Kieran Mullan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Jun 2026 · Home Office and Ministry of Justice · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to be able to respond to this estimates day debate considering the expenditure of the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office as it relates to criminal justice. I thank all Members who contributed. I especially thank the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for opening the debate, and for his sponsorship of the application for debate, alongside the Chairs of the Home Affairs Committee and the Justice Committee. I want to thank all the prison, probation and police officers, the staff that work in the relevant agencies, and the many workers and volunteers in the associated charities who work hard in our justice system. Whatever we debate, and whatever the Government decide around expenditure, they are the ones who have to go out and deliver the priorities of the Government of the day. I am afraid that, whatever the topic and whatever part of their activities and spending plans we are debating now, we are debating a shadow Government—a Government in name only. We are debating the spending plans of a Government who lost their Prime Minister a week ago. We are scrutinising the priorities of a Ministry of Justice whose Lord Chancellor serves at the pleasure of a Labour party that is, as we speak, sounding the fanfares and preparing a coronation for its newest MP to become Prime Minister—a Prime Minister whose team has briefed The Spectator that they are going to sack the Lord Chancellor. We have no idea who will be the Lord Chancellor in a few weeks’ time, nor even who will make up the ministerial ranks serving him. We have a Government in limbo, and however much they protest and tell us that it is business as usual, there will not be any sensible civil servant in any Government Department wanting to move forward policy and delivery work when they have no idea whether it will or will not survive contact with the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) and his new Ministers. This provides Labour with a welcome opportunity to change course. We have heard about the challenges facing these Departments, including prison education, the court estate, data, record levels of mistaken releases—at record levels—as well as legal aid and the IT hacking experienced earlier in the year. The Government are wrestling with many issues, but I will primarily focus on two. First, I will turn to Labour’s appalling plans to let rapists, paedophiles and seriously violent criminals out of prison early, which we were able to consider today through the urgent question. Many of our constituents have been receiving letters telling them that the person who was convicted of harming them is being considered for early release. Victims have already spoken publicly about the impact that has had on them, and this is before they are certain about what is going to happen; that is because, to make it even worse, the letters do not tell them if the prisoner will definitely be released, or when exactly, just that they might be. The Conservatives’ understanding, though, is that everyone who has been written to has a perpetrator who is serving a standard determinate sentence and therefore will automatically be released early. Labour has failed victims either way: either they are all being released, so why have the Government not told people whether they are and when; or some of them will not be, in which case, why are the Government causing unnecessary upset and distress to victims?

• 29 Jun 2026 · Home Office and Ministry of Justice · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right, and I will discuss his point in more detail. My hon. Friend said, “words to the effect”, but that was the exact wording that Ministers used in this Chamber, on the Government website and in press releases: the Government said that the most serious offenders would be excluded. When we challenged that, behind the scenes—and even on live television, on Sky News—Ministers said that what we were saying was not true; as we now know for sure, it was. Labour tells us that this move is necessary. I imagine that Labour Members who genuinely care about these issues have been told by Ministers that here is nothing else they can do—that they have no choice and it is all because of the prison overcrowding crisis. I want to tackle that in detail, because that is not true. There are always different choices to be made. The estimates before us, explaining the spending that is planned on prisons and prison spaces, highlight that most of the Department’s capital budget is allocated to the prison programme, which was awarded £7 billion up to 2030 in the recent spending review. Ministers know that their planned prison space numbers are essentially the same as ours were. The Minister also knows that the prisons that the Government have opened were paid for and started by the last Government. I share the frustration that Ministers at the time felt with the challenges in prison building; this Government already know how that feels at first hand, considering they have failed for more than a year to do anything significant about a major prison building contractor going bust. Nevertheless, more spaces are due to come online. So what we are managing is a short-term challenge. I have spoken before about my preference for the justice system to be a greater public and political priority, which the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), also spoke about. Others, including the hon. Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell), talked about the long-term lack of prioritisation of this issue. As a result, early prison release is absolutely not new. The previous Labour Government released 80,000 prisoners early, and the previous Conservative Government also operated the same early release programmes; Labour has used the exact same programme that the previous Government used and then implemented one of its own. These programmes allow for a Government to manage prison capacity in order to tackle the sorts of challenges mentioned by Ministers and Members on the Government Benches. Previous projections are also unreliable and have forecast much higher prison populations than is currently the case. In fact, the prison population was projected to reach 90,000 by June 2019, but it did not hit that figure —it never has. So is the plan to release rapists and child groomers an essential short-term measure? No, it is not. It is a permanent long-term change to our sentencing laws that will have a profound impact on victims and the ability to secure justice. It is also being done in a fundamentally different way from other early release programmes. Early release schemes have historically excluded serious violent and sexual offenders, but this Government are deliberately and specifically choosing not to do that. We warned the Government repeatedly that their exclusions based on sentence type were flawed, but they simply said again and again that the most serious offenders would be excluded. That was always untrue, because the criterion for this—the use of an extended determinate sentence—was never a criterion related to the seriousness or type of offence. During the passage of the Sentencing Act, I told the Government that every year, more than 60% of rapists and 90% of child groomers receive standard determinate sentences, and would therefore not be excluded and could be released early, but they did not listen. Instead, they sent Ministers on to the airwaves to say that it was not true. Now, finally, after victims themselves have been written to, the Government can no longer escape from what they have done. Those victims include Fiona Goddard, who went public in sharing her letter last week. Live on “Good Morning Britain”, after explaining what her perpetrators had done to her—about the rapes and sexual assaults that she suffered—she was told the Government line: that they had excluded the most dangerous offenders. Susanna Reid, who was interviewing her, saw immediately how insulting to Fiona that response was, saying that it did not address anything that she had been saying. Fiona said that it was “actually quite offensive, because they are basically trying to say that sexual crimes against children aren’t some of the most serious.” She is right, isn’t she? How can anyone justify an early release programme that includes rapists and child sexual predators by saying it excludes the most dangerous offenders? The use of the word “dangerous” is in itself a deceitful change in terminology. Up until last week, the Government said that the programme would exclude the most serious offenders, despite, as I have said, me telling them repeatedly that this definition was not aligned to the sentences they were excluding. Finally, just weeks before serious criminals will be let out, they have realised that they were wrong—not that “dangerous” is any better than “most serious” if, either way, rapists are included and are being released early. We know that more than 7,000 victims have been written to; we know that many more are not registered for updates and will not be told. But how many perpetrators are getting out, and what offences have they committed? We do not know. We have an idea. We know that every year, as I mentioned, more than 5,000 rapists, paedophiles, child groomers and seriously violent offenders are sent to prison on a standard determinate sentence. That is every year—we can therefore assume that thousands of such offenders are in prison at any one time. The Government are today happy to present to us their estimates on their spending on the prison population and prison building, but they will not and cannot tell us how many of those offenders they will be letting out.

• 17 Jun 2026 · Steel Tariffs · Hansard source

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  I recently met Littlewood Fencing, a company in my constituency that makes specialist fencing for secure and sensitive locations, and it is facing crippling increases in costs. It might be noble to try to save jobs in the steel industry, but if jobs are lost in other parts of our economy, we are not really achieving anything. It is all about the rate of change that the Government are seeking to introduce. It is clear to many Members of this House that the rate of change currently proposed is not right. Will the Minister rethink and, if necessary, pause to ensure that we do not lose jobs in constituencies like mine in order to save jobs in other parts of the country?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Deep Geothermal Energy · Hansard source

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  Deep geothermal has great potential for left-behind communities in this country, and it is a first-class transition industry for our oil and gas workforce. I welcome the Minister’s comments and the positive engagement with the Minister in the other place, who is a huge champion of deep geothermal, but the message from industry is that that is not enough, and that the funds that the Minister mentions are not doing the job. A deep geothermal strategy, giving the Government’s vote of confidence in deep geothermal, could go a long way, and would not necessarily cost very much. Industry tells us that that in itself would drive growth. Will the Government consider a strategy for deep geothermal?

