Courts and Tribunals Bill

Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2026.

Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh West)

We are now sitting in public and the proceedings are being broadcast. Before we begin, I remind Members to switch electronic devices to silent, and that tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings.

We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room and on the parliamentary website. It shows how the clauses, schedules and selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. A Member who has put their name to the lead amendment in a group is called to speak first. For debates on clause stand part, the Minister will be called first. Other Members are then free to indicate that they wish to speak in the debate by bobbing. Please bob on each occasion on which you wish to speak during proceedings.

At the end of a debate on a group of amendments and new clauses, I shall call the Member who moved the lead amendment or new clause again. Before they sit down, they will need to indicate whether they wish to withdraw the amendment or new clause, or to seek a decision. If any Member wishes to press to a vote any other amendment in the group, including grouped new clauses, that is at the Chair’s discretion. My fellow Chairs and I shall use our discretion to decide whether to allow a separate stand part debate on individual clauses following the debates on relevant amendments.

I remind Members that decisions take place in the order the provisions appear in the Bill. This means that some amendments may be divided on considerably later than the point at which they are debated. I hope that explanation is helpful.

Clause 1 - Removal of right to elect trial on indictment

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I beg to move amendment 38, in clause 1, page 3, lines 20, at end insert—

“, but see subsection (10).

(10) Notwithstanding the preceding subsections, the accused may elect to be tried on indictment if he demonstrates to the court that the circumstances of his case are such that to be tried on summary would amount to a breach of the principles of natural justice.”

Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

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.

Alex McIntyre (Labour, Gloucester)

The shadow Minister is making an articulate argument about how the criminal justice system might deal differently with different types of offenders, but would he not agree that someone’s background should not determine their guilt? They have either done it or they have not. Actually, someone’s good character and previous clean record is taken into account at sentencing. Will the shadow Minister remind the Committee how sentencing is dealt with in the Crown court—is it by jury or by a judge sitting alone?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

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.

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

Is the hon. Gentleman saying two different things? At the start, I heard him say that we have fairness across the whole criminal justice system, but he seems now to be suggesting that magistrates court trials are inferior and less fair. Is that the position of the Opposition?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

As I said, it is actually the position of the Justice Secretary, in his own report, where he said that the fairest and most balanced element of the justice system is jury trials. If the hon. Member thinks it is odd for me to hold that view, perhaps she should have a conversation with the Justice Secretary.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the question the hon. Member for Gloucester asked shows the crux of one of the issues? He used the term “offender” to describe someone where a verdict has not yet been reached, but they are the defendant. Is the assumption of innocence before guilt is proven not a key principle we should be fighting for?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Absolutely. I have been very careful in writing my speech to not say that and to be clear about that. Again, when we have had debates about people causing the backlog and holding up justice for other victims, there is an inherent assumption that everybody who has been accused is guilty. Of course, we know that is not the case.

As I said, Members should think about the two cases I cited and decide whether it would be fair and just for the individual who has so much more to lose to lose their ability to seek the mode of trial that we have articulated—the mode that Members of the Government are articulating is the fairest way of deciding things—when the person with the repeat record, who does not have a reputation or job to lose, gets to continue doing all the things that the Government have said are wrong, such as holding up trials in other, more serious cases.

Members who have read ahead may think that there is some overlap between our amendment and the way in which I have articulated it and amendment 24, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden, and they would be right. Our thinking is the same. Our intention and the issues we are trying to elucidate are the same. Of course, we know that we are joined politically in our views on this issue, not by the Ministers in their former articulation of what is important to them, but by 37 Labour MPs who signed a letter in opposition to the erosion of our jury trial rights by clause 1 and other similar clauses. I will name just a few of them: the Mother of the House and the hon. Members for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson), for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) and for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald). They are very far away from me on the political spectrum—some of them could not be further away—but, along with their other colleagues, they are clear that the proposals are wrong, and I wholeheartedly agree with them on that.

Those Members—Labour Members—rightly say that these proposals are “madness” and will cause more problems than they solve and that the public will not stand for this erosion of a fundamental right, particularly given that there are numerous other things that the Government can do more effectively to reduce the backlog. I guess that where there are 37 Labour MPs willing to put their name to a letter, there are many more concerned in private, and I am sure that various Members were allowed to be absent from the estate for some of our earlier votes.

I ask Government Members to think about their colleagues and the difficult position that they will put them in if clause 1 and associated clauses are passed. The Government have quite simply failed to articulate why these proposals are the only way forward. The Government might have received a more sympathetic reception had they truly exhausted all the other options—if they had stretched every sinew since their election to tackle this issue.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

The removal of the cap on sitting days appears to be bringing the backlog down, which I think everyone in the Chamber can agree is a good thing. Why are the Government not looking at that, projecting it forward and taking that into account before making radical changes that remove rights of citizens?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

It seems that my hon. Friend has been reading the same reports from the Criminal Bar Association as I have. They were reported in the press last weekend or the weekend before, I think, and identified a number of regions, according to their analysis, where the backlogs were coming down as a result of the changes that were already being made.

Let us be clear, we are sympathetic to every single victim who is waiting longer than they should for a jury trial. As the Minister kindly accepted in the evidence sessions, it would be totally wrong to say that those of us across all the elements of the political spectrum who oppose the changes do so with any kind of disregard or lack of sympathy or care for victims and what they are going through. Some of the ways in which those long waits have been articulated and framed as caused by jury trials is not helpful, because less than 10% of drop-outs occur post charge. That figure is coming down this year, so the number of people who are dropping out post charge is reducing.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

Would the shadow Minister also be interested to understand the impact of the three-year suspension on sentences that went live just a few weeks ago on the projections going forward and on the impact on the Crown court backlog?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Indeed. I hope that the Minister can start to address the figures from the Criminal Bar Association, in particular, and to articulate whether she agrees or disagrees with them. If she disagrees, why? As the Criminal Bar Association makes clear, if the Government had sight of that data—they would have known ahead of the Committee’s evidence sessions, and potentially some of the earlier stages of the Bill, that those figures were coming down—why did they choose not to make such potentially important information available to those of us considering the Bill? It is not helpful for Members to quote waits of four or five years for people to get to trial when, in fact, those figures can relate to the delay between the alleged offence and sentencing. Yes, waits for trial from the point of charge are too long, but that is just part of the picture.

Of course, the obvious weakness in the Government’s arguments that this is a measure to tackle what we should all consider to be a temporary problem—getting back to our historical court waiting times—is that these measures are permanent, without any plan to reverse them when the backlog is down to pre-pandemic levels. As I have said, we have precedent for that. During world war two, when we made changes to the number of people sitting on juries, we reversed those changes when the crisis was resolved.

The Government have announced an intention to recruit and train a further 2,000 magistrates in the next financial year. That is welcome, but recruiting and training magistrates takes time, and, in fact, the delays in the magistrates courts themselves loom over us. On the other hand, the Bar Council rightly points out how many barristers have left the profession. Those are trained, ready-to-go professionals, choosing not to practise criminal law, who could quite easily return to criminal practice, compared with having to train a magistrate from scratch.

What is missing from the Government’s approach is any serious attempt to make the most of the capacity that we already have. Court sitting days are still being wasted. Yesterday alone, 58 out of 515 Crown courtrooms sat empty—that is 11%. I am sure that, as we go through the day and proceedings move forward, we will get the figures for today. I imagine that those will be in line with every other day that the Idle Courts X account, which I think those of us following this debate have become great admirers of, shows day in, day out: Crown courtrooms sitting empty.

Trials also still collapse due to basic administrative failures. None of the problems are solved by curtailing the right to elect. As I have said, only a few years ago the Justice Secretary described jury trials as fundamental to our democracy—a sentiment that every Member of this House must share—yet now, in office, he appears willing to curtail them in the name of expediency.

This proposal also was not in the Labour manifesto at the election. A change of this nature—an unprecedented erosion of a fundamental right that we have all enjoyed for hundreds and hundreds of years—was not in that manifesto. I think that makes it extremely difficult for the Government to insist, particularly in the Lords, where I am sure very many Members will have serious concerns, that they have any kind of democratic mandate to push through these reforms.

Of course, we have been here before. In what will come as little surprise to many Members, just as with Labour’s current proposals to fatally weaken the punitive elements of our justice system by letting serious violent and sexual offenders out of prison earlier, Jack Straw, the then Justice Secretary, also proposed removing the right to a jury trial in either-way offences when Labour was last in office. As is the case today, Members across the House and stakeholders fought against, and successfully defeated, those proposals.

We can therefore do away with the pretence that this is entirely the workings of an independent figure in Sir Brian Leveson. Although I have no doubt that he came to his conclusions independently, I imagine that those old proposals had been sat in the Ministry of Justice, waiting for the right Minister for civil servants to press this idea on, and they found that in our Justice Secretary and our Prime Minister.

We would be right to fear that it is the thin end of the wedge. Often such arguments are hypothetical: we say, “Well, we think this is the thin end of the wedge; some future Government or future Minister will want to go further.” Thanks to the plans being leaked, we know what the current Justice Secretary wanted to do. He wanted to go much further than even the proposals we see before us by removing jury trials for offences carrying sentences of up to five years—five years! Where will the Government go next if they succeed with these proposals?

Sir Brian Leveson’s review made clear that the estimate of a 20% reduction in trial times is subject to what he described as “very high levels of uncertainty”. That uncertainty reads across to the other measures, including clause 1, which we are considering today. He said that it was very important that the Government undertook further detailed analysis before moving ahead with those proposals. When I put that to him during evidence, he simply said—I am paraphrasing but I think it is a fair and accurate description—that that is now a matter for the Government, and he was not willing to be drawn on whether they had actually done that further detailed analysis.

I brought up the main additional piece of analysis that the Ministry undertook, which was a stakeholder engagement exercise—not a typical one that seeks to measure and come up with firm outcomes. It found that the time saving was between 10% and 30%, so there is a huge variation in what the Government may or may not achieve, and, fundamentally, it is potentially very different from what even Sir Brian recommended.

Jury trials are not an obstacle to justice; they are a safeguard against its abuse. They ensure that the most serious power that the state holds—the power to convict and imprison—is exercised, where possible, with the consent and involvement of the public. If we allow that safeguard to be weakened, we should not be surprised when public trust in the justice system continues to erode. The answer to a justice system in crisis is not to strip away centuries-old protections; it is to make the system work as it should. That is why the proposals are wrong and should be opposed.

If the Government are serious about reducing backlogs, there are obvious steps they could take that do not involve weakening constitutional safeguards. I will come back to those at further stages, but I draw Members’ attention to the evidence given by the operations director in His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service—the civil servant in charge of making our courts run more smoothly, efficiently and productively. I asked him what he thought were the priorities for bringing down the Crown court backlog. He mentioned lifting the cap on sitting days. He welcomed that and said it made a big difference. The other examples he gave were improvements to prison transport and to listing. None of those priorities had anything to do with jury trials. The man charged with making our system run more efficiently, when asked to list his key priorities, did not say anything to do with jury trials in his first four points. As I have said, a second report from Sir Brian goes through a whole range of measures that will improve the efficiency and productivity of our courts. We have some further amendments for later stages to tease out some of those, and I look forward to considering them.

Let us be clear. The burden on this Government is extremely high, as it should be, to make the case for unprecedented changes to halve the number of individuals able to have a jury trial. The Government could have spent time—two or three years—hammering the uncontroversial things that have political consensus and are able to make a difference. They could have looked at Liverpool Crown court, which does not have a historical backlog. As Sir Brian said in his evidence, to some extent, every court has a backlog of cases waiting to be heard, which is helpful for managing those cases, but there are normal levels of waiting time that are accepted without people having to go back to the judge and ask for more time.

As I understand it, the Minister has not visited Liverpool Crown court in the last 12 to 18 months. She can correct me if I am wrong. I do not think the Deputy Prime Minister has visited Liverpool Crown court either.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I have visited lots and lots of courts.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Indeed, but, as I said, I do not think the Minister has actually visited the court that is most successfully managing and dealing with these issues, which is somewhat odd. I would have been visiting that court and trying to understand and replicate, in detail, every single thing that it does. If, in the end, the Government had found something that made the difference we all want, there could have been a different conversation, but they chose not to do that.

As I put to the Minister during our evidence sessions, politicians and Departments have only so much capacity and political attention, and only so much they can do with their time. Instead of investing that time, energy and attention into the detailed work of doing things better and improving the system, the Government are embarking on a reform programme that I suspect will end up overwhelming the Minister’s time. It will be a huge distraction from the very hard and detailed work that she needs to lead. I accept that she will try her absolute best to continue to deliver across the spectrum, but the political reality will be very different.

We oppose clause 1. We tabled an amendment that would, to some extent, limit the damage that it does, but we are clear that it should not proceed at all. The Government have completely failed to articulate robustly, and with clear, reliable data, the impact that it will have. They have not answered the very many criticisms put forward by those practising in the system every day about what will have an impact, and they have not secured the Opposition’s support for the curtailment and erosion of a fundamental right that has been with us for hundreds of years.

Siân Berry (Green, Brighton Pavilion)

It is great to see you in the Chair today, Ms Jardine. I oppose clause 1 and its many implications for justice. It takes away the defendant’s right to elect a trial by jury for all either-way offences, which, according to the Bill’s impact assessment, will reduce jury trials by half. That is no minor thing, and I agree with the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle that clause 1 must be removed from the Bill, as well as clauses 2 to 7, which we will debate later.

Compared with the removal of half of jury trials, there would be a highly contested and—in the Government’s own estimates—much smaller impact on efficiency in the courts. There is also the potential for the workload in the magistrates court and the Crown court to increase beyond what is estimated. As Emma Torr from APPEAL highlighted during our oral evidence session, this will include new allocation processes and new multi-step processes for considering appeals, and the need for judges to spend time outlining reasons for their decisions, which juries do not have to do. The chair of the Bar Council of England and Wales also told us about the impact on confidence in the system, stating:

“Overall, the jury system is seen as the only part that still works, so why are we focusing on that? We want to focus on all those aspects that will reduce delays now, rather than hacking at a constitutional cornerstone, which also reflects community participation.”––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 25 March 2026; c. 40, Q72.]

This cutback in jury trials is not the measure promised to victims of sexual and domestic violence in the Labour manifesto, and later we will consider amendments that would what was promised. This cut is not a measure that will, under the current system, help victims through more compassionate and better trained court processes, or by improving outdated buildings where they currently risk contact with their abusers. The lack of legal support for magistrates court processes could, as we heard from the head of JUSTICE, lead to more victims being cross-examined by their own abusers.

We heard clearly from the leaders of the circuits that those working in criminal justice day in, day out have not yet been able to employ the real efficiencies that could come with more investment and innovation, and that would bring down the backlog without the measures in the clause. Those include the better user of technology, more sitting days, blitz courts and improvements at the investigation stage. I believe that we must act on the backlog, but that must start with those measures and the increased investment that is needed to correct what the chair of the Bar Council told us about investment under successive Governments. She said:

“We saw a rapid cutting of MOJ funding between 2009-10 and 2022-23: it declined by 22.4%. We are about 30% below where we should be.”––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 25 March 2026; c. 41, Q75.]

The main point I want to express today is my concern about the motivation behind the choices that the Government have made in these proposals by taking up, and deviating from, the recommendations of the independent review of the criminal courts in a particular way, and about how the severe erosion of the principle of jury equity can apply to certain types of defendants and certain offences in a way that I suspect this clause is aimed at. That really eats away at a constitutional cornerstone in a truly historic way. It eats away at the principle of jury equity.

We know that jury trials are more often chosen by black and other minority defendants, and that public confidence in a jury of their peers to see through institutional biases is real. We know that defendants whose crimes have been protests, motivated by the public interest and committed to expose or impede powerful corporate or corrupt organisations and practices, also feel this way.

Tim Crosland’s oral evidence on behalf the campaign group Defend Our Juries, which was set up before this Bill was proposed in anticipation of an attack on jury trials, told us about key recent protest cases where juries have chosen acquittal and applied the principle of jury equity in practice. Those included:

“In April 2021, the Shell six, who had spray painted “Shell Lies” on Shell headquarters, were acquitted by a jury. In January 2022, the Colston four, who toppled the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol harbour, were acquitted by a jury. In November 2022, members of Palestine Action, who had defaced Elbit Systems—suppliers of drones to the Israel Defence Forces—were acquitted by a jury. In January 2023, members of Insulate Britain were acquitted by a jury for blocking roads.”––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 25 March 2026; c. 89, Q192.]

Tim Crosland told us how the principle of jury equity is there to apply to cases of conscience in which people’s actions were motivated by the public interest. He told us about the High Court’s 2024 judgment in the case of 69-year-old retired social worker Trudi Warner, who had displayed information about the principle outside a court hearing a protest case. It is worth our listening to more details of what was said in that judgment. Paragraph 16 discusses how the principle of jury equity is well established in our common law and recognised across the common law world. The judge gives several examples from Canada, New Zealand and the United States of the principle being applied. The judgment also talks about how its origins lie in Bushel’s case, from 1670, which

“arose out of the prosecution of two Quaker preachers for holding an unlawful assembly. The Recorder of London, presiding at the trial, directed the jury to convict. The jury refused. They were fined and imprisoned until payment. It was this imprisonment that the jurors successfully challenged by habeas corpus, on the basis that juries have a right to find facts and apply the law to those facts according to conscience and without reprisal.”

