Neil Shastri-Hurst MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is right to a degree: there has been failure by successive Governments to invest in the criminal justice system. If we were serious about this issue in this place, we would look at cutting welfare, which spends the entirety of the Ministry of Justice’s annual budget in just two weeks. We need to prioritise spending, and the criminal justice system has been left high and dry for far too long by Governments of all colours. It is now routine for trials to be adjourned because defendants either arrive late or do not arrive at all, with juries discharged, witnesses turned away and days of court time lost as a consequence. These delays have nothing whatsoever to do with the presence of a jury, and everything to do with operational failure in the system. The next point I wish to make, and possibly the most grave, is about the erosion of the criminal Bar. We face a serious shortage of suitably qualified advocates both to prosecute and to defend. Cases are delayed because no one of appropriate experience is available or willing to take them on. That is not inefficiency, but attrition. Curtailing jury trial risks mistaking the symptom for the disease. Worse, it risks creating a system that is perhaps faster, but thinner, and ostensibly more efficient, but unquestionably less legitimate. I think of the words of Lord Hailsham, a former Lord Chancellor and one of the greatest legal minds of the previous century, who warned this very House of the dangers of an “elective dictatorship”, and the slow accretion of power to the state at the expense of the citizen. The jury trial is one of the great counterweights to that tendency, ensuring that the coercive power of criminal law is exercised only with the consent of the community. Juries do much more than merely find facts; they embody public confidence, guard against institutional complacency and remind us that justice is not something merely administered to the people, but done with them. If the Government believe that it is right to curtail that right, they must show clear evidence that jury trials cause the delay, that alternative modes of trial would be demonstrably faster, and that fairness, legitimacy and public confidence would not be diminished.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  The right to trial by jury is not some procedural convenience capable of being abridged when the administrative weather turns foul; it is one of the great constitutional expressions of liberty under the law. It is overwhelmingly legitimate, because it places the citizen, and not the state, at the heart of criminal judgment. When the state proposes to narrow the circumstances in which it must persuade 12 of a defendant’s peers, it is not merely managing a backlog; it is fundamentally recalibrating the balance between the individual and the Crown. There is no doubt that the criminal justice system is under acute strain. Victims and defendants wait too long. Justice is stretched thin. However, the issue before us is not whether reform is necessary, but whether this reform is justified, proportionate and supported by evidence.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I will touch on some of those points in a moment. There has quite rightly been much reliance on Sir Brian Leveson’s report; he is a jurist of great distinction, and his work deserves careful reading, rather than convenient citation. Notwithstanding his analysis, this is a fundamental change to our legal system, and what is conspicuously absent from the Government’s argument is compelling evidence that jury trials are the principal driver of delay. If we are serious about confronting the backlog, we must look unflinchingly at the real causes: the prosaic but decisive failures of capacity, of which the jury trial is merely the most visible casualty. The first issue is judicial sitting days. Courts cannot hear cases without judges. For too long, we have rationed judicial time as though it were a luxury, rather than the lifeblood of the system. Courtrooms stand idle not because juries cannot be summoned, but because there are no judges available to sit. The second issue is the court estate. In too many parts of the country, criminal courts are dilapidated, unreliable and, frankly, unfit for purpose. Trials are delayed because of leaking roofs, broken technology and inadequate facilities.

• 5 Jan 2026 · HMP Leyhill: Offender Abscondments · Hansard source

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  Since October of last year, five people have absconded from Leyhill, which suggests that there are systemic issues around both security and licensing arrangements. I suspect that those are not bespoke to Leyhill, but are used across the wider open prison estate. With that in mind, what has the Minister’s Department done to tighten those arrangements to ensure that this does not happen again, not just at Leyhill, but at any other open prison?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill: Armed Forces Recruitment and Retention · Hansard source

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  The Minister has more experience than most with the global threats facing this country. In those circumstances, we need to be recruiting the brightest and best to our armed forces and retaining them. He has set out current retention levels with certain detail, but that is before the Bill passes through Parliament and, as the Government hope, becomes enacted as law. Does he not recognise that the inequality of arms under the legal system for our veterans is likely to have a significant impact upon retention?