• 21 May 2026 · Family Justice System: Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this debate on domestic abuse and safeguarding within the family justice system. Members in the Chamber will not be alone in having regularly encountered this issue in constituency casework. I expect all MPs across the House have constituents who are struggling with these issues, and perhaps even they are in their private lives. This subject demands seriousness, sensitivity and honesty from all of us. Behind every statistic in this debate are children living in fear, survivors trying to rebuild their lives and families navigating court processes at moments of enormous stress and vulnerability. For too many people, the family justice system is not an abstract institution; it is the place they have to go to where decisions are made that will shape their safety, their relationships with their children and often the trajectory of their lives for years to come. That is why getting the system right matters so much. As we have heard, domestic abuse is present in 73% of active family court proceedings and 87% of closed cases. One in five children in the UK experience some form of domestic abuse, and 78% of those children are directly harmed by the perpetrator. Those are sobering figures, and they remind us that domestic abuse is not something that exists separately from family justice proceedings. We also know that children are too often affected directly by failures of the system. According to Women’s Aid, over the last 30 years 67 child deaths have been linked to unsafe contact arrangements, with 19 having occurred since 2016. When we discuss safeguarding in family courts, we are discussing not peripheral procedural matters, but the core responsibility of the state to protect vulnerable people—women, children and also men. I want to acknowledge the work of survivors, campaigners and charities who have driven progress in this area through their extraordinary courage and persistence. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wokingham for bringing representatives from Kaleidoscopic UK, who I understand are attending the debate. I would be grateful to catch up with them afterwards, if that is possible. Many other groups and individuals work in this area. For example, I recently worked with Paula and Tony Hudgell and their MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant), to secure the establishment of the child cruelty register, so that parents and other individuals who commit child cruelty offences are monitored and tracked in the same way that child sex offenders are. The Opposition also supported the Government’s measures to restrict the parental responsibility of serious child sex offenders. During the passage of that legislation, we successfully argued, alongside others, that the provisions should go further than was originally proposed. They would only have applied to parents who perpetrated offences against their own children, but with Members across the House, we persuaded the Government to change that to those who commit offences against all children. We agreed that, on balance, a threshold of “serious offences” was the suitable way to go, but that if that worked well and was effective, we should consider lowering that threshold. Why should anyone who commits any sort of offence against a child not automatically have to argue for their own parental responsibility? It is important to recognise the work that was undertaken by the previous Government, which others have mentioned. In particular, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognised as victims in their own right children who see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse. Dame Nicole Jabobs and others long advocated for those changes, and the Act made victims automatically eligible for special measures in court. Those changes and others reflect society’s growing understanding in recent decades of the importance of confronting and tackling domestic abuse and abuse of children. The previous Government also commissioned the harm panel review in 2020, which was an expert-led review into how family courts handle domestic abuse and serious offences. We launched a review into the presumption of parental contact, and we piloted the pathfinder model, now the child-focused model, to improve information sharing, increase judicial continuity and ensure that children’s voices are heard more effectively throughout proceedings. Alongside that, we invested £3.3 million in the mediation voucher scheme, helping thousands of families to resolve disputes outside the courtroom where it is appropriate and safe to do so. There is still room for mediation and other measures to reduce the burden on our courts and save them for the most complicated and difficult cases. Last year, the independent “Everyday Business” review painted a deeply worrying picture of how survivors often experience family court proceedings. Survivors described feeling that their abuse was minimised or treated as secondary to maintaining contact arrangements. Judges and magistrates identified serious pressures on them arising from limited court time, delays and lack of continuity. Only 21% of cases reportedly had judicial continuity—a striking figure that shows that even when cases as complex as these go through the court process, we cannot rely on a single judge seeing them through from start to finish. The report also highlighted siloed working between different parts of the system. In many cases, there are overlapping criminal and family proceedings, yet delays and backlogs can mean that family courts proceed before criminal matters are resolved. That can have a huge impact. If an individual subsequently receives a criminal conviction, that may well unpick and call into question the original rulings. These are not easy issues to solve. I recognise all of the work done and the arguments made by campaigners, but legislating in this area is incredibly challenging because the dynamics of families, particularly those experiencing breakdown, are very complex. There are also strongly held views in different organisations on, for example, the presumption of parental involvement and how family courts should approach contact arrangements. Many campaigners argue that abuse has historically been minimised in decision making. In too many cases that is true, but whatever view people take, there should be broad agreement on one central principle: safeguarding and child welfare must come first. That includes ensuring that professionals throughout the system are properly trained to understand the dynamics of domestic abuse. Women’s Aid has argued that we need not just legislative reform but a wider cultural shift across the family justice system. There is real substance to that argument, because even the best legislation will fall short if victims feel that they are not listened to, believed, or welcomed and facilitated to participate. I will be grateful if the Minister says more about how the Government intend to deliver cultural change in practice. I also want to talk about accountability. We have heard discussion of the Sara Sharif case. I have mentioned in the House before that I first encountered these issues as an MP through an amazing lady, a constituent of mine, who was fostering a young girl who had been removed from her family on a temporary basis. The wider family did not want that young girl to be given back contact with her immediate family, the foster carer did not think it was a good idea, and social services did not think it was a good idea—but the judge awarded custody back to her parents. That young girl is now in a wheelchair. She is highly dependent and severely disabled. The exceptional individual I mentioned went on to adopt her in those circumstances, which is one of the most noble things I have ever seen anybody do. She approached me because she was aware of all the mechanisms of accountability that everybody else in the system has to go through, particularly teachers and social services. She simply wanted to know what accountability was available for the judge. I wrote to the Lady Chief Justice and said, “Obviously, you can’t comment on this case, but what are the systems, for a case like this where things have gone badly wrong, for a judge to have to account for the decisions they have taken?” There are none, outside of complaints about extreme behaviour, which none of us would consider to really test the issues, or if the judge makes a legal error, for which the threshold is, again, really high. I think we have a lot to do. Certainly, in the Conservative party we are working on how we can introduce much more accountability in the judiciary—not to make them accountable to the Government, because the separation of the judiciary and the Government is very important. I draw on my experience as a doctor; we have done loads to improve the accountability of highly trained, highly specialist medical professionals who we would not want the state interfering with. It is simply about ensuring they are not a law unto themselves when it comes to making poor decisions. Previously, the test was pretty much whether a doctor had made a decision that any other doctor thought was reasonable. Now, the test is much more about whether that decision was objectively reasonable. I also want to touch on the pathfinder courts. As we have heard, 10 of 43 courts have now been implemented. I would like to understand the Government’s timetable for the very welcome decision to roll them out more widely. The Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), talked about the interdependencies around access to specialist services to make that a reality. I think requesting a timetable is not asking too much of the Minister. Those are important things that we are all in agreement on, but at the same time this Government are taking what I think are catastrophic decisions in relation to the justice system. The Government have legislated for perpetrators of domestic abuse as serious as rape, child abuse, stalking and harassment—very many offences—to get out of prison earlier. Right now, there are people in prison for the rape of their partner, or sexual offences against their own children, who will get out of prison earlier because of the steps that this Government have taken. I will continue to press that matter with them, whatever else they are doing that is positive. People go to the court system because they want justice, and seeing rapists being let out early is not justice. That is something the Government should continue to reflect on.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. We are all here because we recognise that the current state of our criminal courts is untenable. Complainants and defendants alike are facing unacceptable delays, and victims and innocent defendants are suffering as a result. The Government’s response, as set out in the Bill, is a radical restructuring of our trial processes, most notably in the removal of the right to a jury in a vast number of cases—around half, in fact. We believe there is a strong obligation on the Government to institute a more targeted, and potentially more effective, way to address the specific delays that they most frequently cite, through the establishment of specialist courts for rape and serious sexual offences. The Minister herself raised this issue in the Chamber on 7 January. When talking about jury trial reforms, she said: “Does it make sense that the queue of the victim of rape or of a homicide is shared with someone who has stolen a bottle of whisky”? —[ Official Report , 7 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 278.] In December, the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor said: “if someone is charged with an offence such as theft of a bicycle, theft from a vehicle or employee theft, they can opt for a trial that, by necessity, goes into the system and will delay a rape trial”. —[ Official Report , 2 December 2025; Vol. 776, c. 807.] That point has been made by a number of Labour MPs, including the hon. Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet). The Opposition have been clear that that is an oversimplification of how the listing process works, and that some of those examples are extremely unlikely to be in the queue in the Crown court, except for in specific circumstances. Nevertheless, the Government have been advancing that case. A commitment to introduce specialist courts was actually in the Government’s manifesto. By fulfilling the promises made to the electorate, the Government can deliver swifter justice for a group of victims they have centred in the debate, without dismantling the constitutional right to elect for jury trial. The Government’s proposals to halve the number of jury trials was not in the Labour party manifesto, but on page 67 there was a commitment to “fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.” It could therefore be argued that—as much as we can debate what in an entire manifesto the public vote for—the public voted for a system that would prioritise these types of cases through specialisation and resourcing, and did not vote for a system that would instead prioritise administrative throughput by removing the right to elect to be judged by one’s peers. Sometimes, Governments do things that were not in their manifesto one way or another, or were not touched on in any way, but it would be difficult for people to argue that the public had a specific idea that they were not going to get certain things. However, if a Government put in their manifesto a particular element of direct relevance, as they did in relation to specialist courts, the public would have every right to be aggrieved if something entirely different, and significantly so, appeared as Government policy instead of what was in the manifesto. Opposition new clause 25 asks the Government to return to their original vision. It is similar to the other new clauses tabled by the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester, and by the hon. Member for Warrington North. They are crafted in different ways—for example, new clause 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Warrington North, is more prescriptive about how the courts would operate—but the intention and outcome are essentially the same. Specialist courts equipped with trauma-informed training and access to independent sexual violence advisers would recognise the unique complexity of these cases in a way that a simple bench division cannot. As I have said, the Government frequently refer to the experience of rape victims waiting years for justice as a significant justification for restricting jury trials. They argue that moving towards judge-led trials in 50% of cases will streamline the process and reduce the backlog, but the evidence for the broader claims of efficiency is highly contested. Independent analysis by the Institute for Government suggests that judge-only trials in the Crown court might save as little as 1.5% to 2.5%— [ Interruption. ] The Minister is right to say, and I do not mind accepting, that the saving is higher for the broader package—that has never been a point of dispute—but we are less concerned about the broader package, and there are things in it that we agree with. We are concerned about the much smaller saving that the IFG has pointed out. The Criminal Bar Association has pointed out that the Government’s modelling assumes that the trials will be completed twice as fast as is realistic. We must ask whether the trade-off is proportionate, especially when there is another option.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister is correct. That is the only time I have referred to it more broadly; I have been consistent throughout in saying that it is a system with significantly less access to jury rights than there is at present. There is a third way: to take the path towards operational excellence and better placed resourcing. We should not trade a centuries-old right for a 1.5% efficiency gain on a Government spreadsheet.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. If you will indulge me, Dr Huq, I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Rugby on the news that he has been appointed as a trade envoy. We can all recognise that he has put an enormous amount of work into that. The Opposition think that he is amazing at selling the unsellable; he does it all the time. If he has British products to sell, he will be amazing at it. He should just double check that he is going to the south of Korea, rather than the north. As we have said before, we are debating a Bill that represents one of the most significant reconfigurations of our criminal justice system in modern history, and it is therefore unsurprising that we feel that other contingent parts of the system need to be considered in that light and adjusted accordingly. As we expand the reach and punitive power of the magistrates courts, we must ensure that our procedural safeguards in both directions keep pace with that expansion. That is the core purpose of new clause 26, which proposes to extend the unduly lenient sentence scheme to triable either-way offences, which will now be increasingly retained and sentenced at the summary level. If we can trust magistrates with the power to deprive a citizen of their liberty for up to two years, the public must have the assurance that there is a mechanism to correct sentencing decisions that fall in the other direction by being unduly lenient. The Government have occasionally attempted to reframe their reforms as affecting only low-level or petty crimes such as shoplifting, but the reality of the triable either-way category is very different from that. As the Criminal Bar Association and JUSTICE have pointed out, some of the offences that will be almost exclusively in the jurisdiction of the magistrates courts include unlawful wounding, actual bodily harm and, as we have discussed, even some sexual assault cases. Those are offences where the impact on the victims can be very significant. For some time, I have been aware of dissatisfaction in many ways with the punitive element of our justice system, and whether it sufficiently punishes perpetrators in a way that victims and the wider public would consider to be justice. That is one of the reasons why the unduly lenient sentence scheme exists. In the Crown court, sentencing outcomes are subject to the oversight of the Attorney General’s office through the unduly lenient sentences scheme. It is an essential safety valve that helps contribute to public confidence by allowing the public—it has always been open to the public—and, most importantly for me, victims and family members to refer unduly lenient sentences for consideration by the Court of Appeal. As I have talked about previously, I have made it use of it and so have other Members of the House, so it is important. It would be illogical to allow offences with the same potential gap in public confidence in the outcome to be without this equivalent safeguard, simply because the Government have decided to change the likely venue of trial in so many of these cases. The need for the extension is further underscored by the evidence on the rate of appeal of sentences from the perspective of defendants. About 47% of appeals against sentences from the magistrates courts result in a change. Those figures are not marginal; they indicate that the lower courts fall into meaningful error in nearly half of the cases where they are challenged. That is from the perspective of the defendant—that is, the person found guilty—appealing the sentence. There is nothing to suggest that, if victims were given a similar opportunity to challenge sentences, no similar rate of error would be found from their perspective. That is, at the very least, of equal importance to someone who has campaigned significantly on behalf of victims in sentencing. For me, it is probably the more important of the two. Historically, one of the primary arguments against extending the ULS scheme to magistrates courts was a practical one: there was no comprehensive record of the proceedings and sentencing decisions were often delivered without the detailed recorded remarks that characterised the Crown court. However, the Bill fundamentally changes that landscape. Schedule 2 introduces proposed reforms to introduce a mandatory requirement for audio recording and the provision of transcripts in the magistrates court. The Government are making this change to support their new appeal model, recognising that a fair system cannot function without an accurate record of what was said and decided. This move towards digital transparency is a game changer for sentencing accountability for victims as well. As the Minister herself noted, sunshine is the best disinfectant. Once we have a reliable audio record of the sentencing remarks and the mitigations offered, the logistical barriers to reviewing a sentence for undue leniency from a victim’s perspective and that of the wider public falls away. We will, for the first time, have the infrastructure to allow the Office of the Attorney General to scrutinise sentences with the same precision applied to the Crown court. We should use this new capability to ensure that the sentencing code is applied fairly. Extended sentencing powers must be matched with extended accountability. If a magistrate is given power more akin to a judge, then they must be subject to the same oversight of their sentencing decisions. New clause 6 is not about creating more work for the Court of Appeal; it is about ensuring that, as we redraw the boundaries of our legal system, we do not leave victims of serious crime behind in a two-tier justice system where leniency cannot be corrected. In summary, the proposals to extend the ULS scheme to either-way offences is a necessary and proportionate response to the Government’s radical restructuring of the trial process. Magistrates will soon be passing sentence on much more serious offences where the interest of victims will be of even greater concern. The record is improving to allow this to happen at the same time and it is common sense that there is consistency. I do not think there is a rational basis for excluding more serious offences from the ULS scheme simply because of the venue. We should not wait for a high-profile case where a victim is concerned and able to seek redress in the way that they might in the Crown court. I ask the Minister to be proactive. I can understand that the Minister would perhaps argue for a more gradual approach—and perhaps not applying it to every single case might be a compromise that the Minister could bring forward. Perhaps it should be for the more serious of these less-serious, more-serious cases. However, I certainly think that we can have some kind of progress.

