Robert Jenrick MP: speeches

Speeches

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  I am just restating, I think fairly, what the former permanent secretary said. The Ministry of Justice did not do enough to get the backlog under control. There has been a serious failure to fix the productivity problems in our court system, as I think the Institute for Fiscal Studies set out independently in a report last year. Could the last Government have done more? Well, perhaps they could have. They did try to do things: they increased the number of sitting days and brought in special courts, such as Nightingale courts, in parts of the country, which began to make some difference. None the less, the backlog kept rising. The backlog has risen very substantially under this Labour Government as well. In fact, to the extent that we have accurate figures, it is rising by about 500 cases every month, so the problem has continued to get worse and worse. I therefore do not see today’s debate as a partisan debate between the two main parties. The key thing is how we solve the problem. How do we look to the future? Is slashing jury trials the answer? No. Are there better ways to do this? Yes.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  I do. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is shameful to our country that victims of serious crimes like rape will have to wait until 2028 or 2029. In fact, I believe the longest listing hence today is 2030. No one in this Chamber could possibly defend that for one moment, but will this policy make a material difference to fixing that problem? I do not believe that it will. I have not heard anyone who really believes in their heart that it will fix the problem, and if it is going to make a difference, publish the modelling and the evidence so we can see it, because Lord Leveson has not published any modelling. Lord Leveson gave a view that it might lead to a 20% reduction in the length of a trial. That is heavily disputed by other practitioners, including—and I do not mean to demean Lord Leveson—people who are closer to the coalface of our criminal justice system: judges and criminal barristers. The Department has not published any modelling. Does it exist? If it does, publish it and then we can have an honest and evidence-led debate.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  I will just advance my case a little, and then I will come to my hon. Friend. The most important thing that we could do is get the courts sitting round the clock. There are sitting days on the table that are not being used. The Lady Chief Justice, the most senior person in our judiciary, has said repeatedly that she is able to offer the Government more sitting days. She has said it in the press, she said it before the Justice Committee the other day, and I am sure that she has said it privately to Ministers as well. The Government have been pushed, slowly, to take her up on those sitting days, and I commend them for that. However, there are still, by the Lady Chief Justice’s measure, at least 2,000 extra sitting days available that the Government are not taking her up on. We need to go back to her, welcome those sitting days with open arms, and say, “What would it take for you to produce more? Can we turn 2,000 into 5,000, or 10,000?” Get the courts actually sitting. That is not happening right now. The principal reason for that is financial: the Ministry of Justice has not been able to secure from the Treasury a comparatively small sum of money. We can argue about the priorities of this Government, and we will differ across the House, but the sum of money that we need for the proper operation of our criminal justice system is relatively small. It must be better to spend that money on this cause than to scrap an ancient freedom that we have enjoyed, generation after generation.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  Both parties must share the blame for the present situation. The former permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice came before the Justice Committee last year and was asked broadly the same question that the hon. Lady just asked me: what is the root cause of the current backlog? She responded that although the system had been poorly funded for some time, which had created a number of challenges, the primary cause was the pandemic. Covid created immense strain on our justice system. As a result of that, a backlog that had, broadly speaking, been falling in the years prior to the pandemic—it had begun to rise slightly in the period immediately before—shot up. [ Interruption. ]

