they say—freeing up additional Crown court capacity. The cases must involve at least one fraud or related financial offence listed in proposed new schedule 3ZA, which includes fraud by false representation, cheating the public revenue, money laundering and other offences, and would not involve an indictable-only homicide offence or sexual offence, including attempts or conspiracies to commit such offences. We can already see, when considering the written evidence we have received, why there are rightly many questions about how the provisions will operate. In amendment 46, we therefore propose a requirement to ensure that defendants have a route in the law back to a jury trial. I draw the Committee’s attention to the evidence of Dr Natalie Hodgson, from the University of New South Wales, and Dr Matt Thomason, from the University of Nottingham, which was particularly helpful. They point out: “Currently, the proposed s.42A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 does not define what is meant by “lengthy” or “complex”...Similarly, the proposed legislation provides no detail as to what judges can and should consider in determining whether ‘it is in the public interest’ for the trial to be conducted by judge alone. The Explanatory Note makes clear that ‘the court will retain full discretion’ as to whether it is appropriate to order a trial by judge alone.” That is giving judges enormous power over these decisions. Dr Thomason and Dr Hodgson also say: “In contrast, we note that in New Zealand—which has a similar provision permitting judge-alone trials in cases ‘likely to be long and complex’—the relevant legislation sets out with greater specificity what a judge should consider in determining whether a case is likely to be long and complex…In particular, the New Zealand legislation specifies that a Court must not order a judge-alone trial unless all reasonable measures and arrangements have been taken to shorten the length of the trial, but the ‘duration of the trial still seems likely to exceed 20 sitting days.’” So New Zealand was capable, in its legislation, of drawing a line in the sand as to what it considered to be a lengthy trial, but we do not seem to be doing the same.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am in danger of not knowing my figures, but I think the impact assessment suggests that 25% of cases in the list of offences will be included, so I am not sure whether it is reasonable to describe that as a small proportion—I do not know whether the Minister said “proportion” or “number”. How many cases does she think it will involve?

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Just so the Committee is clear exactly what I said and what the Minister said in return, it was in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington, who asked what it would take to get me to accept the Government’s position. I said: “If the Minister wants to intervene on me and say, ‘I am absolutely certain that there would be a right to judicially review the allocation decision by a Crown court,’ I will be satisfied. I am asking for the Minister to stand up and say that she is absolutely certain.” The Minister replied: “If, at a PTPH, a judge makes an error of law, that is amenable to judicial review. Full stop.” –– [ Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 16 April 2026; c. 271.] That is completely different from what the Minister has just said now, where she is making it very clear that this will be extremely in its provisions. The appropriate thing to do is not to vote on amendments and clauses of this Bill when we are not clear on the position. It is open to the Minister to defer and to seek to reallocate the proposals before us today, instead of again asking us to vote when she is telling us that she will send us a further letter with a full, detailed explanation of the position. That is not the way we should be doing things on a matter as important as whether we will remove an expansive existing right to judicially review an allocation decision that sits with the magistrates court.

• 21 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Currently, when a person sits on a jury, it is understood that, outside of the most extreme circumstances, they will be there for as long as the case takes. However, if the public get the sense that they can debate what asks are reasonable or unreasonable, I would not be surprised if jury members, in trials that go on a little bit, start sending notes to the judge to complain. They might say, “This has gone on for a week, and I didn’t think I’d be here for that long. I understand that if a trial goes on for too long, it shouldn’t be heard by a jury. This is going on too long. Judge, will you look at that?” That will open a whole can of worms about something that at the minute is extremely constricted in people’s minds.