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

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  I had considered thinking of a question for every single amendment, but I elected against that. I speak in support of clause 18 and schedule 3. While the provisions may not generate the same level of public debate and scrutiny as the Bill’s earlier clauses regarding the restriction of jury trials, they carry significant institutional and constitutional weight within our judicial hierarchy. The clause and schedule will bring the leadership of tribunals in England and Wales more firmly within the unified judicial structure, placing them under the overarching leadership of the Lady Chief Justice. In practical terms, this involves a title change for the Lady Chief Justice, who will become the president of the courts and tribunals of England and Wales. They also involve the transfer of specific leadership responsibilities that are currently vested in the Senior President of Tribunals. The Government’s primary justification for the reform is administrative coherence and systemic flexibility. By reconfiguring the office of the Senior President of Tribunals, as the head of tribunals justice, the Bill attempts to create a more integrated and seamless judicial pyramid. In theory, such integration should allow for better co-ordination across different jurisdictions, ensuring that the tribunal judiciary is viewed not as a secondary or isolated branch of the law, but as an equal partner in the modern administration of justice. The Opposition offer support for this move towards unity, acknowledging that a more cohesive leadership structure can streamline high-level decision making and improve the deployment of resources. However, that support must be tempered with a request for scrutiny. Unification should not be used as a tool for uniformity. Tribunals are substantially and culturally distinct from the traditional courts; they were designed specifically to be more accessible, specialist and often less formal in their proceedings. Their value to the public lies not only in their final adjudication of a dispute. Whether it is social security, immigration or employment, I am sure that we as MPs have all been contacted by constituents who have gone through, or expect to go through, a tribunal process. Leadership arrangements are never merely technical; they shape the culture, training priorities and institutional identity of the body they lead. The Government have stated that practical leadership will continue to be exercised through a system of delegation back to the reconfigured office of the Senior President of Tribunals. While we recognise that this appears workable on paper, we must be satisfied that it will not allow creeping deprioritisation, a lack of focus, or a watering down of tribunals’ particular culture when they become part of this unified leadership. Will the Minister therefore assure us that thought has been given to ensuring an absence of uniformity, because we have specifically designed the courts not to be uniform, but different in their own way?

• 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.

• 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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  In earlier sittings, I spent some time testing the basis on which the Government are asking the Committee to accept the changes proposed in the Bill, particularly in relation to the claimed benefits and how the system will work in practice. That is particularly relevant in the context of clause 4, where the justification for removing jury trials rests on the assessment of complexity and length, and therefore on how those judgments are made and revisited in practice. During evidence, I asked Sir Brian Leveson about the modelling underpinning the proposals. His report points to the need for further modelling, but when that modelling was discussed, it was clear that there is uncertainty about the figures and what the impact will be. That is important context for these amendments; if there is uncertainty about how the system will operate and what it will deliver, it becomes even more important that the framework we are putting in place is clear on how decisions are to be made and what factors will be taken into account. Throughout our discussions, I have also tried to focus on how the provisions will operate and what they will mean for people going through the system, particularly those who are not legally represented and who may find it difficult to navigate more complex procedures. The amendments are aimed at those practical questions. Amendment 50 relates to a point that is fundamental to how the framework will operate in practice. The Bill sets out conditions under which a judge-only trial order may be revoked, including where the case is no longer sufficiently complex or lengthy. That reflects the Government’s central argument that a jury trial is displaced only because certain features of the case justify it. However, the Bill then provides that, even when those conditions are met, the court may none the less decide not to revoke the order if it considers that “it would not be appropriate to do so”. I want to be clear about what that means in practice. If the justification for removing the jury is complexity or length, what is the position when that justification falls away? What is the court expected to do at that point? Is the expectation that the case should ordinarily return to a jury or that, once the decision has been made, it should remain judge-only unless something else actively pushes it back? The Bill does not answer that question, and that matters because, throughout our debates, I have tried to emphasise that it is about not just what is written in the Bill, but how its provisions will operate day to day in real cases. As I set out in earlier debates, we have a whole range of factors here, and many of them must be weighed rather than applied as straightforward rules. That inevitably leaves a significant role for judicial interpretation. Judicial discretion in itself is not a problem, but when Parliament sets out a structured framework with specific conditions, it is important that those conditions actually do something and have a clear consequence. Otherwise, we risk creating a system in which the criteria exist on paper, but the outcome is ultimately determined by a broader and less clearly defined set of judgments, and that is precisely the concern here. We are told that if a case is sufficiently complex or lengthy, it may be tried without a jury, but we are also told that if it is no longer sufficiently complex or lengthy, the court may nevertheless decide that it is still not appropriate to return it to a jury. The Committee is entitled to ask, “What weight are we really giving to those original criteria?” In earlier debates, I made the point that courts will look at the legislation, and indeed our debates, to understand what Parliament intends. If we leave this question too open, it is not clear what guidance the courts are expected to follow in practice. If a defendant is told that their case is no longer sufficiently complex to justify a judge-only trial, but that it will nevertheless continue without a jury because it is considered not appropriate to change it, the basis of that decision will not be clear to them. This amendment is relatively modest but important. It seeks not to remove judicial discretion entirely or create an inflexible system, but to ensure that, where Parliament has set out the conditions for revocation, those conditions have a clear and meaningful effect. If the basis for removing the jury no longer exists, that should carry real weight in the decision that follows. Otherwise, we are in danger of creating a framework in which the justification for removing the jury and the decision to keep the jury become disconnected. Amendment 48 relates to the factors that a court must consider when deciding whether to revoke a judge-only trial order. The Bill sets out a number of considerations, including delay, the interests of victims and the impact on court business. Those are clearly important issues. We have heard a great deal of evidence in Committee about the impact of delays, particularly on victims, and I do not think anyone would dispute that that is a serious concern. In my role as shadow Justice Minister, I have focused on the experience of victims in all different elements of the system, including the effect that long delays can have on them. Looking at the list of factors in the Bill, I am interested in what is not included. It is striking that, in the statutory list, there is no explicit reference to the interests of natural justice for the defendant. That omission matters. In earlier debates, we have been clear that these questions are, in part, about weighing exercises—balancing different factors—and that there are, in reality, more and less fair ways of doing things. We have also discussed that defendants are not all in the same position. The system already recognises that in other ways, whether through good character, prior convictions or the wider consequences that a conviction may have on someone’s life. We treat individuals differently, because fairness requires us to do so. That is why the framework matters. If the court is directed to consider certain factors, those factors will shape how decisions are made in practice. If fairness to the defendant is not explicitly part of that framework, there is a risk that it will not be given the weight it should be. That is particularly important in this context, because we are dealing with decisions about whether a person should continue to be tried without a jury. In debates on earlier clauses, I made the point that jury trial is, in some respects, a superior form of justice, even if we accept that it is not practical in every single case. That necessarily means that moving away from it is not a neutral step; it is a step that has consequences for fairness. When the court is deciding whether that position should continue and whether a case should remain judge-only or return to a jury, it seems entirely reasonable that fairness to the defendant should be part of that decision—not assumed or left to implication, but explicitly recognised. Amendment 48 would not remove any of the existing factors. It would not prevent the court from taking into account delay, the interests of victims or the impact on the wider system, but it would ensure that, alongside those considerations, the court was also required to consider the interests of natural justice. Given the nature of the decision, that seems to be an essential part of a balanced framework. These amendments are intended to clarify how this framework will operate in practice. They are about ensuring that the conditions set out in the Bill have a clear effect, and that the factors guiding courts’ decision making reflect the full range of relevant considerations.

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

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  I oppose clause 6, which, as we have discussed, grants the Lord Chancellor the power to increase the maximum sentencing limit in magistrates courts from the current 12 months to 18 or even 24 months. While the Government present that as a necessary measure to relieve the backlog in the Crown court, we must look closely at what is being sacrificed in the name of speed. This proposal is not a minor adjustment; it is a fundamental shift in the nature of summary justice. It would allow magistrates—volunteers who have to sit only 13 days a year and who on average sit 17 to 23 days—to deprive a citizen of their liberty for up to two years. That expansion of power comes at a time when the system is already under immense strain in the magistrates courts, and it is the view of the Criminal Bar Association, JUSTICE, the Bar Council and others that this move is unnecessary and potentially unsafe for the integrity of our legal system. The central concern shared by legal professionals is that magistrates courts are simply not designed to handle the complexity of cases that may, at some point, carry two-year sentences. As the Criminal Bar Association pointed out in its evidence, the “practices and procedures” of those courts are “necessarily ‘summary’ in nature.” They were built for the swift disposal of what some consider to be minor offences, not for the intricate legal and factual disputes that characterise more serious crimes. The Criminal Bar Association has been blunt in its assessment, calling the extension of summary justice to cases carrying two-year terms a “recipe for rough justice”. That concern is backed by the Government’s own impact assessment, which assumes that magistrates will complete those more serious trials in just a few hours. As the CBA notes, that assumption is “clearly naïve in the extreme”. Either the cases will not receive the scrutiny they deserve, or the predicted time savings will never materialise. One of the most troubling aspects of increasing sentencing powers is the legal aid gap. Given that we were unsuccessful with amendment 53, it is important to reiterate the impact of that gap when considering the clause as a whole. At present, the income threshold to qualify for a publicly funded lawyer is significantly lower in the magistrates courts, at £22,305, than in the Crown court, at £37,500. JUSTICE has highlighted the severe unfairness that this creates. Individuals in full-time, minimum-wage employment, who would be eligible for legal aid in the Crown court, will find themselves ineligible in the magistrates courts. We face a reality where a defendant could be facing a two-year prison sentence while being forced to represent themselves, because they cannot afford a lawyer and do not qualify for state support. As JUSTICE warns, unrepresented defendants are often observed to receive harsher sentences, as they do not know how to mitigate. We cannot call a system just if it increases the stakes of a trial, while simultaneously stripping away the means for a professional defence. We must also confront the impact of these changes on minority communities. The Bar Council and JUSTICE both point to the findings of the 2017 Lammy review, as it is referred to in shorthand, which identified juries as a “success story of our justice system”, because they do not appear to discriminate between different ethnic groups when returning verdicts. However, the review found that the positive story of jury equity was not matched in magistrates courts. The Minister has previously spoken about the lack of disparity in sentencing outcomes, for example, but specific statistical analysis showed that black, Asian and mixed ethnic women were more likely to be convicted—conviction is the question we are considering here—in magistrates courts than white women. We have discussed before how that may not necessarily be a direct causal relationship, as it could just be correlation. However, as the Lammy review points out, it is incumbent on Governments of any colour—Conservative, Labour or whatever they might be—to justify and explain those disparities. As we have discussed previously, we have not managed to justify and explain them, yet we are introducing measures that could potentially exacerbate them. Beyond ethnicity, the Lammy review noted a great cultural gulf between predominantly white, middle-class judges and magistrates and the defendants appearing before them. By forcing more serious cases into the magistrates court, and removing the right of defendants to elect a jury trial, the Government are moving cases away from the most trusted and equitable part of our justice system into one where public trust, at least for some communities, is already fragile. JUSTICE notes that any reform that reduces choice risks deepening existing disparities and exacerbating distrust for minoritised communities. The Government’s primary justification is efficiency, but the Bar Council argues that these reforms will likely consume resources without bringing down the backlog. As we have said, there is also a challenge with the backlog in the magistrates courts, which are currently facing their own record high of 370,000 cases. The system is also facing a critical shortage of magistrates and legal advisers. The loss of sitting days due to the absence of legal advisers, who are often trainees, even for better-paid work, is a persistent problem. Some estimates suggest that there are more than 20,000 sitting days-worth of work from professional judges in the Crown court. Expecting that to be absorbed into an overstretched and shrinking cohort of volunteers in the magistrates courts would, as the CBA describes, “transfer the burden from one over-stretched part of the system to another.” Finally, we must look at how the clause interacts with the rest of the Bill. While clause 6 increases power at the lower level, clause 7 restricts the ability to challenge those decisions by removing the automatic right of appeal and replacing it with a permission-based model. The Bar Council describes this combination as “a comprehensive rolling back of safeguards.” At present, around 40% of appeals against conviction from magistrates courts are successful, and 47% of appeals against sentence are upheld, demonstrating that the lower courts frequently make meaningful errors. Doubling their sentencing powers, while simultaneously making it harder for a defendant to correct a wrong conviction, is a dangerous path to take. It is also worth noting that the Bill departs from the recommendations of the very review that it claims to implement. Sir Brian Leveson recommended that the current 12-month maximum should be made permanent. I draw attention to a previous response from the Minister, when she again raised the possibility that the review invited the Government to go further. We have discussed that this might be a relevant argument to make if, for example, we were talking about a recommendation on which the review did not clearly oppose the Government going further. If I was Brian Leveson, I would feel a bit like I was being mugged off by the Government, because they are saying, “We agree with what you want to do, but we’re going ignore you on the position that you are fundamentally clear on. Indeed, we’re not only ignoring your specific recommendation, we’re ignoring what you said about the other recommendations being contingent on the Government doing this thing around controlling the sentencing”. It is doubly insulting to Sir Brian to then suggest, as the Minister did, that he would be relaxed about this, and that he invited them to go further. Certainly, no reasonable person would interpret his suggestion in that way. There is also a question about the numbers. We know Sir Brian’s central recommendation is that we reach 130,000 sitting days. That is the number that he arrived at. We must assume that he has arrived at that number contingent on the Government sticking to his advice that we do not increase the maximum sentencing powers of the magistrates. If the Government are claiming that that will be a further 8,000 sitting days, there must be some juggling with the figures. If the Government are seeking to achieve 130,000, and Sir Brian thinks that is the right number, and the Government’s plan has got an additional 8,000 that Sir Brian never envisioned, does that mean we have 8,000 to play with in some other regard that Sir Brian did not understand? Can the Minister explain how we have ended up with the same figures and the same goal, but in a completely different way, with a further 8,000 that Sir Brian never anticipated or wanted? We also heard the argument that this is fine because the youth courts do it. We had that argument in an earlier sitting, and I made it clear that there are some fundamental differences. It really undermines the concept of having a specialist court if what goes on in that specialist court is then used to support an argument of general application. That goes against the whole point of a specialist court—we have gone out of our way in that case, because we recognise that the circumstances are special. For example, the types of custody, the implications for criminal records and the style in which cross-examination happens are all different in the youth court and the adult estate. We must therefore recognise that we are in a completely different position. The Minister also talked about how the negative resolution procedure is already used in this area. The crucial difference is that we are taking a leap to 24 months, in terms of the impact of these decisions. What might have arguably been permissible at the lower end of the threshold does not automatically translate into an assumption that it is therefore appropriate at the higher end of the threshold. It is because the measure will apply towards the higher end of threshold that we think it is inappropriate. We failed to persuade the Government, and as a result this clause remains concerning. In summary, the proposal to increase magistrates’ sentencing powers to 24 months is a move towards cheaper, faster justice that is likely to be neither cheap nor fast, and it will certainly not be just. It risks creating a surge of unrepresented defendants, exacerbating racial disproportionality and displacing the backlog into a court jurisdiction that is structurally ill-equipped to handle it. We should not trade away fundamental procedural protections for a marginal gain in court sitting days. If we want to solve the backlog, we should focus on the low-hanging fruit identified by the Bar Council and others: open all existing courtrooms, more than 10% of which are closed today and were closed yesterday; fix prisoner transport, an issue that costs us thousands of days every year; and properly resource the legal profession. We must reject the 24-month limit and maintain the 12-month cap to ensure that serious custodial decisions remain subject to the full rigour and safeguards of our Crown courts.