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  My right hon. Friend is right. Having served as a Minister in the last Conservative Government under multiple Prime Ministers, I have been led up a few hills before myself, and I know what it feels like to be a Minister in this situation. This is not a hill to die upon. Let us fix this problem. Let us build a cross-party consensus on how we get the backlog down—I will speak about a few of the solutions as I see them, as we see them, in a moment. This policy is not going to happen. I honestly believe that this is not going to happen. There is opposition not just from the official Opposition, but from every other party—Reform, Plaid, independents and the Liberal Democrats. There is opposition from Labour Members—good, experienced colleagues on the Government side. There is opposition in the House of Lords from Labour peers of the highest repute like Helena Kennedy—people who have spent careers in the law. This was not in the manifesto; the House of Lords does not have to support it. The last time Jack Straw and Tony Blair tried to do this, the House of Lords stepped in and it failed. This is a distraction. This is a waste of everyone’s time. If the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary and his Ministers care about swift justice, they should scrap this pointless distraction and focus every hour of the day on the hard yards of government, on doing the difficult things, and on the administrative failures of the Ministry of Justice that have existed for years, so we can actually ensure that the backlog is brought down.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let me come to some potential solutions. It is important to note that the backlog varies very widely across the country. His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is a poorly managed organisation with limited accountability to Ministers, and it has not been performing its function as well as it should. There are parts of our country where the backlog is far smaller than in others. In Liverpool and parts of Lancashire—despite the closure of your local court, Mr Speaker—the court backlog is substantially lower, as it is in Wales. There are significant regional differences because better managers, active judges and good case management of the kind that my right hon. Friend mentioned have made a significant difference.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  I will come to the hon. Lady in a moment, but I give way to my right hon. Friend.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  I will, but then I must conclude my remarks, because many colleagues wish to speak.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That this House believes that it is wrong to abolish jury trials for crimes with anticipated sentences of three years or less because jury trials are a fundamental part of the UK constitution and democracy; acknowledges the scale of the courts backlog and the necessity of reducing it to ensure justice for victims but believes that restricting the fundamental right to trial by jury will have a limited effect on reducing that backlog; calls on the Government to increase the number of court sitting days to help urgently reduce the backlog; and further calls on the Government to publish immediately all modelling it has undertaken and received on the potential impact of the abolition of jury trials on that backlog. The Government propose to abolish the right to trial by jury for a vast range of offences and for any case where they expect a sentence of three years or less. This is nothing less than wielding a constitutional axe against a centuries-old cornerstone of our liberty. Juries are not some bureaucratic add-on to our justice system; they are the means by which the public consent to and participate in the exercise of the gravest power of the state: the power to convict and imprison our fellow citizens. Yes, we face a serious Crown court backlog—that is not in any dispute today. That is not even a subject of debate today, because everyone on both sides of the House knows it and acknowledges it. We all accept that its roots did not begin under this Labour Government; it goes back to the pandemic and further than that. We all accept that there has been a lack of investment in our criminal justice system under Governments of all political persuasions, that the criminal Bar is in a weak place, and that young people do not feel they can go into the law or at least not into this most challenging and poorly paid part of it. We all accept that some of our courtrooms are in a terrible state, that the IT system is failing, that the contracts for getting prisoners to court on time are poorly managed and that the private contractors are underperforming. We all accept that the system is in a mess and needs to be reformed, but that is not the question at hand today. The question before us is, what is the best way to resolve this, and is the route to fix our criminal justice system and to deliver swift justice for victims to scrap something that we have known as a country since 1215, if not before?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  I will give way to the hon. Lady and then to the hon. Gentleman.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  I rest my case, my Lord. I sincerely thank the hon. Gentleman for the way he has conducted himself, and the campaign that he has fought and is fighting on this issue. Having campaigned at times against my own Government and having voted against the last Conservative Government, I know that it is not easy to do, and I credit him for the work he is doing.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why if the Government have a case, they should publish the evidence—

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  That is the subject of this debate, isn’t it? England and Wales have their own legal tradition, and Scotland has its own. Those of us who represent constituencies in England and Wales are here to defend our constitutional rights and settlement, and we will. It is up to those in Scotland to choose their path forward. The hon. Gentleman’s point raises another important question: is this debate a technical, bureaucratic one about how to get the backlog down in the most expeditious way, or does he speak to an ideological view that jury trials are wrong or superfluous, and that ordinary people do not know what they are talking about and their views should be casually set aside? I do not know the answer to that question in respect of the hon. Gentleman, but some in our politics do take the latter view. They think that ordinary citizens cannot be trusted. As Baroness Helena Kennedy suggested, some in the Labour tradition take the view that led Tony Blair and Jack Straw to take the original decision. Clearly, that is not everyone in the Labour tradition, as we see today—it may be a very small minority—but that view is not one that we support. We want ordinary people to continue to be at the heart of our criminal justice system. That is why we have brought forward the motion. This is an Opposition day debate, but opposition to this proposal is not restricted to those on the Conservative Benches, or to those in the other Opposition parties; it is found on both sides of this House and in the other place. It comes from the solicitors, barristers and judges who can speak out, and from those who cannot, when they speak privately at their kitchen table. It comes from ordinary citizens of our country, who want jury trials preserved—poll after poll shows that clearly. We are talking about 800 years of legal tradition. Let us not toss it aside; let us defend it, because it matters, and then let us unite and find a way to fix the bureaucratic failures of the Ministry of Justice to ensure that we have swift justice. Justice delayed is justice denied; we all agree on that. We can do this without ruining a gift that this country has given the world, and a fundamental part of our constitution and our democracy. Vote for our motion to defend jury trials, and tomorrow let us work together to fix the court backlog.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  Let me answer the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), because he is making an important point. Lawyers rarely agree—in fact, their profession is often to disagree. This issue has united everyone in opposition to it. The Law Society, the Bar Council, the Criminal Bar Association and lawyer after lawyer has said that this policy is wrong and a better way is possible. This is not party political. It cuts across all parties, and opponents include vehement critics of mine. I woke up the other day to hear Anna Soubry on the “Today” programme saying that everything I was arguing was right. This is about getting the right answer for our criminal justice system.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman makes a series of important points. There is something very special about being judged by a group of one’s peers, and about the wisdom of ordinary members of the public coming together. Juries are basically the only opportunity for members of the public to participate in our criminal justice system. That is important and should be preserved. He is right to say that we need to get the courts sitting around the clock. This week alone, 241 sitting days have been missed because of closed courtrooms—241 in three days! Imagine what the figure is over the course of a year. We must ensure that prisoners arrive at court on time. The present contract is not working properly, which leads to many trials collapsing or suffering unacceptable delays. We need to drastically improve court IT, ending the technical failures that waste hours of court time every week. As I said, we need to provide proper support for the criminal Bar. I welcome the Justice Secretary’s modest intervention the other day to ensure that there are enough advocates to prosecute and defend cases. Those are the bottlenecks that actually drive delays. Bottlenecks are a problem of resources and management, not an inevitable side effect of having citizens weigh evidence. Jury trials are not the problem. We must ensure that we get to the root of the challenge, not get rid of something that we have enjoyed for such a long time. Let me mention the degree of opposition to the proposal, which my hon. Friends have rightly mentioned. It is important to note the broad opposition of the legal world, where alarm bells are ringing about the policy. The Law Society, which represents thousands of solicitors, calls it an “extreme measure” that goes too far and fundamentally changes how our justice system operates. Its president, Mark Evans, warns that the plan goes further than the recommendations of Sir Brian Leveson’s review of efficiency, and is not backed by evidence that it will solve the backlog. The Bar Council, which represents barristers, has been equally clear that it sees “no basis for altering the structure of the court system” in this way, and warns that limiting the right to a jury trial strikes at a core citizen’s right.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. and learned Lady is being very generous with her time. The nub of her argument is that reducing the number of jury trials will make a material difference in cutting the backlog. She has quoted some conversations she has had with judges in Canada and so on, and I do not doubt her sincerity and the work she has done. Why will she not commit today to publishing the modelling and evidence basis for the assertions she is making, not in the months to come, but this week or next week—as soon as practicable? I will happily return to this Dispatch Box if she proves me wrong on the basis of the evidence she presents. Will she make that commitment to all of us today?