The judgment also quotes Lord Bingham, in another landmark judgment, on the principle’s history. He states that

“the acquittals of such high-profile defendants as Ponting, Randle and Pottle have been quite as much welcomed as resented by the public, which over many centuries has adhered tenaciously to its historic choice that decisions on the guilt of defendants charged with serious crime should rest with a jury of lay people, randomly selected, and not with professional judges.”

He added:

“I know of no other real checks that exist today upon the power of the executive.”

In my speech on Second Reading, I pointed out that a number of offences created recently to react to successful direct action protests now sit in the triable either-way category. They include, in the Public Order Act 2023, new offences about interference with key national infrastructure, including blocking roads, and specific offences about causing serious disruption by tunnelling; and, in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the offence of causing public nuisance, which replaced a common law offence and applies a higher penalty for acts that create serious annoyance or inconvenience, such as noisy protests.

Importantly, Tim Crosland pointed out to us in his oral evidence that the choices the Government have made in how to implement this measure will serve to virtually eliminate jury equity in practice. He told us that, of the more than 200 people jailed in the past few years for peaceful protest, only one has been jailed for more than three years. In that light, it is suspicious that the Government have chosen three years as the threshold in the Bill, despite the Leveson report’s recommendation of two years. Sir Brian also recommended raising the financial threshold below which criminal damage—often how direct action protests are charged—is charged as a summary offence and kept in the magistrates court, where sentences are limited, but the Government are not raising that threshold. Sir Brian also said that restricting the right to elect for jury trial was

“contingent upon magistrates’ sentencing powers remaining at the current…12 months”,

but the Government propose powers to increase them instead. He also recommended that the new bench division should sit with a judge and two magistrates, to maintain a lay element in these Crown court cases, but the Government have chosen to ignore that, too.

As far as the recent examples of cases in which jury equity has been applied are concerned, all those deviations from the recommendations point in the same way. In the light of evidence that other measures would be more effective at backlog reduction, it therefore seems to me that at least one motivation for adopting this measure is to stop the embarrassment of jury equity. I did not get the chance to ask the Minister about this during the oral evidence, but has she discussed with colleagues, companies or other interests targeted by protesters the implications and impact of the Bill and this clause, in deviating from the Leveson recommendations in the way that it does, on the important principle of jury equity?

Finally, on Second Reading, I raised the question of whether these measures are yet another part of a package of the Government’s wider attacks on civil liberties. I have described this package as a “toolkit for tyrants” that includes

“digital ID, facial recognition surveillance on our streets and the erosion of fundamental asylum rights—all things contrary to our British values and which should not be packaged up for this or any future Government to use against minorities…and dissidents.”—[Official Report, 10 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 249-250.]

I would like the Minister to reflect on the potential future impact of this attack on jury equity under a much worse Government.

Alex McIntyre (Labour, Gloucester)

While we are on the subject of British values, is the Green party in Westminster’s position that criminals should go to jail? A Green party candidate in Scotland has said that they should close all the prisons in Scotland. Can she clarify the Green party’s position on that for the Committee?

Siân Berry (Green, Brighton Pavilion)

The Scottish Green party is a separate party from the Green party of England and Wales, so I cannot vouch for its policies. However, the Green party’s justice policies look in the round at what is effective in reducing crime, rehabilitating offenders and improving society, based on evidence. I am sure that the Scottish Green party have those principles in mind with any policy it puts forward.

That is the end of what I was planning to say, and I hope we will hear more from the Minister about the erosion of jury equity and what Tim Crosland, in relation to the Bill, called its complete elimination. This will be an important effect of what is being proposed, and it has not had enough debate as yet.

Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Bolton South and Walkden)

Before I turn to the substance of this clause, I want to begin by setting out the perspective from which I speak. Before entering Parliament, I worked as a prosecutor for more than 14 years. During that time, I dealt with a wide range of serious cases, including sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence, historical child abuse and cases involving families and vulnerable victims.

On a daily basis, I saw at first hand the impact of the criminal justice system on victims, witnesses and their families, as well as their emotions, their concerns and the importance of ensuring that justice is done fairly and transparently. Although I have not practised in recent years, my understanding of the system remains current. I remain in regular contact with practitioners, including solicitors, barristers, members of the judiciary and colleagues in the CPS, and I continue to follow closely what is happening in both the magistrates court and the Crown court.

In addition, during my time as a shadow Justice Minister, I worked on issues relating to prisons, probation and the courts, and I have seen how changes in the system, including the increased use of technology, remote hearings and the handling of evidence, have affected the way that justice is delivered. So I speak on this Bill from a position of experience and of ongoing engagement with the criminal justice system. Colleagues will be relieved to know that I will not be repeating this preamble in any future contributions.

Let me begin by addressing what lies at the heart of this Bill: the restriction of jury trials. Trial by jury is not a procedural detail; it is one of the most fundamental safeguards in our justice system. It reflects the simple but powerful principle that when the state seeks to take away a person’s liberty, that decision should not rest with the state alone, but with ordinary citizens—a jury of their peers.

That principle has a deep constitutional root—from Bushel’s case in 1670, which established the independence of juries, to its role across the common law world, trial by jury has long stood as a protection against arbitrary power. That is not just a feature of our legal system, but a principle reflected across the common law jurisdiction and a recognition that justice must be seen to be done and must not rely solely on the state. It is also one of the reasons that the public has confidence in our system.

The proposal in clause 1 to remove the right to elect a jury trial is not a trivial matter. It covers offences such as theft, fraud and stalking that carry real-life consequences, including custodial sentences, reputational harm and long-term impacts on people’s lives. The Government argue that the measure is necessary to deal with the delay in the system. I have great sympathy with the Government about the massive delay in the court system but, respectfully, jury trials are not causing that delay.

The reality is that the backlog is the result of decisions taken over many years. I hold the coalition Government of 2010 to 2015 and the Conservative Governments of 2015 onwards responsible. It was their actions—their cuts—that caused the delay in our court system. Courtrooms were closed: in one Crown court that had 20 courtrooms, only 10 were sitting. Judicial days were also cut off and reduced, so there were not enough recorders, judges and others to try the cases. Court clerks were made redundant. Courts were sold off for private residential accommodation. Legal aid was cut massively so that most defendants turning up in court did not have a right to it.

The Ministry of Justice has not treated the system as a priority. We know that when the Conservative Government came in, a financial reduction was required in all Departments, but the MOJ was asked to take the most cuts—something in the region of 30%. Hence we have the problem that this Labour Government inherited. We need to think about why we are in this situation. I understand why the Government want to do what they are doing, but with respect, the jury is not the reason for the delay. Apart from the cuts in courts and judicial sittings, there are also delays in disclosure, challenges in managing digital evidence, backlogs in forensic analysis and problems with prisoner transport. As I understand it, under the Conservative Government the rules were changed: if a prisoner was not able to be produced on time, there was a penalty clause, and those penalties were taken away as well.

On the issue of delays, I will refer to three cases happening in our Crown courts at this time. I will not mention their names, and they do not share my surname, but several members of my family are also barristers. One is defending a case brought on several counts of rape. The case was due to start trial yesterday but the prosecution had not served unused material. Because the court had a few extra days, it said that the unused materials must be served and the defence will go through them today to decide whether they can continue with the case. That is not a one-off case; it happens quite a lot. The whole issue of unused materials needs to be addressed. That could be the fault of the police, the CPS, or nobody—maybe somebody has forgotten about it; maybe the information did not come to light—but unused material is a big problem and one of the reasons that certain cases get adjourned.

Another cause of delays is where the defence do not serve documents on time. One member of my family is defending a case today in a Crown court and got the defence case statement literally two weeks ago, even though the trial date was set 15 months ago and, again, there is missing evidence. If there is a problem, they may well have to ask for an adjournment. That means that we need to address the core underfunding of legal aid—of solicitors and barristers—so that people can get to cases on time.

In a third case, which happened only a few weeks ago, a trial started and the witness-victim gave evidence for three days on the trot. However, because the judge had another commitment, which was pre-pencilled months beforehand and which he was not able to get out of, the court did not have enough court days, there were no other sittings available and the whole case had to be adjourned to another day. I am trying to illustrate that juries are not the reason for the delay. Unless and until we address other things—the CPS, the judiciary, sitting days, the courts, the transportation of prisoners—we will not resolve the problems we face. I am trying not to be party political, but I am sorry to say that those are the direct results of 14 years of Conservative Government. That has caused us these problems.

When I practised in criminal law, we did not have a jury trial problem or delays in the system, even though there were many more cases that were going from the magistrates court to the Crown court because the magistrates’ sentencing power was not sufficient to deal with the number of cases. We never had delays, and that was because we had full-time courts operating. We had many judges and many recorders. We had people sitting and able to deal with these cases.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

If the situation the courts find themselves in is so obviously caused by the previous Government, why on earth is the hon. Member’s Government scrapping jury trials as a response?

Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Bolton South and Walkden)

The restriction on some cases not being tried in jury trials is because the Government feel that that will help to bring down the delay in court listing. I say to the Government that the problem is not the jury system, but the fact that other provisions need to be made sufficient. I am afraid that the problem was 14 years of Conservative cuts—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was a Member then. The Conservative Government did not take the Ministry of Justice seriously. There was a Lord Chancellor virtually every year—in 14 years, I think we had 10 Lord Chancellors, which tells us how important the criminal justice system was to the now Opposition.

To go back to my point about clause 1, and all the other clauses that follow, I urge my colleagues and the Minister to please rethink this whole thing. Juries are not the cause of the delay in our system.

Jessica Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat, Chichester)

I will speak about the Liberal Democrats’ opposition to clause 1. The main reason why clause 1 should not be included in the Bill is that it fundamentally transforms the relationships that defendants have with the justice system. It is really important to make it clear that we are talking about defendants who have entered a not guilty plea, rather than the language that has been used this morning.

In particular, clause 1 removes the defendant’s ability to object to summary trial in the magistrates court—a process that is streamlined for swift justice and should be reserved for less serious cases. In his independent review of the criminal courts, Sir Brian Leveson recommended removing the right to elect a Crown court trial for certain low-level either-way offences that carry a maximum sentence length of two years or less. The Bill would remove the right to elect Crown court trial for all either-way offences. Concerns have been raised publicly about that, including the quality of justice, the capacity of the magistrates court and the fairness of applying this retrospectively.

Magistrates courts also face an increasing backlog, which is currently at 379,000 cases. That is a 17% increase on the previous year, alongside a huge drop in the number of magistrates over the past 20 years—from 28,300 to now 14,600. I am very aware that the Government are embarking on a journey to try to bring more magistrates into the system, but as they increase the number of magistrates, there are also magistrates leaving the system, so it is a real struggle to increase the number.

Removing the power of defendants to elect will increase the workload of the magistrates court, and the system will struggle to absorb that. Many in the legal profession have made that point. It would also be unfair to apply this change retrospectively. Consent is the appropriate basis for the most serious cases to be tried within a summary process. Changing the provision for more serious offences—to be clear, we are talking about things like possession with intent to supply, unlawful wounding and sexual assault—risks miscarriages of justice, as more serious cases would face summary trials in higher volumes, with reduced rights of appeal.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. It is a pleasure once again to be locked up in a Bill Committee with the Minister. It has been a while, and I am feeling nostalgic; it is wonderful to be here with her again. Maybe one day we will be on the same side—that would be nice, wouldn’t it?

I will speak against the clause in its entirety and in support of the amendment. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden for her powerful contribution. What she is doing is incredibly brave. It is not an easy thing to be sat on the Government Benches with a different view. I really hope that everyone will listen to what she had to say, because I think she was balanced in her approach: she was critical of the previous Government, and did not pull her punches on where she thinks the issues arose, but she suggested some good measures and made good points that we could adopt to address the backlog. That is the one thing that we all agree on in this room: we all want to address the backlog. We can rake over the past all we like, or we can look forward and do the right thing for the British people.

Clause 1 is an egregious clause that seeks to remove one of our fundamental rights. It seeks to remove the right of an adult defendant charged with a triable either-way offence to elect for Crown court trial instead. Instead, the mode of trial will be determined solely by the magistrates courts. In practice, that means that defendants who currently have a right to trial by jury—the right to be judged by their peers—will no longer have it.

The Government have suggested that this unprecedented change to our justice system will impact only those accused of shoplifting and other petty crimes, but that is not the case. It impacts those accused of an either-way offence where the sentence would be for up to three years in prison—three years. It will impact people charged with causing death by careless driving, committing fraud, sexual assault or actual bodily harm, and many other serious offences. Those are not minor or petty by any stretch and can be life changing for everyone involved. Removing the right to jury trial for such crimes is not a minor tweak to our justice system; it takes a sledgehammer to it.

Trial by jury is an English institution, which has served for centuries to ensure that justice is done. No justice system works if it is not accepted and respected by its people. It is vital that we remember that before making changes. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater on an ideological whim is an irresponsible act. Dispensing justice is not just another process with checkboxes; it impacts people’s lives irrevocably. Decisions about how our system operates should be taken carefully and responsibly in recognition of that, and should allow an element of flexibility in the approach to get the right outcomes. That is what the amendment seeks to add.

I urge the Government to tread carefully before throwing away something that has worked for hundreds of years, and that the British people value and respect. The common-sense determination of 12 citizens is often exactly what is needed to ensure fair justice. They are not jaded or desensitised to crime, because they have not had to sit through it day in, day out for years on end. They have not seen over their whole career the worst of humanity. They are from all walks of life, bringing diversity, and often compassion and understanding to the process. The Government can of course force the change through with the numbers they have, if they so wish, but I urge them to reflect on whether that is truly the legacy that they want.

The planned limitation of the right to trial in the clause is justified by the Government as a necessary measure to get the Crown court backlog down. They defend this extraordinary restriction of our rights by arguing that the changes put victims first and at the heart of the justice system, but I remind the Government that before any verdict, there are no victims and offenders, only defendants and complainants. In this country, we are innocent until proven guilty. Justice is not just about victims; it is also about fairness for the accused, too.

Matt Bishop (Labour, Forest of Dean)

The hon. Member is presenting her case, her argument, very well and eloquently. To pick up on one point, she said that there were no victims before the verdict, but I would argue that there is always a victim when a case is in court. There is a victim—just because no one has been convicted, the victim is still a victim of a crime. Does she not agree?

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, but I do not agree, because sometimes a crime has not been committed. It is important that we use the right terms. The Government have a tendency to talk a lot about victims; they have effectively pitted victims against anyone who happens to stand up and say, “Actually, maybe we shouldn’t get rid of our right to a jury trial.” That is the wrong approach to take. It is important that we use the right terminology, and that we do not shame people into silence for daring to suggest that the removal of jury trials may be an issue in some cases. The language that we use is really important.

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

It is right that we should talk about language. I refer the hon. Member to guidance on the CPS website in relation to the use of the term “victim”. In its guidance, the CPS says that it often uses the word “victim” when talking about general crime. When someone is making a speech in Parliament to say that there are victims waiting for justice, it is perfectly right and proper to do so, because they are not talking about an individual case. That is set out in the CPS guidance.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, but we need to always be aware of the technical definition of the words that we are using. When the Government talk constantly about victims needing justice, and it all being about victims, I am not sure it is in the right spirit.

What all of us in this Committee Room agree on, however, is that the Crown court backlog is a critical problem that needs to be addressed. But limiting trial by jury is not the way to do it. We have heard that repeatedly from knowledgeable and experienced people working in the justice system—we have even heard it from one of the Government’s own Members, the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden. The Bar Council does not support it, the Criminal Bar Association is opposed, and the Law Society says the Government’s proposals go too far.

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

We have heard a lot about the Bar Council and the Law Society. What we have not heard a lot about is the position of the Crown Prosecution Service on this point. If the Crown Prosecution Service was a legal firm, it would be the biggest in the country. It has thousands of lawyers working for it. Tom Guest, a member of the policy team at the Crown Prosecution Service gave evidence to the Justice Committee, in which he set out that the CPS is supportive of this legislation to look at structural reform. He said that it is not the only answer, but that it is necessary. The CPS considers us to be at a critical juncture, and that the backlog needs dealing with. Does the hon. Member agree that it is not universally the case that people working within the criminal justice system are against the legislation? Actually, the biggest law firm in the country is in favour of these structural reforms.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point, and I of course agree. Clearly, there is not a consensus, which is why we are here today, but we can categorically state that most knowledgeable and experienced people working in the justice system are against what this Labour Government are trying to do.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The policy adviser of the CPS does not represent the individual views of all the different people who work for the CPS. The suggestion that, because the policy lead or the senior management team have a view, everyone who works for the CPS thinks that this is the right thing is obviously complete nonsense.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. If I recall correctly, the hon. Member for Amber Valley has previously worked in the CPS—she might want to disclose her interest.