• 16 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fifth sitting) · Hansard source

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  To use the word that the hon. Member used at the start of her intervention, it is a balance. We in the Opposition are clear that the Government have that balance wrong, which is why we oppose the measures. As I said, the Government want to have this both ways: on the one hand, when it suits them, they say that it is a balancing exercise, but on the other hand, when we point out flaws in the balance, they say, “Everything’s fine. You would be just as happy in a trial with or without a jury.” The Government should be consistent. If the Government just said, “This is a balancing exercise. There will be some detriment to people as a result, but we believe that it is right”, and then stuck to that line, at least it would be intellectually coherent. The Minister might think that makes it a debating point, but I think it is pretty important in politics to be intellectually coherent. We take a different view from the Government. The other point that we think is different, too, is that the proposal will not achieve the desired outcome. Even if we agreed, in theory, that the balancing exercise was correct and that the trade-off that the Government seek to achieve were a reasonable one to make against the loss of the rights that we are talking about, we do not think that the Government will get those outcomes. We therefore think that the Government’s argument is fatally flawed in two respects, which is why we continue to oppose the Bill. As I said, fairness is important. We focused on the example where a first-time offender might end up with fewer rights in our judicial system than a repeat offender; in respect of, for example, loss of respect, reputation, employment or income, the person who has more at stake has their rights removed. That is a point made clearly by JUSTICE, which supports our amendment 39. JUSTICE states that the three-year threshold is likely to lead to outcomes that are seen as unfair by those within the system and by the public. Repeat offenders are more likely to qualify for a jury trial, because their previous convictions would push the likely sentence above three years, while first-time offenders committing the same offence may be denied a jury trial. When we put that to Ministers, as I said, they say that it is perfectly fine for those people to have a trial without a jury, and that is fair. Ministers also say, however, that they are keeping jury trials for the most serious cases—but if they are keeping it for the most serious cases, they must at some level accept that it is a superior system in some way. Otherwise, why keep it for the more serious cases, as they define them? The Government cannot hold both positions coherently. Absolutely, as I said, the core issue is fairness. The Government want to have it both ways in this argument, but of course the defendants will not get to have it both ways. The defendants will just have what they are told by the judge, without any ability to exercise their rights in the way that they think is fair or consistent with the broader point. We therefore continue to press our amendment 39 and that is why I ask Labour Members to think carefully; this might not be universal, but how many of them would feel happy if they—with their previous good character, and all the damage that could happen to their reputation and income from a conviction—were not allowed to have the option of a jury trial? I cannot say for sure, but potentially some of them might feel differently then.