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

  More

  (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will make a statement on the implications for public safety following the admission that two dangerous offenders, including a convicted murderer, absconded from HMP Leyhill on new year’s day.

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

  More

  So a murderer is on the loose—a murderer and a violent offender. Once again, the Justice Secretary’s strongest ever checks have been a resounding failure, and once again there is a manhunt under way. Precious police resources are being wasted to fix Calamity’s latest cock-up. And where is the Justice Secretary? The Ministry of Justice seems to lose its Secretary of State as much as it does its prisoners. Has his aunt taken him to the January sales to find him a new suit, just in case he gets let loose on Prime Minister’s questions again? Let me ask the Minister instead: why was someone who robbed and brutally killed a man by bashing him on the head with a brick—a man who led a prison riot and attacked prison officers repeatedly—deemed safe for open prison? Why, as we have just learned, did it take 48 hours for the police to raise the alarm? How many other murderers are there in open prisons? How many more mistaken releases have there been since the Justice Secretary last came clean? Once again, the safety of the public is being compromised by the breathtaking incompetence of his Department. What a Christmas it has been for the Justice Secretary. On Boxing day, he said he was delighted to welcome into Britain an extremist who hates our country. The following day, it was revealed that he had invited a disgraced ex-Labour politician convicted of spreading homophobic smears to his official swearing-in as Lord Chancellor. Days later, he paid an Islamist double murderer thousands in compensation, alongside hundreds of thousands in legal fees, much of it to the Justice Secretary’s own colleague’s spouse. Then the Prime Minister’s mentor, a leading KC who clapped him into Downing Street, slammed his shameful plan to slash jury trials. To top it all off, on new year’s day we learned that these prisoners had been let loose. Well, happy new year from the Justice Secretary. It is little wonder that in his first interview of 2026, he said that he was seeking divine retribution—sorry, he meant to say divine intervention. Well, with more of this, God help us all.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Jury Trials Proposal: Impact · Hansard source

  More

  If the Secretary of State maintains that this change will not lead to miscarriages of justice, he must be expecting the same number of cases to be appealed. In which case, there is no point doing it in the first place. The truth, deep down, is that the Government are willing to tolerate some miscarriages of justice to save a paltry sum of money, yet all the while the solution is staring us in the face. Since the Justice Secretary announced his plan on 2 December, 640 sitting days have been missed. It is the end of term. The Justice Secretary’s report card is marked “improvement required”. Will he reflect over Christmas and make scrapping his plan to slash jury trials a new year’s resolution that we can all support?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Jury Trials Proposal: Impact · Hansard source

  More

  Under the Justice Secretary’s plans to slash jury trials, he is giving magistrates more serious cases. However, he also plans to scrap the automatic right to appeal—a vital safety valve in courtrooms where justice is delivered at pace by volunteers. Last year, 5,000 cases from magistrates courts were appealed, of which more than 40% were upheld. Given that very high rate of successful appeals, will the Secretary of State be honest with the public and concede that curtailing appeals will unquestionably lead to miscarriages of justice?