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

Yes, that is correct; I was a Crown prosecutor for 21 years, and I worked all the way through the terrible, terrible years when the Conservative Government were absolutely ripping apart our criminal justice system, so I speak with experience on this matter. I speak with a lot of former colleagues who still work on the frontline, and every single one of them supports this proposal. The difficulty is that, as civil servants, they cannot speak out. That is why we do not hear from them as much as we do from barristers. I worked at the CPS until just before the general election, so my experience is very recent.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point, and I hope that she is comfortable having put that on the record. It is good to hear her view.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

People who work for the CPS have privately expressed to me that they are against these proposals but, as I have said, the idea that a chat with a few former colleagues is representative of the views of the thousands of people involved in different ways with what the CPS does is completely unsustainable.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I completely agree with him, and I remind the Committee that most people in this country are against these changes. Most people who know about the justice system are against the changes—[Interruption.] I know it is really hard for Labour Members to hear that they are not on the side of the people on this one. How has it all gone wrong? They have forgotten who they are and who they represent. It is a sad day.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

This is an extraordinary exchange. I accept that the hon. Member for Amber Valley is not the official voice of the CPS or of the Labour Government, but her sense of “officialdom knows best” will give ordinary men and women in this country great concerns about these changes. Of course, there are some cases in which there is no victim. There are some cases in which the victim is a person who has been falsely accused. That is why we have a legal system in which the ordinary men and women of this country are judged by their peers. That is the principle that is up for debate here—not some wider official view from a prosecuting organisation, rather than the courts.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I thank my hon. Friend for that point; he makes it eloquently, as always.

I really enjoyed going through the groups that do not support these proposals. Obviously, the Government like to rely heavily on Sir Brian Leveson’s findings and recommendations, but when my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East questioned him in the oral evidence session, he did not blame jury trials.

Fundamentally, jury trials are not the problem. They are not creating the delays, so limiting them will not address the backlog. In fact, their curtailment will likely bring a whole host of other issues to the table that were not there before. The Bar Council believes that the changes

“will produce serious adverse consequences that have not properly been considered by the Government.”

In the light of such uncertain outcomes, I find it difficult to understand why the Government will not perform a pilot first to test the proposal or put in place a time limitation more generally. To plough ahead in this way, with no way back in the event of failure, is reckless by any measure. A more cautious approach might have been more positively received.

As we heard from Kirsty Brimelow KC, the chair of the Bar Council, it is vital that we approach the backlog problem logically, look at where the delays are occurring and target them. For rape cases, the majority of the delay is actually at the investigation and charge point, which takes an average of two years. Although the one-year delay at court stage is too long, the lion’s share of the problem is pre-court—perhaps the CPS can help with that one—so let us deal with that.

The Government should open all the courts so that they can hear cases every day. Yesterday, 11% of Crown courts were not sitting, and I am sure we will find out later what the percentage is today. Revising the contract with Prisoner Escort and Custody Services to ensure that defendants are delivered to the dock on time would also help. Giving proper consideration to specialist rape and serious sexual offences courts to deal with sexual offence cases and addressing the many inefficiencies and delays in the system through a better use of technology would no doubt greatly reduce the backlog.

It is also important that we give the steps that the Government have already taken to address the backlog an adequate chance to filter through. One example is increased sitting days: in February 2026, the Justice Secretary announced that there would be no cap on sitting days for ’26-27, which will undoubtedly help.

In addition, last month, powers were granted to suspend custodial sentences of up to three years, a change from the previous two years. Putting aside whether that is a sensible measure, it will undoubtedly increase the number of guilty pleas. That means fewer trials and a decrease in the backlog. The Government should properly model the impact of those significant changes on the backlog before imposing such a draconian limitation on jury trials. I would be grateful if the Minister could share any projections of the impact of those two changes on the backlog and clarify whether they have been factored into the “do nothing” option of the impact assessment. It looks as though they might not have been included, because they are not referenced.

If clause 1 is accepted, there are several types of serious cases where the defendant might now lose their right to elect for trial by jury. It has been suggested by the Justice Secretary that only cases involving minor offences, such as stealing a bottle of whisky, will be impacted, but that is not the case. Let us start with causing death by careless driving. That is a serious offence—rightly so, given that a life has been lost—and it carries a maximum five-year sentence and driving disqualification. Currently, the defendant has the right to elect for trial by jury. That is especially important in such cases, where the difference between careless and unfortunate is not entirely clear.

It is exactly that type of case where we see the benefit of 12 individuals, all with different experiences, using their judgment to decide whether the defendant crossed the line into “careless”. Under clause 1, that right is no longer available; the judge will decide on their own. Imagine a defendant who is innocent. Their whole life, and that of their family, is to be decided by one person—their bad day can destroy the defendant’s entire life. Their case might not even make it to a judge; it could remain in the magistrates court. Surely the intention was never for our magistrates courts to hear cases involving the loss of a life.

Sexual assault is another serious offence. It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment and inclusion on the sex offenders register. It is also completely life-changing for everyone involved. Under clause 1, the defendant’s right to choose a jury trial will be removed. Many of those cases could end up in the magistrates courts, but they are nothing like the normal cases seen in magistrates courts day to day: they are highly sensitive and complex, involving third-party disclosure, and video recorded and forensic evidence. They are not simple add-ons to what those courts already do. With the best will in the world, they do not currently have the capability or skillset to handle such specialist cases involving traumatised victims.

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

May I refer the hon. Member to the fact that the youth courts often deal with cases of this nature? They have sentencing powers of up to two years. Would the hon. Member suggest that youths are not getting a fair trial in those circumstances?

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but I will not comment on that specifically. I am talking about the magistrates courts, which generally deal with low-level motoring offences.

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

But they are magistrates.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I will look into the hon. Lady’s point, and I have no doubt that we will talk about that later on.

Can a Government who pride themselves on putting victims first truly be comfortable with what I have just laid out? Those are just two examples, but we see the same pattern for numerous other serious offences such as actual bodily harm, fraud and affray. In what world can those offences ever be considered minor enough to qualify only for summary justice? I do not believe that this is what victims want, either. For justice to be done, they need to have complete confidence that people will respect and accept the verdict given. That is a key part of the justice process.

Limiting jury trials for some of the most serious offences will mean that a verdict, whether innocent or guilty, will lose its current gospel status in the eyes of the populus. Clause 1 sows doubt into our justice system, and that doubt will eat away at it. At the opposite end of the spectrum less serious offences are impacted, but that will still have huge ramifications for the individual in the dock. We must always remember the human being at the centre of this. The offence with which someone is charged may be minor, but that does not stop it being the worst thing that has ever happened to them.

Ironically, the people most impacted by these changes are those who are most likely to be innocent: first-time defendants. Repeat offenders are more likely to qualify for the Crown court; the shadow Minister eloquently explained that in his opening remarks. The human cost can be seen in an example included in the written evidence submitted by the Bar Council:

“Consider a 19-year-old student living in a house with other students. A small amount of ‘spice’ is found in their room, and they are charged with possession with intent to supply. They are of good character. Under the sentencing guidelines, they would be facing up to 26 weeks in custody. It is lifechanging. Their career would be over before it began. They want a jury to hear their defence that another student had the drugs and had stashed them in their room. They will no longer have the right to elect jury trial. A person with previous convictions for drugs will be entitled to a jury trial due to the risk of a sentence exceeding three years’ imprisonment.”

I like to imagine how I would feel if my child were in that situation. I would know that they are innocent but that they have no right to make their case to a jury of their peers. How would I feel trusting one person to decide their fate? We must never lose sight of the fact that real lives are at stake. What is easier and more certain for the state may not be in the best interests of the individual. We will almost certainly see a shift in favour of the prosecution. That is fine when the defendant is guilty but a disaster when they are not.

I also have grave concerns about the impact of clause 1 on free speech. As for many things in life, determining whether a tweet is criminal or simply abhorrent is not always easy. The threshold for imprisoning someone for a social media post must be set at the highest level. It should be a truly exceptional occurrence, where incitement of violence was truly intended. That is why the right to elect for a jury trial is so important. Sometimes, for justice to prevail all that is needed is ordinary people using their own life experiences to weigh up the evidence and motivations of the defendant. By removing the right to elect trial on indictment, we will see people imprisoned for misjudged and spontaneous comments on social media more and more. That is not in line with our British values and is a terrifying prospect.

Of particular concern is the detrimental impact of clause 1 on minorities. Judges and magistrates are not the most diverse sets of people, which means they are more likely to share the same life experiences and biases. Juries are the only way to avoid that issue. By baking in multiple life experiences and biases across 12 people, fallibility is spread thinly rather than concentrated in one person. The equality statement makes it clear that male defendants between the ages of 15 and 17 will be most impacted by clause 1. It also notes higher rates of opting for Crown court trial among those who are black, mixed race and female. There will be good reason for that; those people perceive that they will get a fairer hearing.

It is also important to note that a defendant is less likely to qualify for legal aid in the magistrates court than in the Crown court. That is a big red flag for these changes. I am again staggered that a Labour Government are not taking that onboard and are not really concerned that some of the most vulnerable people in our country will be unable to access the legal aid that they need, as the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden noted. Does the Minister intend to address that unfairness if she goes ahead with these changes?

What really shocked me in the conclusions of the equality statement, after it highlighted the issues for minority groups, was this:

“If it were the case that someone with a protected characteristic were to be put at a particular disadvantage by this policy, we consider that it is a proportionate means of achieving our legitimate aim of reducing the outstanding caseload in the Crown Court and to deliver swifter justice for victims. We consider that a fair balance has been struck between the impact on defendants who may be disadvantaged by this measure and the public interest in pursuing this measure to create a more efficient criminal court system”.

To be clear, this Government know that this will disadvantage young black men, but they are doing it anyway. It could all be for nothing, if the Government’s estimates on Crown court sitting day reductions do not materialise, and if we simply see the Crown court backlog shift over to the magistrates courts.

Right now, 95% of cases are completed in the magistrates courts, most of which are low level and straightforward. The limitation of jury trials will significantly increase the number of cases remaining with the magistrates courts, and those additional cases will be more complex and sensitive, which will place a huge burden on them. The Government’s own estimates indicate an increase of 8,500 days in magistrates court sitting time, and it is questionable whether sufficient magistrates can be recruited to deliver that.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The point I made in my remarks was that I imagine that is a very conservative estimate of the number of additional days. We know that, by definition, we are sending more complex and serious cases than have been traditionally and historically heard in magistrates courts.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I thank the shadow Minister for that point; I share his concerns. There is also a question regarding whether unpaid volunteers will even want to take on such a serious role that involves handing out two-year sentences—that is quite a responsibility.

The outstanding caseload in magistrates courts has been increasing in recent years. In September 2025, the outstanding caseload was around 373,000, which was a 74% increase compared with pre-pandemic levels in September 2019. The shift of cases from the Crown court back into the magistrates court is simply moving the issue to a less suitable court to deal with it. It is simply moving the problem around, rather than actually addressing it.

Summary trial through the magistrates court was always designed for the purpose of swift justice in low-level cases. By removing the right to elect for a jury trial, in combination with increasing magistrates’ sentencing powers to two years’ imprisonment and removing the automatic appeal against conviction, important protections are being removed, and the groups that will be impacted most detrimentally are ethnic minorities.

Magistrates are unpaid members of their local community who volunteer to act as magistrates. There is no requirement for them to be legally qualified. That may well be fine for summary-only offences, such as low-level motoring offences and minor criminal damage, but it is not appropriate for more serious offences. Many magistrates do an excellent job and give up their time selflessly for the benefit of their community. In spite of that, I do not believe that they should have the power to send someone to prison for two years. Let us all remember that magistrates can be as young as 18.

In closing, I want to make one last point. This change was not in the Labour manifesto; indeed, there is no mention of any changes to trial by jury at all. Only one such commitment was made, which Government Members appear to have forgotten. To quote from the Labour manifesto:

“Labour will fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.”

That is on page 67, if anyone needs to refresh their memory. That is what the British people voted for. The Bill could have been so different if clause 1 had started with that, instead of jeopardising fair justice for many defendants. It is such a shame that a Government with such a historic majority have so quickly forgotten the change they promised, and whom they fight for and represent.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Let me begin by saying that the Bill has been prepared with precisely the people and communities who elected us and gave us our mandate in mind. The Labour party manifesto contained one word on the front cover: “Change”. It was not an acceptance of the status quo—a brittle criminal justice system with record and rising backlogs, which we inherited from the previous Government.

Rather than sit idly by, we are a Government who govern by choosing, and the choice we make is that, when we see a problem, we set about fixing it. We do so in a way that is informed by our values of equality, fairness and social justice. We also do so in an evidence-based way, which is why we commissioned an independent review of the criminal courts, led by Sir Brian Leveson and ably supported by Professor David Ormerod and others. They produced a detailed and comprehensive analysis that spoke to the depth of the crisis in our criminal justice system and the impact that the delays are having across the piece, not just on those impacted by crime but on those defendants on remand languishing in jail, whose lives have been put on hold, perhaps for crimes they did not commit. They spoke to the long-term challenges in our criminal justice system and the changing nature of evidence in our system, involving more digital and forensic evidence, all contributing to a picture in which trials are now more complex and take twice as long as they did in 2000.

In that time, there has been no reform of our criminal justice system; instead, as we have heard from a number of Members today, there has been a chipping away of the Department’s budget, underinvestment, the stripping back of not just legal aid but sitting days, the closure of more than 40% of our courts and people leaving the Bar in droves, all of which have driven the backlogs—and there is consensus that we need to do something about them.

I was interested in the remarks made by the hon. Members for Chichester, for Brighton Pavilion, for Bexhill and Battle and for Reigate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden, all of whom called on this Government to pull every lever at our disposal. Here is the thing: I agree. We should be doing all those things, and indeed we are. We are not waiting to begin on the efficiency drive so desperately needed and called for by Sir Brian’s report and by those across the criminal justice system.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Could the Minister remind the Committee how many months passed and how many requests were made for the increase in sitting days that has taken place under this Government?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

The hon. Member started with a long digression into trial by ordeal. I hope this Committee will not become a trial by ordeal, but I find the brass neck approach to this from the Opposition surprising, given that they cut the Department’s budget in real terms, while we have invested in record levels of sitting days and have, I am proud to say, announced that we are lifting the cap on sitting days next year. I intend to get back to my point, but, interestingly, we are beginning to see the progress that our measures have made. Last quarter’s figures show that the backlog continues to rise—it is a snapshot—but we are starting to see the impact of the investment in a record number of sitting days and the lifting of the cap, which we know will be beneficial.

We have been clear from the start, following the expert recommendations of the independent review of the criminal courts, that three things will be needed: major investment in sitting days, the £92 million in criminal legal aid for solicitors that we invested in the early days of this Government and the committed uplift of £34 million to advocates fees, and a record settlement for the CPS.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Will the Minister give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I will not take any more interventions; I want to make progress. The point is that we are already beginning to see the investment aspect of this.

The second pillar of how we address the backlog, which many have commented on, is efficiencies, and we have part 2 of Sir Brian’s report. In his speech on his vision for the justice system, the Deputy Prime Minister committed to a number of measures that are already under way. We will get blitz courts in London and the south-east under way this month, aggressively listing cases to get through them more efficiently. A pilot for AI-driven listing, working with the judiciary towards a national listing framework so that we end the postcode lottery on listing and list more efficiently, investment committed to case co-ordinators and driving case progression so that we are using the limited resources at our disposal most efficiently are all examples of taking forward greater efficiencies, which are desperately needed.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

Will the Minister give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I will just conclude this point. The central insight of the independent review of the criminal courts, in direct answer to the hon. Member for Reigate, borne out by the modelling, which has been externally verified and which we presented in the impact assessment, is that efficiency—however optimistic we are about it—and investment alone will not turn the tide on the rising backlog. That is because of the inheritance from the previous Government, coupled with the long-term challenges and changes in our justice system that the IRCC outlined. That is why we need all three things: efficiency, investment and reform.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

In my speech, I asked a specific question about the impact assessment. One of the options was to do nothing, and it would be helpful if the Minister could clearly articulate what was included in that option. Did it include the impact of uncapped sitting days, or of the three-year custodial sentence? Did it include all the other things that she was talking about, and that are being done anyway, or was the option literally to do nothing? If it was to do nothing, that is not a fair comparison.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

The hon. Lady will have seen that with the presentation of the Bill, as is right and appropriate, a suite of documents and material was made available to Members of this House and the wider public. The factsheet that accompanies the Bill includes a series of scenarios, one of which is literally to do nothing, and looks at the forecast of the projected caseload coming into the Crown court. There is another scenario, which asks what maximum investment would do to bring down the backlog—maximum investment being maximum, uncapped sitting days. The factsheet shows that that would mitigate the growth, but would not begin to bring down the backlog. We then project what maximum investment coupled with efficiencies would do. That would have a further dampening effect, but again, it would not even begin to get into the backlog, such is its scale—standing at 80,000 today. The factsheet supports the central insight of the IRCC: that it is only by pulling all three levers—investment, efficiencies and reform—that we begin to get down the backlog in this Parliament.