• 16 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Sixth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of my amendment 44 and related amendments, which brings us to consider the issue of reallocation in more detail for the first time. It was touched on briefly this morning in the discussion about allocation, but there are distinct differences in the processes. We must remind ourselves what the allocation process will be initially through proposed new sections 74A to D of the Senior Courts Act 1981. My understanding is that the reallocation provisions are intended to operate in the following way. First: “The court must, at the prescribed time or times, determine” in accordance with proposed new section 74A “whether the trial is to be conducted with or without a jury.” It is important to note that “prescribed time” is not defined in the Bill, but would be covered by the existing provisions in sections 84 to 87 of the Senior Courts Act, which refer to prescribed matters being specified in the criminal procedure rules. The explanatory note does not appear to provide any further detail on what the criminal procedure rules are likely to prescribe in terms of timing, so it would be helpful if the Minister could tell us what she expects that to be. Whatever the prescribed time is defined to be, the court must say that the trial is to be conducted with a jury if either the offence, or any of the offences, is triable only on indictment or if the court considers that the defendant, if convicted of the offence for which they are to be tried, would be likely to receive a sentence of imprisonment or detention of more than three years. In any other case, the trial is to be conducted without a jury. We have covered this initial decision at some length, but the proposed legislation also says that if a trial is to be conducted without a jury but there is a relevant change of circumstances, the court may—and in some cases must—reallocate the case to a jury trial. A relevant change of circumstances is defined in proposed new section 74B(8), and will occur if either the defendants to be tried, or the offences for which they are to be tried, have changed since the court’s last determination on allocation, or it appears to the court that there is new evidence that would or might affect whether the condition in proposed new section 74A is met, and that condition relates to a likely sentence of imprisonment of more than three years. This is something to which we must give close consideration. The Bill does not define the term “new evidence”, and I am not aware of it being defined elsewhere in legislation. We can look to the explanatory notes to try to better understand what is meant here. In paragraph 206, the notes say: “This is intended to capture significant new material indicating that the offending is more serious, or less serious, than originally understood. It is not intended to require the court to redo the full allocation exercise each time new evidence emerges, but simply to note where new material might alter the earlier likely-sentence assessment so as to justify reconsideration under section 74B.” The explanatory notes are helpful, but we must remember that they are not legislation and that the courts are more likely to seek to interpret differently what may or may not be said in an explanatory note from something that is given clear direction in legislation. The explanatory notes actually leave us with not just one but two new terms. Again, as far as I am aware, “significant new material” is not defined in legislation; there is certainly no case law for it in these specific circumstances, as these courts have never operated before. I do not think we can know in practice how it would be obvious that something amounted to new evidence for the purposes of proposed new section 74B(8); the Bill, as I have said, is silent on this point. Do we have to assume that that will become a matter of judicial interpretation or discretion? I think we do. It might be evidence that was not already set out in the initial details of the prosecution case or in a defence statement. While the explanatory notes say they do not expect this process to be done on a rolling basis, I assume that the prosecution and defence would be able to invite the judge to consider whether evidence amounts to “new evidence” whenever it was brought to the attention of the court as part of the general conduct of the trial. Again, this is not specified in the Bill, but it is certainly not ruled out. If there has been a relevant change of circumstances meaning that the case involves an indictable-only offence—for example, if new evidence emerges that results in a charge of theft being recharged as robbery, or a charge of sexual assault recharged as rape—the judge must reallocate it to a jury trial. To be clear, that is in relation to offence-based things. If there has been a relevant change of circumstances, but the aforementioned process does not apply—for example, if there is new evidence that means a custodial sentence of more than three years is likely—the judge may reallocate that to a jury trial. The use of “may” is important, because may is not must. I draw Members’ attention to the wording of the initial process of allocation. Perhaps to the frustration of some, I took the time to read it, because it is important. The initial wording on allocation with regard to sentence times is “must”—if the court thinks a sentence of more than three years is likely, it must allocate a jury trial—but as I pointed out, on reallocation the court simply “may” reallocate. I hope it is immediately obvious to Government Members that that is a less stringent test, which creates an inherent unfairness. At the outset, if a judge thinks that a defendant or accused is likely to receive three years, that jury trial is guaranteed. Let us remind ourselves that the Government accept that that is a benefit or a right—although they do not accept it is an absolute right—if the outcome is potentially a sentence of more than three years, yet some people will not get that benefit, even though the Government accept that it is desirable, because the Bill states that the judge has discretion to continue conducting the trial without a jury despite the relevant change of circumstances. The judge has that discretion if any of the following applies. First, they have that discretion if the condition in proposed new section 74A—a likely custodial sentence of more than three years—is not met in relation to the defendant. Secondly, and this is the important bit, in proposed new section 74B(3)(b), they have that discretion if “the court considers that it would not be appropriate to reallocate the trial”, taking into account the matters set out in proposed new section 74C(6) and (7). Those include representations by the prosecution and defence; the extent to which the new likely sentence differs from the three-year threshold sentence; the interests of the alleged victim; the desirability of avoiding the need for witnesses to give evidence again; any delay to proceedings; any actual or potential wasted costs; the effect of reallocation on other court business; and any other prescribed matter set out in the criminal procedure rules. Thirdly, the judge has that discretion if, as proposed new section 74B(3)(c) states, “the prosecution and the defendant or defendants each consent to the trial being conducted without a jury.” Therefore, if the defendant is happy to carry on without a jury, even though they risk the higher sentence, the trial can continue—and similarly for the prosecution. Some of those examples set out in proposed new section 74C(6) and (7) could legitimately deny a defendant a right that they would otherwise have had if the evidence had been available at the start of a trial. It could be something that has nothing to do with them—for example, a witness might not give the same evidence in their statement as they do at trial. Another example is the effect of reallocation on other court business—so simply because it would be challenging for the court to allocate or reallocate the case, a right that the Government deliberately set out to preserve for those people at initial allocation could not be exercised at that point. Again, in essence, those are all new legal tests. We have a whole range of factors, many of them subjective matters that must be weighed, rather than objective ones. They may all be factors that we might reasonably agree should be given weight, such as—to go back to some of the factors—the interests of the alleged victim. If an alleged victim has had a traumatic experience of giving evidence, it is not unreasonable for people to consider that. That does not mean, however, that it will not lead to circumstances in which a defendant is substantially disadvantaged. Let us take, for example, a case related to injury. In a case of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, the sentencing range for this offence, triable either way, can include a sentence of up to four years. That is a good example of where we might see a change in circumstances, based on the evolving medical consequences of an alleged assault. A more concrete and simple example than a medical injury that might evolve from an assault, which is complex, is a person who is originally on trial for grievous bodily harm or attempted murder, but the victim dies during the trial or at a much later date, which can happen, and the person can be retried for a further offence. We know that the medical consequences can take time to materialise and can make a material difference to the charge. There are other borderline cases where the likely sentence at the point of the initial allocation decision was considered to be just under three years. To give another example, the sentencing guidelines for the most serious harm or culpability form of theft suggest a starting point sentence of three years and six months, with a suggested range of two years and six months to six years. That is absolutely within the scope of not being allocated a jury trial, but if the medical consequences were to evolve, that would change and push it to a sentence of up to six years, which would require a jury trial. As the hon. Member for Amber Valley, with her expertise and experience of the CPS, pointed out in relation to things that already happen in a magistrates court, we know that magistrates have to undertake this sort of intellectual exercise. They must be mindful that if the circumstances change, the trial must move to the Crown court. I understand that is quite unusual, however, and as we have talked about before, the stakes are likely—not always—to be lower when we are talking about a potentially much wider gap in possible sentence length. Strangely, this may be an example of something that magistrates do but, as I understand it, Crown court judges do not normally do; Crown court judges do not have to have it constantly in their mind throughout a trial whether their view has changed on the likely sentencing outcome. As I have alluded to, the legislation therefore risks creating a whole raft of legal challenges over potentially many years until there is a settled common law understanding of how all the different measures interact, and until higher courts set out the methodical tests and boundaries that are absent from it. The obvious test will arise when someone does actually end up receiving a longer sentence, and the obvious challenge will be that the judge should have realised and reallocated the case because of something considered materially new. That will be highly arguable. Let us say, for example, a complainant, when giving evidence, identifies a more profound psychological impact of a crime on them that was apparent from the initial statements disclosed—something that is to some extent subjective. The judge might listen to the evidence being given and not consider it to be materially different from the statements on which they based their initial summation, but I can absolutely imagine a defendant and their legal representatives feeling that a witness did say something that indicated something materially different. That is another more complex decision than the one made by the magistrates courts in a different way. As we have heard again and again, although magistrates court trials can be long, they are often shorter. Weighing up the impact of restarting that trial, of discounting the work that had been done and of re-sending it to another court, is very different from making that decision after weeks and weeks of a Crown court trial. There is also another risk in terms of public confidence in the process. As we have touched on before in relation to the initial allocation and sentencing, the judge will have already made a decision and given a view on initial allocation. There would be a risk that a defendant feels that their right to a jury trial, if the circumstances are such that they would have been concerned that the sentence would be greater than three years, might inhibit a judge from reallocating in the way that they would have ordinarily wanted to. As we have covered, the judge will be able to pass that higher sentence, which is another important difference with the magistrates, who, as I have talked about before, are constrained in their ability to go beyond that initial judgment. There will be no constraints, so it would be perfectly possible for a judge who had an initial view to end up passing a sentence much higher than they had anticipated and much higher than the defendant was advised would be the likely outcome. Again, that would give serious impetus for a defendant and their legal representatives to make the point that the judge had erred in their reallocation. It is not just a question of the fair thing to do. I explained earlier in relation to other allocations that I do not think it is the fair thing to do, but again it is a matter of efficiency and process. If we end up with repeated appeals over, as I have said, many different factors that will all individually need to be clarified in case law, that will again take up the time and energy of court staff, and particularly legal representatives, who work between all the different courts in a way that judges do not. Amendment 44 would help to balance that by opening up the widest possible interpretation of whether a reallocation is the right thing to do. We think talking about it in the interests of justice will give the maximum possible room to defendants to be sure that the trial they receive without a jury, and the decision taken to deny them a jury, are as fair as they possibly could be.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman’s question articulates the gap between what the Opposition and the Government think about these issues. Actually, for a case like the first example, the sentence passed will be almost irrelevant to the person. If they are found guilty and convicted of an offence, they will suffer all the consequences that I have talked about whatever sentence they are given. Such consequences do not exist for the individual in the second example; they do not have employment or a reputation to lose. The Government also often portray the assumption that people are guilty—if they are accused, they are guilty. The whole point of the jury trial system is to allow what we have all agreed, at some point and in some ways, is the fairest and most balanced way to determine guilt. The Justice Secretary himself has talked in detail about how it is the fairest way to determine guilt. When someone’s decision is going to have huge consequences for the accused’s life, it is perfectly reasonable for people to want the fairest mode of determining that guilt.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to have you with us, Ms Jardine, and I look forward to this first of many Committee sittings. I am pleased to begin line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, beginning with clause 1 and the Opposition amendment tabled in my name. The clause is a helpful place to start our considerations because it cuts straight to the core of our concerns and criticisms, many of which are similar and run through our opposition to many of the other clauses. The clause will amend subsections (2) and (9) of section 20 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 to remove the requirement for the defendant to consent to their case remaining in the magistrates court for summary trial. In effect, that will remove the ability of a defendant charged with an either-way offence to elect trial by jury in the Crown court. This is one of the key changes that add up to reforms that represent an unprecedented erosion of our right to trial by jury, which is, without doubt, one of our oldest and most important traditions. It has been with us for hundreds and hundreds of years, bordering on the amount of time one might typically consider to make it an ancient right, as some people refer to it. No wonder that right has become so valuable when we compare it to what went before. For about 500 years before the beginnings of what became the jury trial system, we had trial by ordeal. Guilt was determined by God through his unseen hand in the outcome of events, unrelated to considering in any way what happened or what we might consider evidence. The two main forms this took were trial by fire and trial by water. For trial by fire, the accused had to carry a red-hot iron bar and walk 9 feet. If the wound healed within three days, they were innocent, but if it festered, they were guilty. For trial by water, the accused was plunged into a pool of water on a rope with a knot tied in it a long hair’s length away from the defendant. If they sank to the depth of that knot, the water was deemed to have been accepting of them and their innocence, but if they floated, the water was rejecting them, rendering them guilty. There was of course also trial by combat, or wager of battle, a fight between the accused and the accuser, which was introduced by the Normans in 1066. Although they were invested in the wisdom of God and the Church, it was actually the gradual withdrawal and ultimate banning of the participation of the Church that brought an end to such practices. But that is not to say that even within those practices there was not some sense of allowing the views of others to play a role. Dr Will Eves, a research fellow at the University of St Andrews’ school of history, said that the key to the ordeal was the interpretation of the result. The community would probably have had some idea whether someone had actually committed the crime and would interpret accordingly. He said: “In trial by hot iron, the issue wasn’t if the iron had caused a wound but rather how it had healed. So that’s a much more nuanced issue, much more open to interpretation. Whether the wound was festering was a judgment which could be influenced by the community’s knowledge of the individual involved and their awareness of the broader circumstances of the case.” The wider involvement of the community then took the form of testaments to character, rather than a careful examination of the facts, as a basis for determining guilt. On 26 January 1219, King Henry III issued an edict, and trial by petty jury was born in England, but it was its precursor that introduced the idea of 12 individuals that is still with us today. In 997, King Æthelred issued the Wantage code, which determined that 12 noblemen—of course, it was just men—be tasked with the investigation of a crime. It is an extraordinary testament to the legacy and enduring nature of such proposals that a core element of that kernel of an idea, with 12 individuals at the heart of the system, remains more than 1,000 years later. Prior to the petty jury reforms, there were other forms of jury—for example, to investigate land disputes—but guilt was still determined by trial by ordeal. The reforms made by King Henry III are rightly considered one of our most important cultural, and we might even say civilisational, inheritances. The concept and approach has, in some form, been spread around the world to more than 50 countries. In 1956, the legal philosopher Patrick Devlin said: “For of all the institutions that have been created by English law, there is none other that has a better claim to be called…the privilege of the Common People of the United Kingdom”. Committee members may have noted that the 1219 edict came after the often quoted Magna Carta declaration of 1215. That declaration was a precursor to the fundamental idea behind what became jury trials and the 1219 edict: the idea that the judgment of an individual should be made by their peers. The barons had in mind the importance of protecting people from the heavy hand of the King, but their instincts are reflected neatly in all those who now have concerns about the power of the state in all its forms, including the judicial system that collectively holds the power that then sat with the King. The Bill asks us to consider reforms to ideals and protections hard fought and won for us, for very good reason, many hundreds of years ago. That fact alone should give us reason to tread carefully. Of