• 16 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  In all the years that I have been in the House, I have never known a Secretary of State fail to answer the first question from his opposite number, but that says a lot about the man. The Justice Secretary was fine answering questions in the media two weeks ago, when the police investigation was under way, but now he says—or his Minister says, in his stead—that it would be inappropriate to comment in the House of Commons. What utter nonsense! Does he seriously think anyone is buying that excuse? He either does not know the details, or he is covering up his failure, both of which are a dereliction of duty. How on earth can the public assist in the manhunts that are presumably under way across our country and clear up his mess if he will not publish the names or mugshots of the prisoners mistakenly released? Once again, he is endangering the British public.

• 16 Dec 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  I commend the Justice Secretary on the Government’s decision to extend whole-life orders to those who kill prison officers. Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of meeting the parents of Lenny Scott when they came to Parliament. It is absolutely right that we extend whole-life orders to cases in which brave prison officers are killed, either in the course of their duties, or in the exceptional circumstances that faced Lenny Scott after he had left the service. The Justice Secretary can be assured of the support of Conservative Members. Two weeks ago, the Justice Secretary appeared on Sky News and revealed that 12 more prisoners had been mistakenly released, and that two remained on the run. I have two very simple questions: since then, how many prisoners have been mistakenly released, and how many more remain on the run?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Proposed local government reorganisation in Rushcliffe · Hansard source

  More

  I rise to present a petition on behalf of almost 15,000 members of the public from the borough of Rushcliffe, much of which falls in my Newark constituency. The petition declares that “the people of Rushcliffe strongly oppose a forced reorganisation of local government which would merge their community into a new authority combining Rushcliffe Borough Council with Nottingham City Council.” The parts of Rushcliffe that I represent are rural areas, made up of market towns, villages and hamlets, and it would be patently absurd for them to be merged with the urban Nottingham city council. These areas have been well served by Rushcliffe borough council for generations, while Nottingham city council has been a catalogue of financial disasters for as long as I can remember. My constituents do not deserve that fate. The petitioners therefore request that “the House of Commons urge the Government to reject the proposal for the Rushcliffe Borough Council area to be merged with the Nottingham City Council area, and to retain the borough of Rushcliffe within the county of Nottinghamshire.” Following is the full text of the petition: [ The petition of residents of the Rushcliffe area, Declares that the people of Rushcliffe strongly oppose a forced reorganisation of local government which would merge their community into a new authority combining Rushcliffe Borough Council with Nottingham City Council. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to reject the proposal for the Rushcliffe Borough Council area to be merged with the Nottingham City Council area, and to retain the borough of Rushcliffe within the county of Nottinghamshire. And the petitioners remain, etc. ] [P003143]

• 8 Dec 2025 · Restriction of Jury Trials · Hansard source

  More

  The Government are slashing jury trials under false pretences. Last week, the Justice Secretary suggested that 60% of those who report being raped are now pulling out of cases because of court delays, but Home Office statistics show that this year, only 9% of rape cases were abandoned after a charge was brought. Although that is not good enough, the fact is that the figure is down, and the number of victim-based prosecutions is near its peak. In some parts of the country, the backlog is far lower, and rape cases are rightly being prioritised. The Justice Secretary’s plans will do next to nothing to cut backlogs for rape victims, but his claims are certain to further erode women’s confidence in the justice system. That was not the only claim that did not stack up. The Justice Secretary said that he will divert cases to the magistrates courts because they “do not currently have a backlog” —[ Official Report , 2 December 2025; Vol. 776, c. 806.] but as of September, there is a backlog—or open caseload, as the Minister now calls it—of 361,000 cases, up 25% on this Government’s watch. He claimed that scrapping juries will cut trial times by 20%, but Sir Brian Leveson’s own review found that figure to be “highly uncertain”, stating that “further detailed analysis” was required. There are still reams of unanswered questions. The Justice Secretary will not let the Crown courts sit around the clock, when today, 63 courtrooms sit completely empty. He will not rule out applying these changes to those who are already in the court backlog, and he will not publish modelling showing that victims of rape will wait less time, or indeed any modelling whatsoever. Unless the Minister can answer those questions today, we can only conclude that the Government simply do not know. If they want to make a major change to our constitution—something that we have enjoyed for 800 years—they should do so on the basis of facts, not baseless claims. The plan is already unravelling, as did the last such attempt 20 years ago. I say to the Minister that it is not too late to avoid a humiliating defeat.