I have been pushed in the Chamber, by the Justice Committee and in the media by people saying, “Minister, you are saying that the backlog is only going to start to come down by the end of this Parliament,” as if to say, “Can’t you do more?” We are pulling every single lever even to get that effect, such is the growth of the backlog, which is due to the factors I have outlined.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

Will the Minister give way?

Matt Bishop (Labour, Forest of Dean)

Will the Minister give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I will give way to my hon. Friend.

Matt Bishop (Labour, Forest of Dean)

I am proud to stand with the Minister and the Government on the Bill. Members on the Committee and in the Chamber have often used the terminology of “abolishing” jury trials. The definition of “abolishing” is formally ending, cancelling or getting rid of something completely, usually by law or official decision. Will the Minister clarify that none of the three points she has made is about abolishing jury trials?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Of course that is right. No one is talking about the abolition of jury trials. We have said, and I will say repeatedly, that juries are a cornerstone of the British legal system and of our legal culture. We are preserving jury trials for the most serious cases. By seeking to tackle the shameful delays in our criminal justice system, we are seeking to ensure that, where jury trials are appropriate and very much necessary, they happen in a timely fashion. There is no point in having a jury trial if it comes one, two or three years after the fact, when witnesses are pulling out, the quality of evidence has worsened, people’s memories fade, and quality justice is simply not delivered. The state’s fundamental obligation is to deliver a fair trial.

Under our existing system, as a society we have already made a threshold choice about who accesses a jury trial and who does not. Currently, 90% of cases in this country are tried—fairly, robustly, rigorously and independently—without a jury. This debate is about where that threshold should be, not about a complete abolition of jury trials. It is about a pragmatic and proportionate threshold change to respond to the issue of timeliness, which is currently detrimental to the state’s delivery of a fair trial to all.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

rose—

Siân Berry (Green, Brighton Pavilion)

rose—

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

rose—

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I am not sure who to give way to, but I will give way first to the hon. Lady—I will try to be as fair as I can.

Siân Berry (Green, Brighton Pavilion)

We are debating clause 1, which as I understand it will completely remove defendants’ right to elect; the rest of the Bill puts in place procedures whereby other people—judges—will decide whether a jury trial is held. The right to elect a jury trial is being completely abolished. Is that not correct?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

The hon. Member is right. Where currently a defendant charged with a triable either-way offence has the ability to choose trial by jury in the Crown court, even in a scenario in which a magistrates court has accepted jurisdiction over their case, that ability to choose is removed by clause 1. Currently, defendants do not need to justify that choice; presumably they choose it because they consider that they will derive some advantage from it. The reform that we are making is to remove that ability to choose and, rather, to place the responsibility with the court to allocate the mode of trial according to the seriousness of the offence.

There was much discussion raised by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, and I believe one or two others, about the approach, and whether we should have an approach driven by the characteristics of a particular defendant—whether they are of good character, whether they have previous convictions—but that is not the approach we have chosen to take. The approach we have chosen to take is one in which it is the expert court, independently, that is triaging the case and allocating mode of trial based on the seriousness of the case. The best and most objective proxy for that is the likely sentence and the allocation guidelines, much in the same way as magistrates currently allocate trials in their mode of trial hearings.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The Minister is an extremely articulate individual. Will she just confirm that she agrees that, as the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion pointed out, the Government are abolishing the right to elect, so it is perfectly reasonable for individuals to use the term “abolish” in relation to some of these reforms—because they are abolishing the right to elect?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

For those watching on TV—which is probably my mum—I will be absolutely clear: the Government are not abolishing jury trials. The Government are preserving jury trials for the most serious cases, and we are working in this way to ensure that those trials are fair and timely.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Will the Minister give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

What clause 1 does is remove the ability of a defendant to choose where they are tried, which, at the moment, they have a right to insist on. So we have—

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Will the Minister give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Let me finish my sentence; you asked me the question. We are removing the right to elect, and removing it completely. The right to elect means, notwithstanding the fact that under our current system—by the way, the right to elect does not exist in Scotland. I do not think any of us here would suggest for one minute that Scotland does not have a fair and independent justice system. It operates in a different way. The right to elect does not exist in a whole host of jurisdictions that have far lesser uses of jury trials than ours. What we are removing is the ability of the defendant to insist on their choice of trial, notwithstanding the seriousness of the case.

The CPS data shows that last year, under the current system, that happened in some 4,000 cases where the magistrates courts had accepted jurisdiction. In other words, under the magistrates courts’ existing sentencing powers, which currently stand at 12 months, they could hear that case and hear it fairly. They could also hear it more promptly because, as we know, the backlog is less in the magistrates court, and when the same trial that could be heard in the magistrates court is heard in the Crown court it takes four times as long, so there is swifter justice in that sense. Under the right to elect, the defendants in those 4,000 cases said, “I want a jury trial.” Under the current legislation, they can insist on that choice.

Some Members may say, “Actually, we think that is really important,” and I understand that that is the position of the Green party and the Opposition. We say something different for two reasons—one pragmatic, one principled. The pragmatic point is that, under the status quo—which we all agree is failing everybody, and we are implored to do something about the backlog—it is pragmatic and proportionate that cases that can be heard more swiftly and more proportionately, and be retained in the magistrates court, should be. It should be the court that triages that, in the same way as—to use the health analogy—if I went to A&E on a Saturday night with my child, and my child had a graze that could be dealt with by a nurse, if I insisted that it had to be seen by a specialist consultant, the answer would be, “Well, no; the person who needs to be seen by a specialist consultant is the person who has a specialist condition.” The triaging is done by the experts.

Paulette Hamilton (Labour, Birmingham Erdington)

The Minister is making some important points, but I must bring her back to what she said about the fairness of jury trials, and about people feeling that they are fair. At the moment, many minority groups and working people of a lower socioeconomic level feel that if a trial is moved to be heard by just a judge and magistrates, it will not be fair. The Minister needs to clarify that. I absolutely agree with what she says about the need for change, but we must bring the public along with us. If the judge is a white middle-class man, the magistrates are white middle-class men and we cannot get variety, how will we get fairness? Remember, your mum is watching.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We often use the old adage about justice needing not just to be done, but to be seen to be done. That is vital, and again comes back to the language that people use about our courts. The suggestion that a person gets a rougher justice in the magistrates court is inaccurate, and we have to ensure that there is confidence in every tier of our justice system, including in our judges.

My hon. Friend is also right, not only about the perceptions of, but the real-world impact on minority communities and those who have historically had negative experiences with criminal justice. We know that disproportionality exists, whether in charging practices, sentencing outcomes or the amount of black and minority ethnic men on remand. Black and minority ethnic communities are disproportionately the victims of crime, and a person who is black is four times more likely to be a victim of homicide than a person who is white, which is a grave injustice.

That is why it is so important that the Deputy Prime Minister has committed that the Government will, in due course, introduce an amendment to the Bill to provide for a review to properly monitor the impacts of the reforms, and of wider justice measures, on precisely the communities and individuals that my hon. Friend spoke about. We have to enrich our understanding of the issue and ensure that the reforms command the confidence of all the communities that we represent.

Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Bolton South and Walkden)

rose—

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

rose—

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I will make a little progress. As I have said, where a magistrates court has determined that an offence is suitable for summary trial there, clause 1 removes the ability of a defendant to insist on their choice of venue. The decisions about venue and mode of trial will rest with the court. That allocations process ensures that decisions about jurisdiction are made solely by the courts, so that cases are heard in the most appropriate venue according to their severity and complexity. There are thousands of cases in the Crown court caseload where the magistrates court has indicated that it has sufficient sentencing powers to hear the case, but a defendant has elected for jury trial.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I wish to pick up on a point the Minister made earlier, as interventions from other Members hampered me from doing so at the time. She hinted in her earlier remarks that although the total backlog is rising, there have been some improvements. I wonder whether she was attempting to address my questions around the Criminal Bar Association saying that the backlogs are falling in a number of areas. Could the Minister clarify whether the MOJ accepts that the backlogs are already falling in a number of courts? If it does not, what is the gap between what the CBA says and the Government’s position?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I was coming to that point, but as the hon. Member has raised it, I will address it now. First, I put it on record that any suggestion that the Ministry of Justice or I have sought to bury good news is totally false. I would be the first person to be screaming it from the rooftops if our measures and our investment, which we made in contrast to the previous Government, were actually working. The fact is that at the last projected figures, in December, the backlog still stood at over 80,000 and it continues to remain high—slightly up from the previous quarter.

What the CBA appears to have presented, all based off MOJ figures, is that there are green shoots of improvement in some parts of the country. It is a little early to say that the record investment we have made is working right across the piece, to the extent that it would need to work in order to bring these backlogs down. The overall backlog continues to rise. If you look at those parts of the country where it is worse—London and the south-east, Greater Manchester, the midlands—the situation is dire, and continues to get worse until we have the full suite of reforms and investment to trickle through that we need to see improvement. I am certainly not going to do anything other than welcome good news. If the CBA has evidence that in one or two courts we are seeing an improvement, that is great; I welcome that.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I thank the Minister for that point. This goes back and links to the question I raised on the impact assessment. It is really important that we get clarity from the Minister on the impact assessment. The interpretation I am taking from her answer to me on whether existing measures like the suspension of three-year sentences and the uncapped sitting days were taken into account, is that, no, those are not in the “do nothing” scenario. I am struggling with why that would be. Surely, in the impact assessment you need to be showing the reality in order to do a fair comparison? It is reassuring to hear her say that she has looked at these numbers, but why are they not included in the impact assessment so that we can all clearly see them and see why she is taking the decision she is around limiting jury trials?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I refer the hon. Member to the summary factsheet that was produced, which shows all of what I have described very clearly. I will ensure that every Committee member has a link. There was also a helpfully produced website by the MOJ, which synthesises all of these facts, all of the modelling, which demonstrates all of these things. I understand that she is looking at the formal impact assessment, but if you go on the website and look at the factsheet—all of which has been shared with stakeholders and the media, and I will ensure that she has the model she seeks—I can assure her that on the MOJ’s forecast of the growth in the backlog, even with maximum investment and ambitious efficiency we do not begin to reduce the backlog. That is our analysis, and it is what supported the IRCC’s analysis. It is only when you do all three things—investment, efficiency and structural reform—that you bring down the backlog.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I think even though the Minister did not directly and clearly say it, there was an acceptance there that the backlog is falling in a number of areas. A question that flows from that: what analysis has been done on why? I imagine this is something that the Ministry of Justice is all over like a rash. It is having to do something that is opposed by many people. Even if the Minister thinks it is the right thing to do, the Minister will accept it is a reduction in the rights of citizens, even if she thinks it is justifiable. If the Government’s main argument—that this will not work without removing jury trials—is not being demonstrated in a number of Crown courts, why is that? What has the Minister done rapidly to understand why they are coming down and what is transferable, right now, to the other courts?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Just to be absolutely clear, I have not accepted the CBA figures. What I have told you, and everyone here, is that on the last published figures, the backlog continued to rise between September 2025 and December 2025. I accepted that it may be that in some courts there are signs of improvement—

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Will the Minister give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Let me just finish the point on clause 1, if I may. As I was saying in answer to a colleague’s question, the approach here on clause 1 and the approach to these structural reforms is pragmatic, driven by the necessity to bring down these backlogs, following the central insight of the IRCC; but the approach in clause 1 to remove the ability of the defendant to insist on their choice is also a principled one. We heard in Committee from crime victims—I think I am using that word appropriately in that context—that the ability of the defendant to insist on their mode of trial, notwithstanding the seriousness of the offence, in their view tilted the balance excessively towards defendants’ rights to drive the criminal justice process. In a criminal court, the Crown is on one side, represented by the prosecution, and the defendant is on the other. The complainant, who may turn out to be a victim of crime, is not represented. In this scenario—in keeping with other jurisdictions such as Scotland—it seems that the right to have the defendant drive the process, irrespective of the proportionality or the suitability of that mode of trial, is in principle an odd design choice.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

It seems that the Minister has perhaps momentarily forgotten that the entire legal system in this country is tilted in favour of the defendant. The defendant is innocent until the prosecution makes its case, and it cannot just make a good case, because the case has to be beyond reasonable doubt. The whole system is tilted in favour of the defendant, and rightly so. It is slightly strange to hear her use the argument that the defendant should not have freedom and liberty to elect when they are innocent people until convicted—and many of them are never convicted.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I am well versed in how our legal system works. I am well versed in the principle of the idea of innocent until proven guilty, and the criminal standard of proof. That is all important, as are the other safeguards that this reform system would retain. However, I make no apologies for the approach that we take in reforming this system, which, as I have said, is not just driven by necessity and pragmatism but by principle, and for the case repeated by myself and the Deputy Prime Minister—that we are a Government who will centre victims of crime. I also make no apologies for the investment we make in victim support services, or for the recalibration we are making in terms of how mode of trial is determined. Determining mode of trial is driven not just by the severity of cases, by creating an objective test to be applied by the courts, but the pursuit of timeliness. Timeliness, by the way, helps not only complainants and victims of crime but those accused of crime. If I were accused of a crime, I would want to clear my name as quickly as possible, so timeliness helps everybody across the criminal justice system.

Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Bolton South and Walkden)

I understand the point that the Minister is making about victims and I am obviously concerned for them, but we are also talking about defendants’ rights. She will be aware that 900 postmasters and postmistresses from the Horizon scandal have all said, “Please do not abolish jury trial,” and the reason is that when they were being charged with those offences, many of them were told to plead guilty by lawyers who thought that a public jury would find it difficult to believe that a Government organisation had made a mistake. However, some of them did elect Crown court trials and were acquitted. That is 900 potential defendant/victims. Lord Hain and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) mention the importance of the jury trial. I do think that the victim and defendants have a right to elect, and I think that we should abandon restricting the jury trials.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Of course, the Post Office Horizon scandal was one of the great miscarriages of justice of recent times. However, it is important to remember that we are discussing the whole system and that, of course, for the most serious crimes under a reformed system, we would be retaining jury trial. It is also important to remember, as I think even those representatives from the criminal Bar accepted, that there is no constitutional, absolute right to a jury trial. If that were so, the 90% of people whose cases are dealt with in the magistrates court would have a right to insist on a jury trial. This whole debate is centred around the appropriate way to treat that cohort of cases in the middle—between summary-only, which stay the same, retained by the magistrates, and all the indictable-only cases, or indeed anything likely to receive a sentence of over three years, which retain a jury trial.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Will the Minister give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Let me just finish my sentence. This whole debate is located around a relatively narrow group—although we are still talking about thousands of cases—of triable either-way cases and those likely to receive a sentence of three years or more. It is why the question about jury equity, posed by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion, interestingly relates somewhat to—

(Afternoon)

Clause 1 - Removal of right to elect trial on indictment

Dawn Butler (Labour, Brent East)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing clause stand part.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. As I was saying earlier, when I was cut off mid-flow, clause 1 supports a more efficient use of court resources by preventing cases of lower-level seriousness from escalating unnecessarily to the Crown court. I was responding to the point made by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion about jury equity. Her comments and those of others, most notably the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, concerned the question of whether one should look at the characteristics of the defendant when allocating the mode of trial, rather than the seriousness of the crime, which is the objective test we have included in clause 1.

In essence, the approach taken is an objective one, and it adheres to the principle of equality of treatment when it comes to the mode of trial, because it is driven by the seriousness of the crime. The hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion made a point about freedom of expression and the right to protest, and they of course make up a cornerstone of our democracy, but some public order offences, depending on their seriousness, are currently heard in the magistrates court and some will be heard with a jury trial. That will remain the case, although of course some, depending on their seriousness and the likely sentence, might be heard by the Crown court bench division.

Siân Berry (Green, Brighton Pavilion)

Tim Crosland’s point was that the Government are, in effect, abolishing the principle of jury equity. Can the Minister tell us that we cannot ever expect a judge to triage a case based on the fact that the true interests of justice might lie with a defendant relying on the principle of jury equity? Will she admit that the principle of jury equity is being abolished by the clause?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I heard the evidence from Tim Crosland. I put to him that some of the cases he mentioned, including the Elbit Systems trial, which the hon. Lady mentioned, contained an indictable-only charge, meaning that the case would receive a jury trial, as that one did in fact. Some cases will go to the Crown court bench division and will therefore be heard in front of a judge.

The point is that the seriousness of the offence and the likely sentence make up the applicable test under the Bill, rather than who the defendant happens to be, their past history or the particular type of offence. The objective test is the same, regardless of whether the defendant is a young person from a working-class background, a young person of colour from a particular marginalised community, a practising solicitor or an environmental campaigner. Under the processes, they will all be treated equally. We are not creating carve-outs for particular types of offences or particular kinds of defendants; the seriousness of the case is determined by the court through the application of the test, and that is what determines the mode of trial.