course, as we have heard in earlier debates and the Committee’s evidence sessions, the use of jury trials is not absolute. The form a jury trial takes varies across the countries that adopted it, and our system has undergone reform. It is fair to say that the debate is not absolute or black and white. The majority of criminal cases in this country are decided by magistrates, whose role and importance were solidified in the modern era by the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1952 and the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980. Although the Government and their supporters might say it, we are not arguing that we should turn back the clock, or that all those currently seen by magistrates should be seen by jury trials instead, but let us consider the nature and manner of the reforms made in the modern era that remain in place today. Changes were made during world war two. At a time when our nation faced one of its greatest threats, when our continued existence as a free state was uncertain and when every effort was turned toward winning the war, what did we do? Did we radically cut down on jury trials? No. The number of jury trials and what cases would or would not be considered by them remained completely unchanged. The change was made to the number of jurors, which was reduced from 12 to seven. What did the Government of the day do as soon as the Nazi threat was defeated? They put it back up to 12. In more recent memory we had the covid pandemic, a challenge sometimes equated in seriousness to world war two. When every aspect of our society, public life and freedoms were massively curtailed in a way that was completely unprecedented, did we permanently get rid of jury trials? No. There was cross-party consensus that we should do everything we could to maintain jury trials. We invested millions of pounds in Nightingale courts, alongside other measures, to allow jury trials to continue as soon as they could, without making any permanent change to the law and individuals’ right to access jury trials. Labour Members will no doubt point to the changes on triable either-way offences, similar to the proposals in clause 1, that were made in the 1980s, but done differently, via offence reclassification. The changes covered common assault where no one was injured, joyriding and lower-level criminal damage, and research shows that they led to a 5% drop in the number of cases that headed to the Crown court. These are questions of gradation, and the reforms in the Bill are unprecedented in their impact and completely incomparable with those changes. The Government’s own analysis says that they will result in a halving of the number of jury trials. Who else might we turn to in support of our view that labelling the erosion of a right as a reform and realigning the dial further and further away from where we are now cannot be seen as a minor act? We can turn to many members of the Government, and the Prime Minister himself, to support our view. On limiting jury trials, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards) said: “Instead of weakening a key constitutional right, the government should do the hard work.” The Justice Secretary said: “The right of an individual to be punished only as a result of the “lawful judgement of his equals” was enshrined in Magna Carta of 1215. Yes, this right only extended to a certain group of men, but it laid the foundation of a principle which is now fundamental to the justice system of England and Wales.” He also said: “Jury trials are fundamental to our democracy. We must protect them.” Finally, he said: “Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.” That is what the Deputy Prime Minister, Justice Secretary and lead proponent of the reforms has said. Finally the Prime Minister has said that the “general and overriding presumption should be jury trial, with very, very limited exceptions”, and that “The right to trial by jury is an important factor in the delicate balance between the power of the state and the freedom of the individual. The further it is restricted, the greater the imbalance.” There we have it. They all understood that these are questions of balance. The Government are simply on the wrong side of that balance with the reforms in the Bill, including clause 1. That is not just because of the scale and gravity of the changes, but because of the other ways forward and other approaches, as yet untested but available to them. The Opposition’s approach in Committee, on this clause and others, is therefore straightforward. We will test whether the Government have correctly diagnosed the problem, whether the evidence supports the proposed solution, whether the safeguards being removed are proportionate to the gains claimed, and whether other options are available. Those are the fundamental questions. Of course, we will not forget that, despite everything else Government Members said previously, the reforms were born of necessity and that the Minister believes they are positive improvements to our justice system regardless. The Government have estimated that clause 1 and other clauses will reduce Crown court sitting days by 27,000 a year while increasing magistrates court sitting days by 8,500. They think the provisions will reduce the open Crown court caseload by around 14,000 cases, and cost £338 million between 2024-25 and 2034-35. However, several stakeholders have criticised the assumptions and models that the Government used to produce the estimates, particularly in respect of how much time jury-only trials would save. Cassia Rowland of the Institute for Government has said that the total impact of the Government’s proposals on court demand is “likely to be around a 7-10% reduction in total time taken in the courtroom”. She therefore considered that improving court efficiency, “an alternative which enjoys broad support across the sector and which could begin much faster”, provided “opportunities for meaningful improvements”. She said that implementing such efficiencies “alongside more moderate proposals to handle some more cases in magistrates’ courts…would be less likely to provoke backlash.” I could not agree with her more. The Criminal Bar Association has criticised the “over-optimism” of the impact assessment, describing the Government statement that the Bill would only increase magistrates court demand by 8,500 days as “astonishing”. It says: “The assumptions are that magistrates will complete each of these trials within four hours and guilty pleas/sentences within 30 minutes. Is there is an expectation that magistrates will be dispensing rough justice when they have these more complex, more serious cases allocated to them? Or are the assumptions in the Impact Assessment simply wrong?” I think they are. Let us be clear: the Government would have us believe that 27,000 crown court sitting days can simply be converted into just 8,500 magistrates sitting days. Clause 1 represents a fundamental shift in the balance between the citizen and the state. At present, a defendant in an either-way case has the right to elect trial by jury. The clause removes that right entirely, with the decision resting solely with the magistrates court, depending on likely sentence length. We object to the clause in its entirety, but we have also sought to put forward meaningful changes through amendment 38, which would simply allow the defendant to demonstrate that, in the particular circumstances of their case, trial without a jury would breach the principles of natural justice. What current examples of violations of natural justice do we envision and hope this safeguard can protect against? Let us consider two theoretical cases of offenders, both facing trial for theft. This may be an opportune moment to point out that some of the examples used by Government Members to demonstrate the irrationality of Crown court time being frequently taken up by theft offences betray a lack of understanding of what happens in terms of the likely disposals in such cases. Nevertheless, as it seems such a popular example, I am happy to use it. In the first example, we have an accused who has never been in trouble with the law before. He or she has a clean record and the offence was not aggravated in any way. In fact, he or she gives an account of a misunderstanding. No harm came to the victim, and the value of the goods they are said to have stolen was considered to be medium—between £500 and £10,000. But the impact of a guilty finding on his or her life would be enormous, because the accused is a practising solicitor. It would almost certainly lead to the loss of their employment and significant damage to their reputation. The sentencing guidelines suggest that if the accused is found guilty, they might expect just over a year in prison. They are determined to have their case heard by a jury, because they believe their account of events would be believed by a jury, but under clause 1 as it stands, that would be denied them. Because they are clear of their innocence, they will not take a police caution, an out of court disposal, or make an early guilty plea. Let us consider another accused. They are very far from being a person with a clean record. They have been convicted of multiple offences of theft, and other offences alongside those in the past—for example, criminal damage and common assault. They have been convicted of theft more than a dozen times. Those of us who have had an interest in criminal justice for some time will know that those sorts of offenders regularly appear before the courts. The accusation the second person faces is of another order of seriousness. They are accused of having stolen a piece of jewellery worth more than £100,000. In fact, the loss of that item led to the collapse of a small business, as the owner was an elderly lone female, who is now living in constant fear and simply cannot face customers again. She trusted the accused on their visit to the business, and does not feel that she can trust anyone else. The accused faces up to six years in custody, so they will retain their right to a jury trial. They have no reputation to lose as a serial and convicted offender, and no employment to lose either.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Dualling of the A21 · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to have secured this Adjournment debate on the dualling of the A21 in my constituency. I thank the House authorities for giving me this opportunity, because the condition of the A21—the key strategic route serving the constituency of Bexhill and Battle—is incredibly important. The A21 is not a just local road; it is the principal strategic road network connection between East Sussex’s coastal communities and London, the M25, international airports and the wider national economy. It is the backbone of access to employment, freight, tourism and business investment across the Bexhill-Hastings corridor, yet today, the A21 is failing to perform that strategic role. Its lack of capacity, safety and resilience, particularly south of Pembury, has become a structural barrier to growth, opportunity and reliable access to work for the communities along the route and for the towns of Bexhill and Hastings, which lie at its southern end. South of Pembury, the A21 is still predominantly single-carriageway, yet it carries long-distance traffic volumes entirely unsuited to the road’s original design. Large sections are characterised by tight bends, multiple junctions and direct access from homes and farms. The contrast between the dualled and undualled sections creates an inconsistent route standard that undermines reliability, increases risk and erodes confidence in the network for both residents and businesses. Several villages in my constituency, including Flimwell, Hurst Green and Whatlington, sit directly on the A21. Around 1,500 residents live with a strategic trunk road carrying around 20,000 vehicles a day, including a high proportion of HGVs, exposing them to constant noise, pollution and risk. Their communities are effectively divided by a busy trunk road. That has profound consequences for daily life. It affects whether children can walk safely to school, whether older residents feel confident crossing the road and whether communities function as places to live, rather than corridors to pass through. Hurst Green is a particularly acute example at the moment. The village primary school is located directly on the A21. Getting children to and from school presents a daily safety challenge that no community should have to accept. Parents and carers have no safe drop-off or pick-up areas and are forced to stop on a national trunk road. Pavements are narrow, often obstructed and completely unprotected from fast-moving traffic. Walking or cycling—activities we rightly want to encourage—are simply not viable options for many families. I have walked this route myself at peak times. Standing inches from a continuous stream of HGVs, vans and cars makes the risk immediately obvious and is very intimidating. This is not an abstract policy issue; it is the lived experience of families every single day. As the Roads Minister will no doubt be aware, rural single-carriageway A roads carry a disproportionately high share of fatal and serious collisions. More than half of all deaths on A roads occur on single carriageways, despite them carrying significantly less traffic overall. Last weekend, a serious incident on the A21 at Robertsbridge, which is single-carriageway, resulted in the tragic loss of life and serious injuries. While investigations are ongoing, my thoughts and heartfelt sympathies are with the families and loved ones at this incredibly difficult time. The road remained closed for over 24 hours to allow emergency services to carry out necessary investigations and repairs. Since 2020, National Highways has been delivering a £20 million safety package on the A21, reflecting persistent structural risks on this stretch of road. Those measures are welcome and necessary, but they also demonstrate that we are repeatedly treating symptoms rather than addressing the underlying cause. Recent interventions, including the ongoing installation of traffic lights at the A21-A265 junction in Hurst Green, have highlighted the daily impact of this route on local communities. They have brought into sharp focus not only the sheer volume of traffic on the A21 but the severe consequences when that traffic is brought to a standstill. Residents were deeply concerned about the manner in which they were consulted on that installation, which was not sufficient, given that this is a major change for residents who will experience it on a daily basis. Some of them were not even written to until the week before, and there was not a serious attempt to engage with them on the final plans. There had been earlier efforts to engage more broadly on what might be done, but we know that our constituents are busy and have other things going on in their lives, so they tend to engage most profoundly when presented with the final plans setting out, “This is what we are minded to do.” In this case, the contractors were already in place and the plans were already decided and paid for, which of course raises a lot of scepticism about National Highways’ ability to have responded to residents’ concerns. The A21 is acutely vulnerable to disruption, as we are seeing in Hurst Green during the construction period. Collisions, flooding and landslip events regularly lead to full or partial closures. When that happens, there are no suitable alternative routes. Traffic diverts on to narrow country lanes, damaging rural roads, delaying emergency services and cutting off villages for hours at a time. I have direct experience of that. When there has been some sort of incident ahead when driving down the A21 to my constituency, I have naively listened to the advice given by Google Maps to divert off the A21, along with the many other people who are encouraged to do the same; I have been stuck for 30 minutes because that has happened at both ends of the road, and it has taken the good grace of residents living on that road to come out and manage the traffic to unblock the stoppage. As climate-related events become more frequent, this lack of resilience represents a growing risk, not just to road users but to the wider local economy. Businesses cannot plan around a route that fails unpredictably, and workers cannot rely on it for consistent access to employment. Nowhere are the consequences of poor connectivity more evident than in Bexhill and Hastings. Bexhill contains significant pockets of deprivation, with lower than average wages and productivity—I know the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) will raise similar issues experienced in her constituency. Across the Bexhill–Hastings corridor, productivity levels remain around 20% below the south-east average. Importantly, deprivation in this area is not due to a lack of ambition or potential. Bexhill and Hastings have benefited from regeneration initiatives and local growth programmes, but without a reliable strategic road connection, their impact is fundamentally constrained. Piecemeal local schemes cannot overcome a broken strategic link. Unreliable journey times limit labour market catchments, reduce business productivity and deter inward investment. Employers struggle to recruit when commute times are unpredictable. Investors hesitate when access to the wider south-east corridor is uncertain. The A21 sits at the centre of that challenge. This is ultimately an issue about opportunity. For many residents in Bexhill, the ability to access work, training or better-paid employment depends on the A21. When that route is unreliable, opportunities narrow and inequalities deepen. There is clear evidence that strategic upgrades deliver lasting benefits. The dualling of the A21 between Tonbridge and Pembury resulted in major reductions in serious collisions, improved journey reliability and a strong economic return. That outcome is consistent with national evidence about the benefits of dualling high-volume single-carriageway A roads. Further dualling south of Pembury would deliver sustained safety improvements, improve reliability for commuters and businesses, reduce vulnerability to incidents and climate-related disruption, and improve the health and wellbeing of all those living in the villages directly placed along the A21. If we are serious about tackling deprivation, expanding opportunity and restoring confidence in coastal communities, we must address the structural barriers that hold them back. We have already seen how local strategic road investment can transform opportunity. The Queensway Gateway road transformed access to the A21 from Bexhill and Hastings, reducing severances and improving reliability. Crucially, it made regeneration and employment sites viable by replacing an unreliable approach route with a modern strategic corridor. Investor confidence increased because access was no longer a risk. The Bexhill-Hastings link road provides even clearer evidence. By delivering a second strategic connection between the two towns and a stronger link to the A21, it removed long-standing capacity constraints. That intervention directly unlocked over 1,000 homes and significant land for employment in north-east Bexhill that could not otherwise have been released. In both cases, public investment in strategic connectivity unlocked substantial private investment and long-term economic gains. The lesson is clear: strategic roads unlock growth and marginal fixes simply ration constraint. For communities along the A21, this is not simply a transport issue; it is about productivity, opportunity, and fair access to work and services. I urge the Minister to recognise the A21’s role as the principal gateway to some of the most economically disadvantaged communities in the south-east and to move beyond short-term mitigation. Specifically, will he commit to advancing the strategic case for dualling the A21 south of Pembury, including village bypasses? Will he support further design and development work so that the scheme is genuinely ready for delivery? Finally, will he set out how this corridor can be considered within the next road investment strategy? My residents are clear: they live with the A21 and they bear with the A21, but it is not the version of a road network that is delivering for them. I have explained all the reasons why dualling the A21 will make a profound difference to the opportunities of so many people in my constituency and in neighbouring constituencies. Anyone who has lived alongside that road, in the way that residents have to at the moment, will know that the current situation is not sustainable and cannot be the long-term fix or the solution that makes a real difference. I ask the Minister to think carefully, consider my questions and give hope to all those in my constituency who do not want this issue to be off the agenda or the radar, even if we recognise that the dualling is not something that will happen overnight.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Dualling of the A21 · Hansard source

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  Even if the Government cannot commit to the funding, developing a business case and options in an updated form would not commit anybody to doing it or to saying that there will be funding, but it would be a starting point. On that point, can the Minister be a bit more helpful by saying that he thinks that National Highways should at least have an updated plan for delivering this proposal, if and when the funding appears?

• 14 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I rise to speak in support of amendment 39 tabled in my name. As I touched on earlier this morning, along with amendments 23 and 24—which are driving at the same point, but in slightly different ways—we are revisiting the discussion that we in the Opposition framed as a broad categorisation of principles of natural justice. We do so with the hope that it allows flexibility and expandability for the courts to interpret and give weight to that clause in a common-law system. However, it is also perfectly legitimate to approach the issue in a more defined way, as amendments 23 and 24 do. Every one of those examples is something we would agree with. Amendment 24 states that the relevant conditions would be met in relation to a defendant if: “the defendant, if convicted of the offence or offences for which the defendant is to be tried, would be likely to receive a sentence of imprisonment or detention of more than three years” or if “the defendant is of good character”. It was helpful for the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden to use her expertise to explain that that is not just an idea of someone’s character; good character has a very specific meaning in law and exists for a reason. It exists because the judicial system, in various ways, thinks that that is important and it has a material impact on how someone should be treated within the legal system. Amendment 24 also specifies that the conditions would be met if “the defendant has not previously been convicted of an imprisonable offence”, or if “the defendant would be treated as a rehabilitated person under section 1 of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974”. Again, we go out of our way to put those provisions in place to say that rehabilitated offenders, as defined by the 1974 Act, should be treated differently from other types of offenders. We are building on the already established idea that we do not all experience the judicial system in the same way in relation to our previous convictions and offences—in both directions, because if someone has convictions, but they have moved past those convictions, we would seek to treat them differently again. Amendment 24 would also apply to a defendant who, “if convicted of the offence or offences for which the defendant is to be tried, would likely suffer significant reputational damage or have their employment or professional qualifications adversely affected”. I talked about that issue this morning, and I welcome the hon. Lady’s references to Members of Parliament. Surely we can relate to that in a very profound way when we face a conviction. MPs are one such example, but there are many others. I gave the example of a solicitor this morning, and there are also doctors—my professional background—and police officers; there are a whole range of people who would suffer a very particular and specific set of consequences because of their job. That would perhaps not be universal, and we would have to tease out whether someone might want the magistrates’ sentencing restrictions or the Crown court’s route to guilty—we will probably have to separate those two things. Some people might prefer a magistrates court, not because of the plea but, as they are likely to be found guilty, because of the sentencing restrictions. However, I agree with the hon. Lady that—if not universally, certainly overwhelmingly—people would want their guilt to be determined by a jury, even if they might prefer a magistrate’s restricted sentencing powers. Finally, amendment 24 would apply to defendants where “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the gravity or complexity of the case may increase; or…other exceptional circumstances pertain to the case.” Those examples fit neatly with the aims of Opposition amendment 39. As I said earlier, of all the provisions in the Bill, clause 3, which these amendments would alter, probably represents the profoundest and most unprecedented change to our legal system. We had a debate this morning about other changes that have been made, such as changes to which offences are summary, triable either way or indictable. Although it is true to say that there have been variations, and there has been that narrowing, I was very clear that the scale and unprecedented nature of these changes stand apart. What we are talking about here is a completely different approach to determining guilt for adults in criminal cases, entirely removing the lay element. Again, we debated this morning about the fact that we cannot fairly describe magistrates as being entirely distinct from the local population; we very clearly heard all the reasons why they are not the same as having 12 ordinary members of the public on a jury, but they are not professionals. What we are talking about here, with the introduction of this new bench division, is removing every possible element of lay involvement. On Second Reading, when we had a broader debate about the Bill, Government Members criticised the fact that the debate was dominated by white, older male barristers—maybe they did not say older, but certainly white and male. The criticism was, “This debate is being dominated by white, male barristers. This isn’t fair. This isn’t reflective of all the voices and different views we need to hear.” But what will these changes do? They will give more power and influence to people who are white and male and who, historically, have almost certainly been barristers. We are doing the exact opposite of addressing those Government Members’ concerns, including their concerns about who has a say in all these issues compared with ordinary members of the public. Clause 3 removes those ordinary members of the public. Under proposed new section 74A to the Senior Courts Act 1981, any case sent to the Crown court must be tried without a jury unless one of two things applies: either an indictable-only offence is involved, or the court considers that, if convicted, the defendant would be likely to receive a sentence of more than three years’ imprisonment or detention. In all other cases, the default becomes a judge-alone trial. We are introducing a whole new idea that an individual person—a magistrate, not a jury—can sentence someone to six to 12 months. We are introducing the idea that a single person, on their own, can sentence someone to three years’ imprisonment, without any involvement of the wider public. The question for the Committee is not whether the jury trial remains available in some cases, as we have discussed—we absolutely accept that it should. Instead, the question is whether Parliament is content to create a new statutory presumption that, for a wide range of classes of Crown court cases, the citizen will no longer be tried by a jury of their peers, but by a judge sitting on their own. Again, as we talked about this morning, this is not what Sir Brian recommended—he was specific in his recommendation. This morning, the Minister talked about going further, which I would interpret as referring to what offences and timelines are used. I am not sure that we can extend that suggestion of going further to creating an entirely new set-up that Sir Brian did not recommend. He did not recommend that a judge sit on their own and sentence someone to up to three years in prison.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes, and I will be writing to the CPS about that, because commenting in the way that it has was extremely unusual. I would hope that it has a very clear explanation as to how it has been able to formulate that position, because, of course, the CPS is just articulating a particular viewpoint. As has happened, when a Government-funded agency does that, it gives it a certain weight that is not necessarily appropriate. That is why ordinarily non-departmental Government bodies are not expected to do that sort of thing. It is something we should think about more carefully. We also talked this morning about public confidence among members of minority communities, as was raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington. The group JUSTICE has put forward its views and concerns about this. It notes that the equality statement for the Bill also notes that black, older and female defendants historically elect for a Crown court trial at higher rates. In 2022, 26% of black defendants elected for a Crown court trial, compared with 15% of white defendants—a very significant gap. In 2017, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) also concluded that many individuals from ethnic minorities opted for trial in the Crown court whenever possible, as they had more confidence in the fairness of jury trials compared with magistrates. As the Bill is written by the person advocating for those changes, we should consider what the right hon. Member said very carefully. He said: “Juries are a success story of our justice system. Rigorous analysis shows that, on average, juries— including all white juries—do not deliver different results for BAME and White defendants. The lesson is that juries are representative of local populations—and must deliberate as a group, leaving no hiding place for bias or discrimination.” Would Government Members put it to the right hon. Member for Tottenham that he was in any way denigrating magistrates in making that point, or that he was saying magistrate trials were not fair? I do not recall any Labour MP making that point at the time that his report was published. The review found that BAME defendants often had lower confidence in the fairness of magistrates courts and, as I have said, therefore opted for a trial in the Crown courts. Because of that lack of trust, BAME defendants were also thought to be more likely to plead not guilty in magistrates court and push for a Crown court trial, which resulted in them missing out on the one-third sentencing reduction offered by early guilty pleas. These things have real-world consequences for the individuals concerned. While the report found that BAME defendants were not disadvantaged compared with white counterparts at the jury trial stage, they faced harsher outcomes elsewhere in the system. I want to quote again from the Lammy review: “The way that juries make decisions is key to this. Juries comprise 12 people, representative of the local population. When a jury retires to make a decision, its members must consider the evidence, discuss the case and seek to persuade one another if necessary. This debate and deliberation acts as a filter for prejudice—to persuade other jurors, people must justify their position. In the final decision, power is also never concentrated in the hands of one individual.” What did the right hon. Member have to say about magistrates courts? He said: “This positive story about the jury system is not matched by such a clear-cut story for magistrates’ verdicts. The relative rate analysis…commissioned for this review found that decisions were broadly proportionate for BAME boys and girls. However, there were some disparities for adult verdicts that require further analysis and investigation. In particular, there were some worrying disparities for BAME women.” As a table in the report showed, “of those women tried at Magistrates’ Court, Black women, Asian women, Mixed ethnic women and Chinese/Other women were all more likely to be convicted than White women.” Again, would Government Members say that the right hon. Member was therefore advocating for the abolition of magistrates hearings? Of course not, and neither are we. We are simply making clear the trade-offs for such an unprecedented shift in their use—for such a significant curtailment of the use of the system of juries that is so well regarded and trusted by our constituents—and are arguing that the case has not been made. JUSTICE also raised concerns about unrepresented defendants. My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate made that point in relation to legal aid. The equality statement for the Bill acknowledges that if more cases are dealt with in the magistrates court, a greater proportion of defendants may be ineligible for legal aid compared than if their case were heard in the Crown court. That is because the income eligibility threshold in the magistrates court of £22,325 is significantly lower than that in the Crown court, where it is £37,500. An increase in unrepresented defendants risks undermining fairness. For example, defendants may receive harsher sentences if they do not know how to effectively offer mitigation. This is especially concerning where expanded magistrates’ sentencing powers will leave defendants facing trials for offences carrying a sentence of up to two years unrepresented. Additionally, the Institute for Government has highlighted that unrepresented defendants in magistrates courts are also likely to prolong hearings and therefore erode any of the anticipated efficiency gains. It estimates that, for every additional hour in the average length of a trial, estimated savings will fall by more than one percentage point. I also want to address the issue of youth courts, which was debated this morning. Government Members posited the fact that these courts hear more serious cases such as rape as some form of proof that curtailing jury trials in a similar adult case could be acceptable. That ignores the fact that each court and each setting has its own balances and goals and its own weighing exercise, with different considerations, where different conclusions will be reached. Youth court trials generally do not have a jury because they are designed to be less formal and more focused on rehabilitation than punishment, with cases heard by specially trained youth magistrates rather than ordinary magistrates alongside district judges. These courts prioritise specialist knowledge and child-friendly proceedings over public proceedings, and aim to ensure that a child understands what is happening, with less intimidating atmospheres than adult Crown courts. Youth courts are closed to the public, which is not possible with a jury trial. This is the trade-off we make, but these are trade-offs that, for decades and decades, we have not considered suitable in adult courts. We have considered the extra, additional vulnerabilities and the need to focus on rehabilitation in youth courts, so we carry out a different balancing exercise and make a different trade-off. That does not mean that we can read that across to an adult court without considering the benefits, the conclusions and the additional factors that we seek to mitigate—that we can just say, “Well you can just do the same for adults as you do in a youth court.” Different scenarios have different tests. We also know that the choice of trial by jury is not the only reason some defendants elect for trial by jury. In fact, there are important procedural differences in the two courts. An application to dismiss is a legal request made by the defence to have some or all of the charges thrown out before the trial begins. This application is available only in Crown court cases and applies to indictable offences or cases that have been sent from the magistrates court to the Crown court. An application to dismiss in the Crown court is a pre-trial request to throw out charges, according to rule 3.2 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2025, and earlier versions. It must be made in writing after the prosecution serves evidence but before arraignment, arguing that a reasonable jury could not convict. It is true that formal applications to dismiss are relatively rare compared with other ways in which a case might end, mainly because the legal bar for success is very high. While specific numbers for rule 3.2 applications are not always separated in basic reports, wider court data gives a clear picture of how often cases are dropped or stopped before a full trial. In recent quarters, up to late 2025, the figures available to me show that approximately 17% to 18% of defendants in for-trial cases had their cases dropped by the prosecution or stopped by the court before a verdict. Why are formal dismissals that are available in the Crown court less common? The Crown Prosecution Service knows it is legally required to keep cases under constant review. If the evidence is truly weak enough to be dismissed by a judge, the CPS will usually discontinue the case or offer no evidence to avoid a wasted hearing. We know that is a very common occurrence. Are we confident that we know how much of that happens because of the availability of that legal test? The CPS knows that if it does not do that and if it does proceed in an inappropriate manner, it will face the legal test that it does not face in the magistrates court. If the Government have access to evidence that can reassure us, they should present it, but I could not find anything that leads me to be confident that cases dropped in the Crown court might proceed in the magistrates court, and perhaps they should not. The provision of disclosure in the Crown court is much more robust. We have all seen cases where trials collapse because of exchanges related to disclosure. Crown court disclosure is strictly governed by the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996, which requires formal staged disclosure. In magistrates courts, disclosure is often more streamlined, focusing on the initial details of the prosecution case. In the Crown court, a defence statement is mandatory. In the magistrates court, a defence statement is generally voluntary, although recommended. Once the prosecution discloses unused material, the defence has 28 days in the Crown court to serve a defence statement. In the magistrates court, the time limit is 14 days. Crown court prosecutors must provide schedules of all unused material. Magistrates courts typically use, as I have said, streamlined disclosure certificates, which are not as extensive. We know there are problems with disclosure at times. The independent review of disclosure and fraud offences was officially announced by the UK Government on 23 October. Led by Jonathan Fisher KC, the review was commissioned as part of the fraud strategy launched in May 2023 to address the digital age challenges in criminal cases. It is the first of its kind since the 1986 Roskill report. Jonathan is a leading King’s counsel in financial crime, proceeds of crime, fraud and tax cases. He has been a visiting professor in practice at the London School of Economics and he holds a PhD, which was awarded by the LSE following his research into money laundering cases and the relationship between the obligation to report suspicious activity and corporate rights. Clearly, this is someone who speaks with a great deal of authority and experience in relation to the operation of criminal law. Part one of the review, on disclosure, was published on 21 March 2025. It is helpful for us to reflect on it, given some of the exchanges we have had during debates. As I have said, Government Members sought to dismiss any suggestion that the magistrates courts were less fair or a less appropriate place to hold a hearing and suggested that everything is rosy in the magistrates court, so there is no possible reason why someone might not want to go to a magistrates court. They wanted to frame this as a purely binary choice between fair and unfair. As I pointed out to the Minister, every time we point out some of the unfairnesses, the Minister says that everything is fair and it is all fine. But then when we ask the Minister to articulate why, if everything in the magistrates courts is just fine and dandy, we therefore keep jury trials for more serious cases, there is literally no rational or logical conclusion. The Minister says this is not a debating chamber, but the Minister is presenting a Bill with underlying political and legal principles, and if she cannot come up with a consistent set of those principles as a basis on which to articulate the arguments she is making, that is not a great advert for the Bill. I can happily say that I think Scotland’s legal system is less fair, and I think the magistrates courts are less fair. I am perfectly happy to say that, but that does not mean that I want to get rid of them or curtail them. It is just part of the reality, and I am consistent in that regard. So let us talk about what Jonathan Fisher can do to assist us.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will take this opportunity to address some of the points raised in this morning’s debate, and to expand on areas that were points of contention. There was healthy debate about the record of the issues that were inherited by this Government. One reason why this Government have got so quickly into so much difficulty is the way they seek to frame the challenges they inherited, and how the Labour party framed those challenges during the election. That applies across several issues, including inflation and global economic shocks. [ Interruption. ] This is relevant because the Bill is part of a consistent practice and approach—to reassure hon. Members, I will not spend long on this point. In opposition, the Labour party clearly sought to blame the Conservative Government entirely for those issues, but now that the same issues are affecting the Labour Government, they do not get credibility in saying the issues are broader and outside their control. Labour said the doctors’ strikes were entirely our fault—