Alex McIntyre (Labour, Gloucester)

This morning, we heard a passionate and important contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington about monitoring the proposals’ impact on minority communities. She has tabled an amendment so that we can discuss that question, and I look forward to debating it. Although I understand what the Minister is saying about jury equity, can she assure the Committee that the Government are committed to reviewing it in the light of my hon. Friend’s argument?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Absolutely; the comment from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington was really important. In fairness, the hon. Member for Reigate also made the point about the equality impacts. The way that the measures in the Bill, and indeed our current justice system, impact on different communities in differential ways rightly concerns the Government. It is precisely why we committed to an independent statutory review, and it is why too I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington for tabling her amendment, so that the Committee will have an opportunity to discuss those important issues on a cross-party basis.

We need to ensure not only that we have the right safeguards, monitoring and data collection, but that the reforms in the Bill do not entrench a status quo that has sometimes fallen short of our collective aspirations for justice and equality, so that they can command the confidence of all communities as we implement, monitor and refine them in future, if needed.

Jessica Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat, Chichester)

The Minister is making an impassioned plea for trying to equalise the system. Does she not share my concern about the Government’s proposals? Person A could be accused of sexual assault on the tube, and have never been in any criminal justice situation, while person B could have had a string of offences that they have been charged with and ended up serving prison time for. They would get a jury trial because of their past offences, but somebody of previous good character would not, under the Minister’s proposals.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

It would depend on the facts of the case. First, I do not entirely understand the rancour behind the examples. If someone has committed a serious crime that could attract a six, seven or eight-year sentence, those are indictable-only offences. I think we all agree that we would want them to have a jury trial, which they would under the proposals in the Bill, because anything likely to get a sentence of three years or more will receive a jury trial.

In the scenario the hon. Lady described in respect of the person of good character, it is right that at the plea and trial preparation hearing—the mode of trial allocation phase—the likely sentence depending on the seriousness will be looked at. In that process, the likely sentence would no doubt take into account—albeit it is a high-level assessment, in line with the sort of assessment that magistrates courts make every day—the mitigating factors, which might include the person’s good character. In bringing forward the reforms, I believe that that person will get a fair trial wherever they get it: in a magistrates court, in the Crown court bench division or, indeed, at a full jury trial if the crime is likely to get a sentence of three years or more. It is not about the person who has done the more serious crime enjoying greater rights. It is because it is a more serious crime that it gets a jury trial. That is a proportionate use of the resources in our system.

Jessica Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat, Chichester)

The Minister may have misunderstood my point. If person A and person B have committed the exact same offence—they might have done it a day apart, in the same place, in the same circumstances—but person B has previous record, they are more likely to be heard in front of a jury trial. With person A, who is of good character, the offence remains the same, but the fact that person B has had previous offences means they are charged with a higher offence. The case and the evidence might be exactly the same, but they would end up with a different type of trial. Does the Minister think that is fair?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

We have an obligation to guarantee a fair trial. I believe that wherever cases are heard in this system, they will be heard fairly. It will be a different mode of trial, but it will be heard fairly. Ultimately, it comes back to a fundamental difference between us. The view has been taken by those on the Opposition Benches that, somehow, what one gets in a magistrates court—where 90% of our trials are heard—is less fair. That is in front of not just lay magistrates but district judges hearing cases. Some of the most serious civil matters such as the decisions around care proceedings—to remove children from their parents’ care—are determined by single judges. I believe that a single judge can determine cases fairly and impartially. That is the system that exists in different jurisdictions, including our own, and it works well and fairly. It is not unfair for somebody to be allocated a trial type based on the seriousness of the offence they are alleged to have committed.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The Minister is to some extent varying her argument. Earlier in the debate, she accepted that these things are a matter of gravity and of weighing up, and inherent in saying that is that the Minister must accept that there are less and more fair ways of doing things. The point the Minister is now making is that it is an equally fair system. If the Crown court backlogs are the absolute priority, why not therefore make all trials magistrates trials? If there is no difference between the two, and the Minister cannot accept the point, made by the Opposition and other Members, that there is a difference in their value, why not extend the magistrates’ sentencing powers and let everything be done by magistrates?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

We do think that jury trials are a cornerstone of British justice. It is not inconsistent to say that the most serious cases—all cases in which the likely sentence is above three years—should be heard at a jury trial. If we turn the hon. Gentleman’s argument on its head, everybody should get a jury trial, because otherwise they are not getting a fair trial. We do not think that.

As a society, we have for centuries made a threshold choice about who can access a jury trial. We are having a debate now about where that threshold should be drawn. Our proposals strike the right balance between the rights of the different participants in the system. We think they secure fairness because of the other safeguards in the system—the giving of reasons by a judge in the Crown court bench division and the transparency measures we are bringing in—but we also think they are proportionate use of court resources. The hon. Members for Reigate and for Bexhill and Battle both made the point that somebody getting a criminal conviction in the magistrates court, which may attract a six-month custodial sentence or less, is a pretty serious thing in itself. For some people, that may mean, reputationally, that they can no longer pursue their career. These things are serious.

I do not think any of us is saying that the status quo, whereby magistrates and district judges hear those cases, is not inherently fair. It is fair. What is not fair is the status quo whereby the scale of the delays is detrimental to the quality of justice we are able to provide to the public, whether in jury trials, judge-only trials or magistrates trials. The delays are such that they are undermining law enforcement, the quality and recency of the evidence, and people’s memories. It is undermining the calibre of the justice that the system is able to mete out. Dealing with the delays is not just an efficiency question; it is inherent to the question of fairness itself.

We keep repeating the old adage that justice delayed is justice denied. It is a powerful one because there is truth in it: the older the vintage of the cases, the less fair they become. That is not fair on anybody. It is not fair on the defendant on remand or fair on the complainant. It is not fair on the witness, who may have just had the misfortune of passing by a criminal incident, and is being asked to recall what happened a year or two years ago, when they would like to move on with their lives. When it comes to fairness, timeliness is critical.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

Will the Minister give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I have to make a little progress.

Let me turn to the detail of clause 1. Part of its function is to ensure consistency across the statute book. To ensure consistency in that way, the clause makes a series of consequential amendments to remove references to a defendant electing for a Crown court trial. That includes amendments to the uncommenced written plea and allocations provision inserted by the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022. Those uncommenced written procedures would allow defendants to indicate a plea without attending court. Their inclusion does not signify that the Government are intending to commence them. The clause ensures that if those provisions were brought into force in future, they would operate consistently with the removal of the defendant’s ability to choose the mode of trial. Defendants will still be able to indicate a plea in writing, and both parties may still make representations on venue. That decision on mode of trial would rest with the court.

The clause also updates the remittal power in section 46ZA of the Senior Courts Act 1981. Currently, where a case is already in the court, a judge may remit to the magistrates court only with a defendant’s consent. Clause 1 removes the requirement to obtain that consent, ensuring that remittal decisions, like allocation decisions, are made on the basis of the court’s assessment of suitability.

Amendment 38 would create a natural justice carve-out. We have heard the arguments for it, which essentially oppose any constraint on access to a jury trial. It is important to remember what natural justice—a philosophical concept, but a very important one—demands. It demands that courts operate in a fair, impartial and independent manner, and I agree with all that. As I have said, timeliness is an essential ingredient of fairness, and I do not think anybody in this Committee is seriously suggesting that our magistrates operate in anything other than a fair, robust and independent way.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The Minister is somewhat chopping and changing her arguments. I can stand up and say that if budgets and resources were no issue, I would prefer every case to go to a jury trial. I can say that; I can be consistent that that is my preference, because I think they are, in some respects, a superior form of justice to magistrates courts. That is not to say that magistrates courts are totally inadequate or unable to do the job, but they are less preferable than a jury trial, and we have covered many of the reasons why.

On the one hand, the Minister says that she agrees with that to some extent, that these are weighing exercises and that there is a preference. But when she is pointed to a specific element of unfairness that that creates, she reverts to saying, “Well, all these things are equal and there is no difference between the two.” That is an inconsistency in her position that we do not have on the Opposition Benches. We are very clear: our preference would be for the superior jury trial in every circumstance, but we accept that that is not always practical; we are fighting the curtailment of that and the further shifting of the dial in the other direction.

What is the Minister’s view? Are these things absolutely equal? Is a magistrates trial just the same as a jury trial? Does she have no issues with that? If so, why not go further, as the Secretary of State wanted to, in respect of five years, for example? Or does the Minister accept that a magistrates court is, in some respects, inferior and less fair, and that there is therefore a rational argument for people to say that they would rather be in the Crown court?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

We know that people would rather be in the Crown court because, when they have a right to elect, some opt for that. I have acknowledged that fact, but this is not a debating contest. There is an air of unreality about the way the hon. Member put his arguments. He says that if he could choose, everyone would get a jury trial. I do not know of any jurisdiction in the world that has that. We know what the Conservative party would have done. It had the chance, over 14 years, to run the justice system, and we are now living with the consequences: prisons running hot, courts with record backlogs, legal aid gutted and 40% of our magistrates courts closed.

Since the Crown court was created in 1971, there has been no substantial criminal justice reform, despite broad societal changes, technological changes and the fact that, as the independent review of the criminal courts pointed out, the profile of crime and criminal evidence in this country has changed, which means that Crown court trials now take twice as long as they did in 2000, just because forensic and CCTV evidence makes them more complex. We would expect a public service to evolve with that societal change. We have always made that threshold decision; it is a decision that is taken in other common-law jurisdictions as well. The idea that we will talk in hypotheticals about being absolutist, and about having all jury trials or not—

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am just being consistent.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

No, it has a total air of unreality. If we look at the current system, I think we all agree that it is not working for any participant in the system. It cannot be when there is a backlog of 80,000 and above and we hear the stories we are all familiar with, which hon. Members have put to me, whether they are supportive or not, about the delays in the system, the creaking courts and the more than 1,000 trials that did not go ahead on the scheduled day because of an absence of either a prosecuting or a defence barrister. We are trying to rectify that with our investment in the workforce.

We have to make decisions about the system as we find it, not as we might dream it to be in some academic seminar. The fact is that we have all made a choice, because 90% of trials in this country are already undertaken by magistrates. As I said, I do not think anyone is seriously suggesting that those are not fair. The state’s obligation is to guarantee a fair trial. Whether those trials are heard by lay magistrates or by a district judge, they uphold principles of natural justice. I do not understand why anyone would say that the trials that take place day in, day out in our magistrates courts do not uphold principles of natural justice and article 6 of the European convention on human rights—which, by the way, includes the obligation to conduct criminal trials within a reasonable time. The importance of timeliness, and the inherent importance of timeliness to a fair hearing, is enshrined explicitly in article 6.

The state’s obligation is to ensure that fair trial—it is not a jury trial in every case—and we have always made that threshold decision. The removal of a defendant’s ability to insist on their choice of trial venue does not change that. The right to elect does not exist under the Scottish legal system, for example, and no one would seriously suggest that the Scottish legal system offends the principles of natural justice. Our justice system is rightly respected around the world, irrespective of where a case is heard.

Siân Berry (Green, Brighton Pavilion)

The Minister has made many points about magistrates court hearings being as fair, but she seems to have forgotten the amount of evidence we heard during the oral evidence sessions. Witnesses acknowledged that magistrate court hearings were “rough and ready” and “rough around the edges”, that mistakes may be made, and that the Bill later removes the automatic right to appeal, which is an important safeguard against what she must admit is the slightly inferior justice that can be found in the magistrates courts. Will she not admit that and talk more about the appeals situation?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

No, I will not accept that it is inferior. I maintain the position that it is proportionate to the severity of the cases currently dealt with in the magistrates court. When asked why they want to retain jury trials, and timely jury trials for the most serious crimes, the Opposition seem to be arguing that one of the virtues of the jury system is citizen participation. But our lay magistrates are also citizens. An amendment that we will come to later argues that magistrates should be in the Crown court bench division. The rationale that lay participation would be better lies behind that, but—

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Let me finish my point. I find it incongruous and arguably inconsistent when I hear Members say that the ideal form of the system is citizen participation in the form of a jury, only to then, all of a sudden, describe lay magistrates hearing summary-only trials—which they do fairly, day in, day out—as somehow inferior, because that is also citizen participation. [Interruption.] I do not know if the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion is asking me to give way again, but I shall do so.

Siân Berry (Green, Brighton Pavilion)

Apologies to the Minister for heckling. The point about the right of appeal is absolutely key. If mistakes are made in the magistrates court, it is currently the case that they are corrected at quite a rate. We heard evidence on that. Those two things give Opposition Members genuine and legitimate cause for concern.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

On that specific point about appeals, a tiny fraction of cases—I do not have the figure in front of me, but I am happy to share it later—are appeals to the Crown court. The hon. Lady is right that we heard evidence that a significant proportion of those— I think it is around 40%—are successful. I expect them to continue to be successful under the reformed system, which introduces a permission filter. All the permission filter does is root out unarguable cases in a way that is consistent with the appeals process in the Crown court and in civil jurisdiction.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

Will the Minister give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I am going to make a little progress.

The point is that our magistrates court, trials before district judges and the Crown court bench division will continue to uphold those principles of natural justice. Both the prosecution and defence will continue to be able to make representations on whether a case should be heard in the Crown court, and the court must take into account those representations in reaching its decision. As with all cases heard in the magistrates court, defendants retain the right of appeal to the High Court and the Crown court against conviction or sentence. Even with a permission stage for certain appeals, those safeguards remain in place.

On amendment 38, tabled by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, principles of natural justice are preserved in our reforms. We heard evidence from victims of crime and former judges alike about the detrimental effect that delays are having not just on people’s lives but on the quality of justice that can be administered. It is difficult to argue that the current system is consistently meeting our obligation to ensure a fair trial where, as I have said, justice delayed is justice denied. That reflects a structural failing and one that points to a system in urgent need of investment and modernisation. That is why clause 1 as drafted is focused on delivering swifter justice for all participants in the system.

The right to a fair trial is, as I have said, protected under article 6 of the European convention on human rights and reflected in long established common-law principles. Removing the defendant’s choice of venue does not change the procedural fairness of proceedings, nor the defendant’s ability to participate effectively in their case. Defendants will continue to receive fair and impartial justice, regardless of where their case is heard.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I thank the Minister for her generosity in taking interventions. I think it may well be a timely point at which to deal with a quick question I raised earlier, about legal aid. Clearly, a defendant is potentially less likely to secure legal aid in the magistrates court than they are in the Crown court. I am sure the Minister will not be comfortable with that situation, so will she be looking to address that inequality that comes from the changes?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I am glad to hear the Conservatives’ concern about legal aid and, yes, of course I am, as the Minister responsible for legal aid. We do under the current regime have a means test for criminal legal aid. The vast majority of those who apply for legal aid in the criminal context can access it. One of the things we want to do as a Government is wait to see precisely what forms the eventual product here take before analysing how we ensure that legal aid provision is as broad as it needs to be. Access to justice is fundamental not just to the individual concerned but to the efficient administration of justice; that is so important. We know from the civil jurisdiction, where so much legal aid was stripped out, that civil or criminal courts being confronted with vast numbers of litigants in person who are struggling to navigate the system is not just a detriment to them, but to the whole administration of justice. So of course we are looking at that, but it is important to make sure that the plans match precisely what form the Bill takes when it has come through Parliament.

As I said, decisions on mode of trial will be taken by judges and magistrates, who are independent office holders who take a formal judicial oath to act impartially and fairly. That oath is binding and accords with natural justice. Mode of trial decisions continue to be guided by the independent Sentencing Council’s allocation guidelines, which provide a clear and structured framework for allocation decisions. Further to that, magistrates courts are already required to give brief reasons for their allocation decisions, reflecting a long established common-law duty. That requirement will extend to the Crown court in relation to the mode of trial allocation decisions, so someone will know why they were allocated to a venue. That understanding is important for litigants and the transparency they require.

Amendment 38 does not add further protections beyond the safeguards that already exist. A defendant’s trial in the magistrates court does not breach those principles of natural justice and the existing legal protections already ensure procedural fairness in summary proceedings. The Committee will remember well the powerful testaments we heard from many, but in particular the victims who gave their evidence at a public session and their view that the system is weighted heavily towards the defendant. Not only do our reforms restore some of that balance, placing decisions over allocations in the hands of the court rather than those of defendants, but they make a material difference in addressing the backlogs. I am afraid that amendment 38, by contrast, is a defence of a failing status quo. For these reasons, I urge the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle to withdraw the amendment.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

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—

Dawn Butler (Labour, Brent East)

Order. I remind the Opposition spokesperson that his comments must be relevant to the amendment under consideration.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I will move on to a more directly relevant point.

When we talk about the challenges in the courts and what was inherited, the Government would do themselves a much greater service and reflect accurately the debate and the challenges if they more regularly sought to speak fairly and freely about what actually happened in relation to Crown court backlogs, and the reason why the amendment was tabled. Prior to the pandemic, Crown court backlogs were lower under the Conservative Government than they were under the previous Labour Government.

Every time the Government highlight the real challenges with the Crown court backlogs and omit to recognise that the historically unprecedented level of the backlogs was almost entirely driven by the covid pandemic, they do a disservice to the complexity and reality of what went on in our court service. Every time they talk in isolation about a lack of investment in the period of 14 years, they fail to understand that Members on Labour’s side, who have been highly critical of the Conservative party, actually recognise that over many decades, prior to the Conservative Government, as other Labour Members said on Second Reading, there has been a lack of investment—an investment lower than I would want—in our court service.

I have been clear since taking up the position of shadow Justice Minister that I would have wanted a higher degree of protection for the justice system than that in the decisions taken at the time. The Opposition have not been afraid to say that or to own the responsibility for it, as we have in a number of other areas where we wish things had been done differently. I have explained that, for me, courts and the criminal justice system is one of the reasons—if not the main reason—why I sought election to Parliament, so I am always going to say that we should invest more strongly in the justice system.

Just last week, I did an interview on Times Radio about our work on whole-life orders, after I successfully appealed a case in which someone had not got a whole-life order; the Court of Appeal gave them a whole-life order. The presenter asked me why we do not have more whole-life orders, and why more is not done about it. I explained that, in reality, as a politician I might have my priorities, and other individual MPs might have their own priorities, but inevitably the decisions of the Treasury, what goes into the manifesto and what the Government commit to are a matter of the public’s priorities. As someone who campaigns strongly on behalf of victims of crime, I understand the enormous impact that crime has. I also must accept that most people, most of the time, are not victims of any crime, let alone serious crimes, so convincing the public at large to vote for parties that will invest seriously in and improve our criminal justice system is difficult. In polling, the criminal justice system is not at the top of the list of the public’s priorities, as much as I might wish it were.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that Sir Brian, in his report, gave scope for the Government to go further than his recommendation, should we need to? Can he comment on why no Conservative MP went to Sir Brian when he offered to engage with them today?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The Minister is factually incorrect. The engagement session was not today, but yesterday. I met Sir Brian, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) met Sir Brian, and Conservative shadow Ministers met Sir Brian during his review. It is completely incorrect for the Minister to suggest that we did not engage with him. We were happy to agree, as he was, that we would continue talking to him, so I am afraid that the Minister has failed slightly with her intervention. She might want to send a note to ask whoever gave her that information to try harder next time.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

What about what Sir Brian said in his report? Is it not right that the report specifically gives the Government scope to go further than his recommendations?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

It absolutely does—but the Minister is not doing what Sir Brian recommended. She is rejecting his approach, but when we want to reject his approach, she asks how we can possibly question what Sir Brian has to say on such matters. That is the reality of what is happening. It is a consistent flaw that the Government cannot undo.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate did a good job of illustrating the nature and seriousness of so many of the offences we are considering. She also sought a firm answer on, for example, the modelling of the increases in guilty pleas that we might expect owing to the increase in the length of suspended sentences.

We had a debate about, “Well, it’s in the explanatory notes, not in the impact assessment,” as if that was just immaterial. The Minister and her officials will know very well that there is a big difference between what goes into an impact assessment, given the statutory nature of that document and everything that the Government have to do before they put things into it, and what a Government can put out in what is effectively a non-statutory document. They could really put anything in there that they wanted to.

Of course we would expect the Government to be fair, frank and honest, but the reason why we have impact assessments—and the reason why, when Labour Members were in opposition, they hammered the Conservatives repeatedly about what did or did not go into an impact assessment in particular, as opposed to broader documents—is that it has a statutory footing and is important in its own way. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate did a good job of illustrating what was absent from that impact assessment.

We talked about the Crown Prosecution Service, and there was an attempt to say that what a senior member of the management said, one would assume—

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

On that point, will the hon. Member give way?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I will finish the sentence, and then I will.

Of course, we would assume that they had done that in consultation with other leadership figures, so we might reasonably say that they speak on behalf of the senior leadership team of the CPS, but there was an attempt to say that their views can somehow be taken to represent the views of the many people who work across the CPS—

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

On that point, will the hon. Member give way?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I will finish the sentence, and then I will.

As my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford pointed out, the CPS is a very big organisation, with a lot of people.

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

Mr Guest was giving evidence to the Justice Committee in his capacity on behalf of the CPS. He was talking with authority from the CPS, on the organisation’s behalf, on its official policy position. It is fair to say that the CPS, as Tom Guest said, is in favour of the structural reform we are making, is it not?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Nothing that I have said is in disagreement with that. The point we are making is about whether that reflects the wider, individual views of all the people who work for the CPS. I am not aware that the CPS, for example, undertook an internal staff survey. Does the hon. Lady want to intervene and tell me whether the CPS asked people about that? I am not aware that the CPS undertook an internal consultation exercise. Did the CPS consult all the many people who work for it and say, “This is our position. This is what we think”? How did it come to its view about these decisions?

The hon. Lady is very welcome to intervene and talk about how the CPS formulated its position in the way that she sought to talk about it, covering all the different people who work for the CPS. As I explained to her, I know there are people who work for the CPS who do not agree. She may well know people who do agree, but some do not agree. I took the liberty of re-contacting one of the people who works for the CPS over the Committee’s lunch break. Their—quite rightly—anonymous and private view, which they are entitled to hold and express to me is that, as a prosecutor, we should all be very worried when a state prosecutor wants to do something that further curtails the rights of defendants. I might not express it in those terms, but that is how someone from the CPS expressed it.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that the formal policy position of the organisation of the CPS is as she described, but she was not right to refer to it as being meaningful because it covers lots and lots of people who have had no formal engagement whatsoever in helping the CPS to come to that conclusion. It is a bit like the Minister getting up and saying, “The Ministry of Justice is a big organisation and we all think this is what should happen.” The Minister knows that her civil servants are asked to produce policy; what they actually think about it and whether they agree with it is totally irrelevant, and she would never use the size of the organisation to add weight to the strength of her argument, because it is nonsense. As I pointed out when His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service gave evidence, people are not allowed to give their individual views; it is a policy position that the organisation has to hold.

Tristan Osborne (Labour, Chatham and Aylesford)

One could make that point about any organisation, including those that support the hon. Member’s argument: they are, broadly speaking, representative bodies and they cannot speak for everyone within the organisation. In that case, do we accept any representation from anyone, on the basis that one person in any organisation might not agree with their management team? We have to have a basis of evidence and an organisational view that comes through that organisation is its relevant viewpoint. Would he agree with that?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

There is a fundamental difference between the CPS and, for example, the Criminal Bar Association, which is a representative organisation—its job is to represent its members. The CPS is not a representative organisation of its employees. The hon. Gentleman is comparing totally different things. I will absolutely listen to organisations whose job it is to advocate for the people they are representing. That is not the job of the CPS. The job of the CPS is to prosecute. The CPS has a view and a policy position that does not represent its staff.

Jessica Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat, Chichester)

Does the shadow Minister agree that to try to compare the CPS with, for example, the Criminal Bar Association is nonsense because the CPS is a non-ministerial Department? As the hon. Member has pointed out, the policy position is to agree with structural reform because they know that the system is broken. None of us is disagreeing with that today or disagreeing that there is a problem in the system that needs fixing. Of course, the CPS would say that we absolutely need to do something. However, it is not its role as a non-ministerial Department to say that it thinks that the Minister has got it wrong. What it is saying in broadbrush terms is that it agrees that something needs to be done. In contrast, the Criminal Bar Association actually surveyed all its members, because it is an independent organisation, and 88% of them came back and said that they were opposed to the reforms. They are two totally different things.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I did raise an eyebrow at the level of evidence that the individual from the CPS chose to give in relation to commenting on Government policy in that way. I have spoken to previous Justice Ministers, and that was unprecedented. Again, if we want to give validity to its views, can Government Members point to a single time that the CPS has got up and directly opposed the policy of the Government of the day? It does not do that. It is all very well and good to champion it when it agrees with this particular point, but it is nonsense if it has never disagreed with Government policy because it is a non-departmental Government body. Again, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford is perfectly entitled to raise it, but to try to give it the weight and character of the other organisations that are lobbying, campaigning and representing does not hold up to much scrutiny—as we have seen.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

To build on the excellent points made by my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Chichester, does this not fundamentally come down to the fact that the CPS is made up of civil servants? They are not meant to tell the Minister that they are wrong or right. That is not their job. I feel those on the Government Benches are misunderstanding the role of civil servants.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

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.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I have never sought to sugar-coat the situation in our courts. Does the hon. Member think that one of the reasons why magistrates courts are struggling in parts of the country is because the number of magistrates halved under the last Government?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

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.

There are other ways we can do this. In many respects, as I have said, the core arguments are the same. It is just a difference of opinion about how the issues will be dealt with. I will talk a little about the important issue of disclosure and how it operates in magistrates courts, the place we are going to be sending even more cases. As I said, Jonathan Fisher can assist us. That is not to say the crown court is absent of these issues, as I have explained.

People who follow these issues will know that Crown court cases also collapse because of disclosure issues, but Jonathan Fisher is clear that there is a particular problem with magistrates courts. He said:

“I encountered accounts of unique problems in magistrates’ court cases where the requirements to make disclosure had been overlooked, necessitating unnecessary adjournments and on occasion the dismissal of a case.”

He went on to say that there are

“unique problems in the magistrates’ court where there are shorter statutory timelines for case progression. I have heard that requirements of the CPIA are frequently not complied with. Failings are cited on all sides police, prosecution, and defence…The combination of increased digital material and the short statutory timeline for case progression in magistrates’ courts is a toxic mix, often leading to an inability of law enforcement to process material swiftly enough to meet disclosure deadlines. Prosecutors and defence practitioners have raised concerns that the prosecution regularly arrive at summary trial, without a schedule or streamlined certificate, or acknowledgement that disclosure obligations have been satisfied.

The Review has heard that magistrates, in a desire to be flexible, are being over-lenient and granting adjournments to give the prosecution enough time to get their house in order. The result is increased delays, piling further pressure on the court backlog. Anecdotally, District Judges are more likely to refuse an adjournment where the prosecution has been unable to demonstrate a sufficient grip on disclosure leading, in turn, to the case being dismissed.”

Matt Bishop (Labour, Forest of Dean)

I am listening intently to what the hon. Gentleman is saying. How do the disclosure aspects he is talking about link to the amendment we are discussing?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Those aspects link directly, because I am discussing particular disclosure issues occurring in the magistrates court. As I will go on to explain, these are specific problems that Jonathan Fisher has identified as being a particular problem in the magistrates court rather than the Crown court—yet we are going to send more cases to the magistrates court.

We have to be clear eyed about exactly what we are doing. The issue is relevant because every time Opposition Members say, “Things are not the same in the magistrates court. You do not get quite as fair a trial; it is not comparable to a jury trial”, Government Members say, “That’s nonsense—they are all the same. If you believe that, get rid of magistrates courts.” It is important to understand this clear example of where the magistrates courts are delivering a less fair service than the Crown courts. I will carry on.

HMCTS data suggests that in 2023, a total of 311 magistrates court cases were ineffective because the prosecution explicitly failed to disclose unused material. In the same year, 746 magistrates court cases were deemed ineffective due to defence disclosure problems. Between October 2014 and September 2023, disclosure accounted for almost 7% of all ineffective trials in magistrates courts.

The issue is also extremely important from a victims’ perspective. The debate today has been about the defendants, but if we take the argument that in some of these cases the defendant would have been found guilty, who loses out the most if we send a case to the magistrates court and it collapses because of particular challenges with disclosure? The victim loses out, because it is over and done with and they do not have the opportunity to recorrect.

Alex McIntyre (Labour, Gloucester)

I want to correct the record. This morning, I understood the Conservative party position to be that we are not allowed to call them victims at that point.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Sometimes I wish that Government Members would pay more attention to what is being said. I mentioned “some” cases and “some” of these people. That is the difference in how we tackle these issues. We do not get up and talk about “every victim” and I specifically did not say that. I went out of my way to say that among hundreds and hundreds of accusations, some people would inevitably be guilty. That is completely different from what, some of the time, some Government Members have been doing: assuming that everyone who claims to be a victim is one. That is very particularly what I did not do.

I finish this particular point with something else Jonathan Fisher said:

“Notwithstanding the vital need for further quantitative analysis, I am not convinced that, regarding the Crown’s duties, the disclosure regime is working as intended in the magistrates’ courts.”

That is an extremely serious consideration. He is not convinced that the disclosure regime is working as intended in the magistrates courts; he did not make that point about the Crown courts. I ask Government Members to reflect on that and then say there is no rational reason why some people might be concerned about more cases—and more complex, serious cases—being heard in the magistrates court. What that report alone says about our magistrates courts gives plenty of people a rational and reasonable basis to say that what happens in magistrates courts is less fair and potentially less effective than what happens in the Crown court. Government Members would do well to concede that important point.

I finish with a pretty extraordinary exchange with the Minister about the figures on the backlogs themselves. Let us remind ourselves of the central premise and argument: we all agree that the backlogs are too high. The Government say that they cannot be brought down to historic levels without the erosion of our jury trial rights. Opponents of the Bill are varied in their views, but perhaps most common is the view that other things can, and should, be done instead. What is happening right now with the backlogs is extremely important to this debate. If the backlogs are coming down in some places without these changes being introduced, it is vital to know and understand that.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I checked this during the adjournment of the sitting: the CBA’s point relates to new receipts in certain courts, rather than the state of the backlogs, which, as I said, continue to rise. I absolutely welcome the progress in some parts of the country in lowering receipts, which is obviously good news for the courts, but that does not yet reflect any lowering of the backlogs. As we would expect, the investment will take time to kick in.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Clearly, if new receipts into the Crown court are coming down, we will not immediately see a reduction in the backlogs—we need time for the trials to come down. I am glad that the Minister has admitted that new receipts are coming down, because that is an extremely important insight into whether the backlogs themselves may then come down at a later stage. We also have to note that this potential improvement in the backlogs is happening without the introduction of changes to jury trials.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the central insight of the independent review—independent of Government—was that, absent reform, these backlogs will not come down? To confirm the point, the so-called do-nothing option includes the maximum investment of uncapped sitting days, so it already reflects the impact we can have on the backlogs with maximum investment. If that is the case, does he accept that nothing short of reform, efficiency and investment will bring the backlogs down?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

As we heard from the Criminal Bar Association and others during the evidence sessions, we do not accept that the Government have sufficiently justified that modelling. Modelling is not perfect, and the IFG could not be clearer that the modelling used to justify the Government’s case, as the Minister has just done, is based on highly uncertain assumptions. If the Minister could actually produce some rock-solid modelling, so there was absolutely no way to dispute it, we would be in a different place. However, the Minister cannot produce modelling that even the IFG does not think is full of uncertainties.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the very same sentence that he is quoting, which admits the fact that there is a degree of uncertainty—we are, of course, looking at a forecast—also accepts that our modelling assumptions, which the IFG itself pursued, are sound? In the same sentence, it recognises that the approach we have taken is sound, and as sound as it can be. What is not sound is doing nothing.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Let me think of a directly relevant example that shows just how important and meaningful that distinction is, in a way that the Minister is seeking to blur. We all follow political polls that are based on models. Those models are probably all sound, but they are all different and produce completely different results based on the assumptions—on voter turnout, for example.

I might speak to some Government Members and say, “Look, we have this poll that shows you’re going to smash it at the next election. You’re under no threat from Reform or the Lib Dems.” However, I might also say, “As part of that poll, we have assumed that 99.9% of the people who intend to vote Labour are going to come out and vote Labour.” Would Government Members then say, “Oh, great news! Absolutely, I’m going to smash the next election.” No. They would say, “Well, that assumption is fundamentally flawed.” The model may be correct, including the factors being considered, but inserting the assumptions into a model is what actually counts. That is what actually determines the outcomes, and the IFG is very clear about that.

Again, the Government are asking us to erode the important right to a jury trial, based on assumptions that the IFG says are highly uncertain. The Opposition’s position is quite clear. What is not uncertain is the fact that improving prisoner transport will help deliver improvements; that improving case management will deliver outcomes, which nobody disputes; or that improving access to early legal advice by reforming legal aid will help reduce the backlogs.

There is a whole slew of things that are not uncertain. Surely, the sensible and balanced thing to do is to get those things done first. Then, if the Government show that they really have done everything they possibly can, there could be a different discussion with MPs and the public about why they had chosen to erode and curtail an historic right that we have had for hundreds of years.

The reason why the data from the CBA is so important—the Minister accepts this—is that it is showing an improvement into the input. If the input is improving, then in theory the output will improve; I have not heard the Minister say that we will not get an improvement in the outlook at some point. If fewer cases are coming in, then surely there will be less of a backlog down the line. That is happening already—prior to the changes on jury trials and, more importantly, prior to all the other things having embedded in, as the Minister has herself admitted.

We have not even touched prison transport and we are getting an improvement; we have not even touched legal aid and we are getting an improvement—I could go on and on. The point was powerfully illustrated, in terms of priorities, by the representative from the HMCTS. I asked him about his priorities for reducing the backlogs and improving the situation. Jury trials did not even come close to the list of things that he thought were important. Surely we need to deliver on those elements successfully and consistently, but we all know that that is going to be extremely hard work.