• 14 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  They are working very hard, as the Minister says, but the work is not complete. We have not done what the Under-Secretary of State for Justice said we should, which is do the stretching and have it all dealt with before we consider curtailing jury rights. We are proceeding when that has not happened, and the Deputy Prime Minister made similar remarks. There are other individuals to whom one might think the Prime Minister gives a lot of credibility and weight. Geoffrey Robertson, the founder of the Prime Minister’s barristers’ chambers, condemned the plans to restrict jury trials in England and Wales as “a betrayal of the values for which Labour purports to stand.” It was not just the Prime Minister who practised with that individual. Maybe they were working with him under the cosh or they had the view that the chambers they chose to work in were founded by someone they did not give weight and credibility to. The Deputy Prime Minister also worked in the chambers of this individual. Who else, Ms Butler? Richard Hermer, the current Attorney General, also practised in the chambers founded by this individual, who said that “attacking juries must be regarded as a betrayal of the values for which Labour purports to stand…How have they come to betray a principle that has been so important over the centuries for those who have dissented or stood for progress?” He adds that, given the Labour party’s “record of support for progressive causes, for free speech and peaceful political protests, the Bill does seem a betrayal of Labour traditions…MPs who vote in favour will be on the wrong side of their party’s own history.” That is from the person with whom the Prime Minister, the Attorney General and the Deputy Prime Minister all enjoyed practising the law for many years in the chambers on which they sought to rely. This morning we covered the right to appeal. As we discussed, the rate of successful appeal in the magistrates court is higher than might be expected. We do not know how that figure and the difference in respect of jury trials will translate if cases are taken down to a single judge. The Minister stated that reasonings will be laid out and that that will make the system more transparent; of course it will to some degree, but the drawbacks do not make that trade-off worth while. We are also going to see, with the new Crown court bench division, a whole new series of ways in which defendants seek to appeal sentences. The Minister talked about the fact that there are not enough barristers; how do we know that some of those trials and appeals are not going to draw from barristers’ time? We do not. I return to the central argument about the value and weight of jury trials in the public perception. The issue is not just about how the public perceive jury trials. Jury trials are the most important way in which the public are part of our judicial system: the public are part of the process; it is not a process separate from us. We have talked about magistrates as a halfway house for representation and diversity of opinion, but the same arguments apply in relation to the participation of the citizenry from their point of view. That is not the point of view of the defendant and the decisions that they might take, but that of the individual citizen participating in the judiciary, versus that of the magistrates. All the same arguments that I made in relation to the perception of potential prejudices apply to the question of introducing the new division, which will even more greatly extract the citizen from our judicial system. That extraction is important because it goes back to the original question of whether we feel that the judicial system is ours and we have a role to play in it, or that it is what would have been, in the old days, the King’s judicial system. It was the King’s system: justice was in his name, for him, or—as I talked about this morning—in God’s name, for God, with individual citizens excluded from the process. Although the Opposition oppose clause 3, our amendment 39 at least attempts to curtail some of the issues with it. I note that when we discussed it this morning, the Minister would not engage on the direct, specific question of whether, looking at the examples in isolation, she thinks it is fair that somebody of good character who stands to lose an enormous amount—their job and their reputation—is going to lose access to a jury trial whereas a repeat, recalcitrant, more serious offender will not. We are clear that that is not fair, so we have attempted, with a similar aim but in a manner different from the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden, to introduce some safeguards, but we are opposed to the proposal in clause 3 in its entirety.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes, absolutely, which is why I said earlier that I regret some of the changes undertaken while we were in government. I have made it very clear that justice and all the issues we are debating are a real political priority for me. That is why, in large part, I wanted to become an MP. Members will rarely hear me disagreeing with arguments that need to be made in government about which Department gets priority. I absolutely welcome the success that the Minister and her colleagues have had in making arguments for resources. But again, that is no answer to the public about what the Government are doing now. They are in charge. There is a constant harking back to decisions we took, but the Government have to stand on their own merits. The point we have made again and again is not that we should not do something. It is not that there is not a problem. Our argument is purely that we do not think this is the way to do it, and we do not think the trade-offs that the Government are setting out and what they are asking us to lose will translate into those benefits.

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

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  Q Moving on to the substance of what you say in the letter, can you tell us a couple of the points that you think are most important in relation to why—although I am sure you really care, as we all do, about the issue of backlogs and the experience it is creating for victims—you feel that the reforms on restricting the right to elect, creating a new bench division and reducing the use of jury trials are not the right way forward? Fiona Rutherford: We have already heard from Daniel Flury in relation to the way that the magistrates courts are simply not structurally set up in many different ways. We know that magistrates typically undertake 13 sitting days on average. They also receive only three weeks’ training. If we are talking about moving into a situation where the sentencing powers are going to get far higher, that is of significant concern. We all hope that there will be recruitment of magistrates, bearing in mind they have been cut by over 50% in the last 15,16 or 20 years. We know if the recruitment that is being talked about is successful, those people will be highly inexperienced, whether they are the legal advisers or the magistrates who are making decisions themselves. To counter what I think was by said by the previous panel, of the appeals that come from the magistrates court to the Crown court when there is a concern about conviction or sentence, 40%—nearly half—are overturned when it is to do with an appeal against conviction, and 47% are overturned when it is an appeal against a sentence. There is a question mark about the accuracy of the way in which magistrates are making decisions. We have heard about diversity among magistrates, and it is true that magistrates are more diverse than the judiciary, both in terms of gender and age. However, socioeconomically, there is a big gap for both the judiciary and magistracy. When looking at, for example, the number of applications to become a magistrate, only 3% of those people who applied are from manual labour jobs, which of course, again, will not be commensurate or replicative of the people who are going through the system. You have already covered unrepresented defendants. That will only increase in relation to the existing legal aid issues. It will fundamentally mean that the defendants in those positions—particularly with very difficult cases—could be cross-examining their victims. If there is no lawyer to put that barrier in the way, then I can only imagine that the impact on those victims will be tremendous, particularly in very difficult cases. We have talked about minorities and disproportionality. There was a fantastic question from the Committee earlier. We know that there is greater confidence among the public, particularly minority communities, in jury fairness over and above anything else. The Deputy Prime Minister has already written this down and has found that out from his own research. Racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system is and will continue to be a problem if we do not continue to try to work through that and keep juries as the clearest and fairest way of doing that. Emma Torr: The proposal to reduce the automatic right of appeal from the magistrates court to the Crown court has been presented as part of a package of measures to reduce the backlog in the criminal courts; however, removing the automatic right of appeal will introduce a multi-step process, which will only increase the workload of both the magistrates and Crown courts. To give a very brief outline of how it works at the moment, the defendant or the solicitor can fill out a very simple form, which results in a quick rehearing at the Crown court. As we heard from the previous panel, that works very well. It takes a couple of hours at most and even less for sentence appeals. What the Government are proposing in the Bill is a multi-layered process. That involves consideration of grounds of appeal, articulation of those grounds in an application, consideration of that application by a Crown court judge—with or without a hearing—followed by a potential remittal to the magistrates court if there is to be a rehearing if leave is granted. That will add to the workload of not only the courts but criminal solicitors who work under legal aid and are chronically underfunded and overstretched in capacity. One important thing to consider when talking specifically about the right of appeal from the magistrates courts is that the Law Commission very carefully considered this in its 700-page consultation paper last year and took views from a number of different stakeholders. Its independent analysis was that the removal of the automatic right to appeal will increase the workload of the magistrates court and the Crown court.