I made the point to the Minister this morning. I do not doubt her sincerity on this, but being a Minister is about driving through major reform and change while having to manage day-to-day improvement in the system. She might think this an unfair comment, but I asked her this morning about what was happening with the inputs into the Crown courts. She is the Minister in charge of our backlogs, but when I asked for a clear answer about some of the statistics in regional variation, the Minister did not have them, did not know or was not able to answer. She had to go away at lunch time to answer a question about those key statistics. That is a bit like me asking the Health Secretary what is happening with regional variation in waiting times and the Health Secretary saying, “Well, I know overall waiting times are going down, but I don’t know the answer to that. I will have to go away and look and see what is happening in different parts of the country.” It is a giveaway.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Given that the hon. Gentleman is besmirching my reputation, I should say that the equivalent is saying, “Health Secretary, what are the waiting list times in the UK—and what is the snapshot in Romford infirmary right now? I won’t afford you the opportunity to go away and get that figure over the break.” I think the hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I do not think I am being the least bit unfair. I did not even ask the Minister to give a list or specifics; I just asked whether the statistics were going down in some parts of the country. That is a very broad and open question. I am flabbergasted that the Minister did not know whether things were improving, given that the main priority of the Bill is to get Crown court backlogs down. The Minister did not even know a topline figure.

One of the thrusts of the argument of the very many people who oppose the Bill is that if the good things happening in some areas were replicated everywhere, we would not have this issue. At the heart of some of the criticisms of the Government’s approach is the idea that we must understand that some places are getting this right. For the Minister not to know whether things are already getting better reflects poorly on the credibility of the case that this is the only way to do things. If it were me, I would want to know on a daily basis whether we were delivering this downward trend in some places. I would want to visit every single one of those places and drive forward that change.

The modelling is also important. The Government will already have modelled the period that we are in right now. I have to assume that the Government modelling gave some view as to whether there would be ups and downs in particular places. If we now know there are downward trends in particular places and the Government modelling did not account for that, that adds further reinforcement to the idea that we cannot rely on the Government modelling to make these decisions. It may well have got wrong the period that we are in right now, which makes things very uncertain when we want to look further in the future.

We are going to revisit these issues. As I said this morning, it is extremely important for the Government to be absolutely transparent at later stages about what is going on in the places getting lower receipts, as the Minister now accepts is happening. Why is that happening only in some places? What can be done to make sure it happens in other places? What does the Government expect would happen to the backlog if that was replicated across the country? As I have said, and as I will keep repeating, we are clear that the status quo is absolutely unacceptable for victims. We are clear about the role we played in that, and some Labour Members in the wider debate have accepted the role that Labour Governments, over the decades, have played in getting us to this place.

We want something to be done about the situation, but we also care about jury trial rights. I remind Government Members that there are victims’ representative groups that also do not want jury trial rights to be eroded. The idea that the issue is all about victims on the one side and opponents on the other is completely untrue—a point that the Minister accepted. To go down this particular road and erode our jury trial rights, the Government need a watertight case for why it is absolutely necessary, but they have completely failed to articulate, in any credible way, why this is the only thing they could possibly do and that there is nothing else they could do.

The Government want us to listen to Brian Leveson, but they do not listen to Brian Leveson when it does not suit them. They want us to say that Crown and magistrates courts are all just the same, but they agree that Crown courts should be kept for the more serious cases—those two points are mutually exclusive, I am afraid. We are consistent in our views and in what we want the Government to focus on and get on with. We want a Minister whose only focus is delivering those efficiencies, improvements and things we know will make a difference, who will not be distracted by what I am afraid will turn out to be an enormous burden on her time—not just in this place, but when it gets to the other place—as well as a distraction from what the day-to-day job should focus on.

Clause 2 - Written indication of guilty plea: removal of right to object to venue

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

The clause sits alongside clause 1 and ensures that the new allocation framework will operate coherently following the removal of the right to elect. It deals specifically with the written guilty plea route, which has not yet been commenced, created by the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022. Clause 1 removes a defendant’s choice to select the mode of trial in the Crown court in either-way offences. Once that choice is removed, it is necessary to make consequential amendments to the written allocation procedure so that it does not preserve a right that no longer exists in open court.

Clause 2 amends section 17ZB of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, which governs the procedure following a written indication of a guilty plea. Although those provisions have not been commenced, it is important that they are amended now, so that when they are brought into force, they operate consistently with the new allocation framework. Section 17ZB allows the defendant or the prosecution to object to the case being sent to the Crown court for conviction and sentencing where the magistrates court considers that its sentencing powers would be insufficient. Such an objection would prevent the court from sending the case unless the objection is withdrawn or a guilty plea is entered at an in-person hearing in the usual way.

Clause 2 will remove that ability to object. Instead, the magistrates court will have to invite written representations from both parties on whether its sentencing powers would be adequate and, having considered those representations, decide whether to send the case to the Crown court under section 51 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. That means that when a defendant engages with allocation in writing, the magistrates court will determine venue in the same way as it would at an in-person hearing.

As with clause 1, clause 2 does not remove existing safeguards. Both the prosecution and the defence will continue to be able to make representations, ensuring that the court has all the relevant information before making its decision. That will preserve fairness and ensure that all relevant factors, including seriousness, complexity and sentencing powers, are properly considered by the court before determining venue.

Taken together, clauses 1 and 2 will ensure that cases that are suitable for summary trial or sentence can be retained in the magistrates court, while cases that require Crown court sentencing are sent there efficiently, without unnecessary hearings. I commend clause 2 to the Committee.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I thank the Minister for explaining the measures as she understands them. I do not mind admitting that some of the explanations in the explanatory notes and the information from the Library have left us with questions about how the measure will operate. The clause refers to written indication of guilty plea, and the explanatory notes refer to this as being available to those who are pleading guilty. I do not mind admitting that the Minister is much more directly experienced with the legal system than I am, as are other members of the Committee, but I do not quite understand the idea of someone choosing the mode of trial after they have pleaded guilty. If they have indicated at the outset that they are going to plead guilty, will the hearing not be about sentencing, rather than trial? My remarks will be focused on that.

The obvious thing to ask is this. If this measure is purely about sentencing, why would anyone who has pleaded guilty ever elect to have a sentencing hearing in the Crown court, where they know there could be a higher sentence, rather than in the magistrates court, where they know there will be a cap on what sentence can be passed? Our arguments have been about the process of the trial itself, and I have touched on some of the elements other than sentencing. That is not to say that there may not be perfectly reasonable grounds for someone to object if they think the decision made was wrong. Again, these are people who have admitted guilt, so we can clearly say they are criminals. Some of them may have spurious reasons for wanting to approach the system in that way, by seeking not to go to the Crown court, but they may also legitimately think that the decision was wrong or not fair. They may well have legal advice that the decision was not consistent with the sentencing guidelines, and that they would have been expected to have stayed in the magistrates court. As we discussed this morning, a significant number of the appeals in the magistrates court are successful, although I accept that those who seek an appeal are in the minority. We all accept that the magistrates courts make mistakes.

It is important that we understand how this measure will work in practice. Can the Minister tell us how many people are objecting and using the mechanism at the moment? That is also confusing, because the explanatory note says that these provisions are not yet in place, but what is her projection of the difference this will make? What will be its material impact? The provisions have not been commenced, but the Government and civil servants must have a view about how objections would have operated and what they would have achieved, versus the right to make representations. What is the difference between those two mechanisms? A guilty person cannot insist on being sentenced in a magistrates court. If the magistrates think that someone is going to hit a higher tariff and should go to Crown court, the person can, in theory, object, as I understand it, but they cannot stop it. Before we vote on the clause, I want the Minister to explain in detail exactly how this will be different from what the Government envisioned was going to happen.

Is there a risk in theory that more things will go to the Crown court? If the Government are saying, “You can’t object,” they must think that at the minute, in theory—if the provisions were to be commenced—some people would be kept in the magistrates court inappropriately. The Government must want more of those people to go the Crown court. If they thought everyone was just going to stick in the magistrates court anyway, why would they be doing it?

Jessica Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat, Chichester)

The shadow Minister is clearly articulating his confusion, which I share. I believe that clause 2 is at odds with the rest of clauses 1 to 8, because it does the opposite of what those other clauses are trying to achieve. Let us say that, on the advice of legal counsel, Person A has been told that, if they plead guilty, they will most likely receive a suspended sentence. They are keen to move on with their life and therefore they are willing to enter a guilty plea, but they are then told by the magistrates that they would like their case to be heard in the Crown court, which could carry a higher tariff. At the moment, they have the right to object to their case being taken over to the Crown court, because the conditions in which they pleaded guilty have changed. By removing that right, we are making sure that people do not get to say whether they want their case heard in the Crown court, which could push more cases into the Crown court. That makes clause 2 feel at odds with the rest of the clauses, which are trying to remove things from the Crown court. Does the shadow Minister agree?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I do. In the other direction, the Institute for Government highlights that

“only around 30% of sentences of 6-12 months were handed out by magistrates”

since their sentencing powers increased from six months to 12 months. That indicates a hesitation in the magistrates courts to award higher sentences. If the Government have the objective of sending these cases to the Crown court, but there is evidence to suggest that magistrates hesitate when it comes to higher sentences, ultimately this measure will not change that.

I want to be clear, because I think that there is some confusion about what is written in the Bill and the explanatory notes. The explanatory notes say:

“The amendments remove the ability of the defendant or the prosecutor to object to the case being sent to the Crown Court for sentence”.

We are talking about sentencing, but that is not exactly what the Minister said or what the Bill seems to say. Before we are asked to vote in support of the clause, the Government need to clear this up, so that we can all understand what exactly this change will achieve that is different in theory from what was going to happen.

I appreciate that this is challenging because we are discussing changes that have never been put into operation, but that is not really an excuse. The Government should have a view of how things were going to operate, and therefore must have formed a view about how they want them to operate differently as a result of this change.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I appreciate the complexity. We are slightly in the realm of the hypothetical. To be absolutely clear, the purpose of clause 2 is to align the uncommenced written plea and allocation provisions with the wider reforms in clause 1, which removes the right to elect. There is no intention at the current time to revisit the online plea and allocation system, so these written procedures have not been commenced, and they are not going to be commenced. The envisaged impact of those measures, which were part of the previous Government’s Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, albeit that they have not been commenced, will have been assessed at that time. We have no intention to commence them.

Clause 2 in effect tidies up the statute book. Its effect is to create a consistent, court-led allocation process across both written and in-person plea and allocation procedures, to ensure that decisions about venue, and sending matters to the Crown court for sentencing where the magistrates do not have sufficient powers, are determined solely by the court on the basis of seriousness and complexity. That would make the process consistent, rather than retaining residual provisions around the right to elect, for example, which would be inconsistent with what we want to do in clause 1.

If there are any further technical questions, those can be addressed, but these are uncommenced provisions, and they are not going to be commenced. The envisaged impact of said uncommenced provisions would have been assessed when they were legislated for in 2022, but obviously for a different system. We are not bringing them forward, but the clause is needed so that there is consistency across the statute book. Without it, supposing that clause 1 becomes section 1 of an eventual Act, other provisions in the statute book dating back to 2022 that refer to a right to elect, which we are suggesting should be removed, could still be commenced. Clause 2 is a consequential amendment and an important drafting exercise, but I am not going to purport to address issues of impacts of provisions that have yet to be commenced and we do not intend to commence.

Rebecca Paul (Conservative, Reigate)

I thank the Minister for that explanation. I hope she will bear with me as I try to take it on board.

Clauses 1 and 2 amend the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 so that a defendant charged with an either-way offence is no longer able to elect trial by jury. As was clearly established earlier today, that right to elect is entirely abolished by clause 1. Instead, it will be for the magistrates court alone to decide where the case should be tried; it can either remain in the magistrates court or go up to the Crown court. Clause 2 deals specifically with situations where there is a written indication of a guilty plea.

Section 17ZB of the Magistrates’ Courts Act, as inserted by section 6 of the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, sets out that the court can, on the material before it, without any hearing or representations, be satisfied that it is highly likely that, were the accused to plead guilty at summary trial of the offence in question and be convicted, the court would commit the accused to the Crown court for sentencing. Section 17ZB(5) then provides the accused with the opportunity to object to being sent to the Crown court for trial for the offence. Clause 2 amends that so that the accused and the prosecutor do not have the option to object and can instead only make representations as to whether the sentencing powers of the court would be adequate.

I note that “Crown Court” in the original section 17ZB is replaced with “court”. I assume that that refers to either the magistrates court or the Crown court, but I would be grateful for the Minister’s confirmation and explanation of that quite technical point, and of how it works with the Crown court bench division in the mix. The Bill’s explanatory notes suggest that it just means the magistrates court, but I went through the law— I should say that I am not a lawyer, but I dug it all out and read it—and, like a lot of Committee members, I am thoroughly confused. Normally, if something is logical and makes sense, I can follow it, so I am worried that it does not quite tie together. I am worried, even though I cannot quite articulate why, that the fact that the section will now just say “court” introduces some ambiguity. How is that defined? Quite often, these little bits of detail can be the speck of sand in the eye that can cause more problems than we realise.

This is a very technical issue, and I appreciate that it is difficult to go into it here and that the Minister is very good on the technical side of things—we have worked together on other things with very technical points, so I know that she is very thorough—but I think it is worth going through it again and making sure that the whole thing hangs together, so that we do not end up in a situation where the wrong place is doing sentencing or the wrong estimate of a sentence is made, and there is no way to unwind it. I am just a bit worried that there is potential for some problems to come out of this.

I appreciate the Minister’s helpful clarification that section 17ZB has not yet been commenced. However, if it had been, or if it were to be in future, it would, in a similar way to clause 1, remove powers and rights from defendants and give them less choice in how justice is dispensed in their case—essentially, a roll-back of rights. As I mentioned, I think we need to look at what will happen if the sentence estimate is wrong and how that will work its way through.

I thank the Minister for explaining that the provision is procedural, but it still strips people of the right to object and replaces it with the much weaker right merely to make representations. The explanatory notes are really clear on that point, even if they are not clear on a lot of others. They say that the changes made in clause 2

“remove the ability of the defendant or the prosecutor to object to the case being sent to the Crown Court for sentence”,

and instead create

“a process for each to make representations about whether the magistrates’ court’s sentencing powers would be adequate.”

That might have no impact if the section is never commenced, but if it ever is commenced, and we do not make sure that we have got clause 2 right, it may cause a problem and prioritise convenience over procedural protection.

When someone’s liberty, livelihood and reputation are at stake, it is a serious thing indeed to say that they may no longer object and may only make representations. Once again, the defendant is being moved further from the centre of the process, and the state closer to it. That is not right. Earlier in today’s proceedings, the Minister was reminded from the Opposition Benches that the legal system is balanced in favour of the defendant. That is not the spirit in which this change is being made. Indeed, that is the common thread running through clauses 1 and 2: at every stage, the defendant’s agency is reduced and the system’s convenience is elevated. The Government call that reform and improvement, but it is not; it is a distortion of our centuries-old legal protections.

There is a broader point here about confidence in the justice system. If the Government’s answer, again and again, is that defendants should simply trust the state’s estimate of seriousness, trust the allocation decision, trust the sentencing forum and trust that everything will work out in the end, that is not a strengthening of justice. It is a narrowing of the safeguards that make justice legitimate in the first place and will do nothing to address the backlog, which I recall was supposed to be the rationale for making these changes in the first place. Clauses 1 and 2 in combination are not what is required to address the Crown court backlog.

It appears that the backlog may be starting to come down already, as a consequence of uncapped sitting days and other changes that have been implemented, so why are the Government not taking a more cautious approach and exhausting all the good ideas that we have heard from expert witnesses before taking a sledgehammer to jury trials? Obviously, the first problem to address is the fact that up to 24% of Crown courts are not sitting on any given day, and getting the many defendants who arrive late to court there on time would be transformational. Why are we not solving those much more straightforward issues before pressing ahead with exceptional structural reform? We need to get the basics right, address inefficiencies and, most importantly, listen to those who know how to do it, such as the Bar Council and circuit leaders, and learn from the courts that are already making progress, such as Liverpool.

The Government are absolutely right to take the backlog issue seriously, but it is wrong to think that limiting jury trials will improve the situation. It could make the whole situation worse by creating years of transition and uncertainty and by moving one backlog from the Crown courts over to the magistrates. Furthermore, the cases moving over will be more complex, more technical and more sensitive. The Government are about to create a massive backlog in the magistrates court, which will then start to impact on low-level cases such as speeding offences.

I say that the Government should be more cautious because they have already accepted that there are other levers available. Ministers have announced that there will be no cap on Crown court sitting days next year, and that both the Crown court and magistrates courts will be funded at their highest ever operational level. That is much welcomed, but if the Government say that investment and capacity matter, why on earth would they not wait to see the full effect of those changes before pushing ahead with exceptional constitutional reform?

The Opposition position on that has been perfectly clear. On Second Reading, the Opposition’s reasoned amendment did not deny that the backlog is serious, but argued that the right answer is to improve case management, encourage earlier pleas, increase sitting days, increase the hours per day that courts are able to sit through better use of technology and improve the efficiency of prisoner transport. Those are practical, common-sense reforms; they go with the grain of the system, rather than taking a sledgehammer to jury trials and then hoping for the best.

The Government’s own impact assessment rather proves the point that this issue is as much about shifting pressure as solving it. It estimates that removing the defendant’s right to elect for jury trial would reduce crown Court demand by around 16,000 sitting days, but at the same time increase magistrates court demand by around 8,500 sitting days. The same document expressly recognises that reallocating cases to the magistrates courts is expected to increase the open caseload there and is likely to extend waiting times for hearing and sentencing in that jurisdiction. Even on the Government’s own figures, it is not some clean efficiency saving. It is a transfer of burden into a part of the system that is already under strain.

That is why clause 2 is more important than it first appears. Clause 1 removes the right to elect. Clause 2 then narrows the ability to resist where a written guilty plea is involved. Piece by piece, the Bill is building a system in which more serious, either-way cases are kept down, defendants have less say and the magistrates courts are expected to absorb ever more complexity. Ministers may present each provision as a small adjustment in isolation, but taken together, they amount to a very significant constitutional and practical change.

That change also carries transition risk. The Government are assuming that work currently taking place in the Crown court can be absorbed more quickly elsewhere. I know I am not telling the Minister anything that she does not already know, but the magistrates courts are not just a spare room in the system waiting to be filled. They will have to take more serious, more technical and more sensitive cases while continuing to deal with the huge volume of everyday criminal business that only they can process.

If the Government get this wrong, they will not have solved the backlog. They will simply have displaced it and degraded the quality of justice in the process. My plea is a simple one: “Proceed with caution. Let the effect of unlimited sitting days bed in. Fix the operational failings that everybody in the system can already see. Get defendants to court on time. Keep courtrooms sitting. Use technology better. Learn from the parts of the estate that are already improving, but do not dress up the removal of long-standing protections as if it were the only grown-up response to backlog. It is not. It is simply the most drastic one.”

That is why I cannot support clause 2. On its own, it may look technical, but in context it is part of a broader attempt to reduce rights, safeguards and the defendant’s role in how justice is administered. That is the wrong direction of travel.

Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Bolton South and Walkden)

I rise to ask about two things. First, for clarification on what clause 2 is actually trying to do, because, like the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, and like the hon. Member for Reigate, I was very confused by it. I read it many times and read the explanatory note as well. In desperation, I even went on to ChatGPT to see whether it could explain to me what clause 2 is trying to do.

I hope the Minister will bear with me: as I understand it, the procedures in the magistrates court are as follows: If it is a summary case, then the case stays in the magistrates court—the sentencing, trials and so on—and nobody has any right to go anywhere else. If it is an indictable offence, it has to be heard in the Crown court. There is no discretion and it is nothing to do with the magistrates court. If a defendant is charged with an either-way offence—this is the whole point of a jury trial—it has always been the case that he or she can turn up in court and say, “I plead guilty.”

At that point, a decision is made whether the person should be sentenced in the Crown court or the magistrates court. As I understand it, the prosecution and the defence get to have their say, but ultimately it is the magistrate or the sitting district judge who decides whether they can sentence the case. Ultimately, it has to be the decision of the bench—the lay justices or the district judge—because they are the ones who will be sentencing that particular defendant. They might do it on the day, they might ask for a pre-sentencing report or they might say whatever. Because they are making the sentencing decision, they are the ultimate arbiters of where that case goes for sentencing.

I am genuinely confused about what the clause is trying to do. As I have explained what I think the set-up is, I hope that the Minister will be able to explain it to me as well. It almost seems that the clause is redundant. It talks about written guilty pleas, where the decisions are ultimately made by the magistrate or the district judge. The defendant has no right to ask to go up to the Crown court. The prosecutor has no right to ask for the case to go up to the Crown court. They can make a representation, which is then considered with the whole case. I would like clarification on that.

As a general point, much as it pains me, I agree with some things that the Opposition have said. That is not something I often do, but, for example, there have been points made about the Lammy review. As a shadow Justice Minister, I remember asking, from the Dispatch Box, the then Conservative Lord Chancellor why we were not implementing the Lammy review, and I even met Justice Ministers to ask why we were not dealing with it.

Moreover, according to a recent assessment from the Institute for Government, there will be only a 2% difference. Abolishing a historical right in order to make a 2% difference is far too hard for me to comprehend. I will not repeat everything I have said before, but I really think that we should reconsider the abolition of jury trials for either-way offences—sorry, I will use the word “restriction”; that is probably the correct terminology to use. I would like clarification on clause 2.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I am not sure to what extent it is relevant, but I should probably declare that I used to be a practising solicitor, regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and registered with the Law Society.

The Committee dealt with similar issues on the implications for the right of election at some length during the debate on clause 1. Of course, proper time should be devoted to relevant issues in clause 2, but there is a significant overlap. If clause 1 is the constitutional sword that strikes down the right to choose a jury, clause 2 is the mechanism, or at least part of the mechanism, that replaces it. It is the mechanism, its operation in practice and its real-world consequences that I want to examine in some detail.

Clause 2 establishes an allocation framework where there is a written indication of a guilty plea. Under it, courts—acting alone and without the defendant’s consent—decide on a venue. That is made obvious by the substitution of wording, with “objecting” replaced by “make representations”. I have some distinct arguments against clause 2. I will take them in order, and I make no apology for the time that may require. The Committee is being asked to make a decision of constitutional significance without, I will argue, adequate evidence, safeguards, honesty or straightforwardness about its consequences and the extent to which it has been properly examined. That deserves serious scrutiny.

The gateway itself is poorly designed. Let me begin with the mechanism itself; before one can assess the consequences, it is necessary to understand the structure. Under the current law, albeit not yet implemented, the allocation works in two stages: there is a role for the court, a role for the prosecution and a role for the defendants. However, under clause 2, the role for defendants disappears, or perhaps it is more properly described as being watered down until it is no longer a right. The magistrate or the court decide, and that decision is final.

The criteria applied may, and will, take into consideration any representations made by the defendant, but that is not the same as the defendant’s being able to object. The assessment is made on the papers available at the outset; while it is probably not fair to call it an educated guess about how a case will unfold or, in the case of clause 2, how a guilty plea may be pleaded, every experienced practitioner knows that the true seriousness of a case or sentencing becomes apparent as it develops. How a matter looks on the papers can become very different when oral representations are made.

Indeed, the Criminal Bar Association has noted—particularly in reference to clause 1, but it applies to the combined effect of clauses 1 and 2—that the Government’s own impact assessment assumes that cases heard in the magistrates courts under extended sentencing powers will average just four hours, for cases where the likely sentences are approaching 18 months. That is not a serious assumption. Critically, there is also no right of appeal against the allocation decision. Of course, the Government have chosen not to provide one—unfairly, but in my view understandably—because an appeal route would undermine what they are trying to achieve.

We are treating a symptom as though it were the disease itself. Before I turn to the specific failings of the approach in clause 2, I want to spend a moment on context. I think the Government have framed this debate—maybe not deliberately—in a way that obscures the actual problem. The Lord Chancellor has repeatedly said that the Crown court is in a state of emergency, and he is certainly right that it is under very significant pressure; the backlog stood at just under 80,000 cases at the end of September 2025. He has also repeatedly said that a jury trial is a major driver of that emergency. However, at the same time, he has said that, if the backlog is brought under control and reduced, he will not restore the right to elect a jury trial that is being abolished, and the same goes for the complementary provisions in clause 2. Plainly, whether he is right or wrong, he is inconsistent, and it makes no sense.

Alex McIntyre (Labour, Gloucester)

As a former solicitor, I appreciate the hon. Member’s commitment to being paid at an hourly rate, given the speed of his contribution his afternoon.

One of the points the Secretary of State made in support of this measure at the Dispatch Box was that the changing nature of our criminal justice system and the added demand that will flow through the system in the future, added to the increasing complexity of cases, mean that jury trials are taking longer through the very nature of the additional evidence that is being gathered. That means that even if the immediate backlog is brought under control, there will still be a need for system reform in the long term, because otherwise we will not be able to keep it under control in perpetuity. Why does the hon. Member disagree with that?

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I should clarify that I no longer get paid on an hourly rate—I am paid by the taxpayer, as the hon. Gentleman is, on the same terms.

I do not reject the argument about reform. I accept that. Sir Brian Leveson was very clear that the complexity of cases, including cases heard in the Crown court by a jury, has increased over the years, but he also said that he does not blame jury trials for the backlog. That is the difference between us. I do not see that the only option available to the Government is to end the election opportunity or the powers and rights of a defendant to select trial by jury or by magistrate.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

The point was made very powerfully in the evidence sessions that we have this idea that we have to take a lot of time to explain all this complex stuff to a jury, and that we can just skip through it in a rapid way with a judge.

I visited courts and spoke to judges when I was on the Justice Committee. They themselves admit that they are not exactly whizz-kids when it comes to things like artificial intelligence or IT and the sort of things that might be over-complicating cases now. They are not going to be able to just whizz through stuff. They are going to need the same level of detail, explanation and time that a jury would need. Do we think defendants will be satisfied with a prosecution case that does not go through the same level of detail with a judge that it would have to go through with a jury?

We will end up with a whole new world of criminal appeals based on the idea that the judge did not adequately hear the evidence and that his summing up did not adequately address the reasons for his decisions. That could end up taking more time for judges. I am open to the idea that, potentially, we may possibly get some savings, but the case is so flimsy and weak that we cannot be expected to move forward on that basis when there are other things we could do.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I agree with my hon. Friend. There is a slightly strange implication that while jury trials have become more complex over time, due to technology and techniques for examining evidence—obviously a good thing—that somehow does not apply if the trial is in the magistrates court. That is the alarm bell, is it not? Magistrates courts are more capable of dealing with things in summary and they will not examine a case in as much detail and may miss things. That is not a criticism of magistrates and of the magistrates court—that is the system we have designed. When the consequences are less serious and the crime is less serious, the examination and process may be naturally less thorough.

That is not a reason to bring cases that today would be heard in the Crown court into the magistrates court without the defendant’s having the right to choose. My hon. Friend articulates that point exactly and represents the concerns that most people have.

In the evidence session, we heard that the current court backlog is the result of many things, including lack of investment—the Minister talked today about the lack of investment, and the issues with recruitment and retention, and criticised the previous Government for caps on sitting days—and the effect of the covid pandemic. The Minister and I might disagree on the extent to which that is true, but none of those things should be cured by abolishing jury trials.

I say “abolishing” because some crimes that today can be tried in a Crown court with a jury, will not be able to be when the Bill has gone through, so jury trials for some crimes are being abolished. Plainly, no one is saying that jury trials are being abolished in this country—no one is saying that for all and every crime, or that we will never see 12 men and women sitting in a Crown court again. To be frank, that is a ridiculous suggestion being put on the Opposition. However, if this law goes through unamended, jury trials are being abolished for some crimes that can receive a jury trial today.

The Institute for Government, in its March 2026 report, “Beyond reasonable doubt?”, said that—the Government, I think, acknowledge this, although perhaps not the exact figures—the reforms will address only 1% to 2% of Crown court working time and only a small minority of cases.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the 1% to 2% refers to the time savings achieved by the Crown court bench division? The IFG recognised that the totality of the package achieved a 10% saving. The Ministry of Justice’s modelling—externally verified—shows a 20% saving, which is highly material.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I accept the Minister’s statement to the extent that it is a statement of fact of people’s evidence. To address the issue of taking cases out of one court to give to another, however: that is a small minority of cases. Indeed, that is the argument that the Government make, certainly to their own Back Benchers when they are worried about the Back-Bench view of their proposals: “Don’t worry. Most cases are heard in the magistrates court anyway, and only a tiny percentage are being taken out of the Crown court.” The Government cannot have the argument both ways: when speaking to their own Back Benchers, “Don’t worry, this is not going to be meaningful,” and when speaking to the rest of the world about tackling backlogs, saying that that in itself is a meaningful change.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

What does not bear up to much scrutiny is for the Minister to say, “Actually, the package as a whole will deliver these major reforms,” because we do not object to the whole package. We can say, “Go ahead and do the things that we do not object to, and we will have violent agreement at later stages in the Bill.” The Government cannot hold over us the fact that we agree with some of the package, because that is not a reason for us to go along with the things that we do not like. That is part of the whole process of parliamentary scrutiny of a Bill—the bits that we do or do not like. We are not removed from commenting positively about the good stuff because we disagree with other things.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

Once again, I agree with the shadow Minister. If the Government genuinely want to address the backlog, the answer lies in the other 179 recommendations that Sir Brian Leveson made: increasing sitting days, which the Government have now done in a modest way; improving case management; removing unnecessary adjournments; rebuilding or restructuring the legal profession; sustainable legal aid; and a whole list of recommendations. None of that requires the—in my view—brutal axe taken against the right of election to jury trial. In fact, it is more than a brutal axe; jury trial is just being denied for an either-way offence That is being restricted to the magistrates court.

I now turn to what I consider the most serious argument against the clause, which is an uncomfortable one. It has been referred to already in debate on clause 1, but it is relevant to clause 2 as well. The venue to which all relevant cases we are discussing will be diverted is the magistrates court, which produces—measurably, consistently and substantially—worse outcomes for defendants from ethnic minority backgrounds than the Crown court does. That is not a theoretical proposition or a position of advocacy; it is the statistical evidence and the documented finding of researchers, legal practitioners and analysis drawing on Government data. Magistrates courts convict people from ethnic minority backgrounds at rates up to 40% higher than non-ethnic minority defendants. That is not a small or debatable margin; it is a significant consideration.

Albeit to make a slightly different point, the hon. Member for Chichester mentioned that if someone has a clean record they would be tried in the magistrates court, but if they had a list of previous offences they may be tried on the same facts in the Crown court, where conviction rates are lower. Having previous convictions therefore puts someone into a venue with lower conviction rates. I am not suggesting that the Government have designed the measure in that way, but it is plainly nonsense and unacceptable for that to come about. The Government need to look at that and amend it.

Charities have responded to Sir Brian’s proposals and have provided further granular data. In Crown court jury trials, people of colour are convicted at broadly similar rates to their white counterparts. It is not hard to see why: the principle—the whole idea—behind a decision being made by someone’s peers is that juries reflect the country in which we live. Magistrates and professional judges are predominantly whiter, more educated and more male than the population at large. It is interesting to note, but is not a criticism, that this Committee itself is evidently less diverse not only than juries, but than the population at large. A defendant from an ethnic minority background charged with an either-way offence this week has a right to elect. They can look at the data—thank goodness we have that data—take advice from their legal representatives and make a considered choice about the venue in which they believe they are most likely to receive fair treatment. I would suggest, without quoting evidence, that a number of them elect the Crown court because they believe they will get a fairer trial—because they are more likely to have their fate at least partly decided by someone who shares something of their own background and lived experience.

Let me address the Government’s response to this evidence, which has been inadequate. The Lord Chancellor—who, as he has reminded this House, knows the experience of racial disparity personally and profoundly, and has long spoken about it throughout and before his time in this place—has argued that progress is being made. He has cited the figure that 21% of judges now come from an ethnic minority background. I welcome the progress that has been made, particularly in the judicial system, but that still does not compare to the fairness and legal principle of trial by jury.

I want to put the constitutional point more plainly. Parliament is being asked to pass a provision that it knows, on the basis of evidence submitted to its own Committee, will produce racially differentiated outcomes. The Government have seen that evidence. Ministers have been questioned on it at length, and the Bill has not been amended to address it, but it must be. If a different Government Department proposed a policy that its own evidence showed would increase adverse outcomes for ethnic minority applicants by, in this case, up to 40%, what would we say? We would say it is discriminatory and grossly unacceptable. We would demand it be withdrawn pending a full equality impact assessment. We would not pass it on a Government Whip. This is the standard I invite the Committee to apply here. The fact that the discrimination operates through an allocation mechanism in the criminal courts, or in some cases through an administrative form, does not change its nature or its effect. The test is the outcome, not the intention. No one is suggesting the Government intend this, but it is the outcome and the outcome is documented.

The racial disparity in outcomes does not exist in a vacuum. It is connected causally, not merely coincidentally, to a documented and persistent deficit in judicial diversity. In 2019, 12% of magistrates were from a BME background, which compares to an 18% share of the general population. The magistrates do not reflect the country that they are being asked to judge in the same way as a jury do.

I turn to the argument that the legal aid threshold will leave defendants unrepresented when making their plea in sentencing. That is a further systemic consequence of clause 2. The means test for legal aid differs, of course, between the two tiers of court, as we have heard. In the Crown court the threshold is more generous. Defendants in a wider income range qualify for representation at public expense. In the magistrates court the threshold is lower and less generous. Many defendants who would qualify for legal aid in the Crown court may not qualify for it in the magistrates court. Under clause 2, a significant cohort of defendants who previously had a right to elect, and with it the more generous legal aid provision, will find themselves in the magistrates court facing charges and sentencing that could result in a sentence of 18 months, or ultimately 24 months, without adequate legal representation. The Institute for Government has flagged this explicitly. Because of the low-income threshold to qualify for legal aid in the magistrates court, many more defendants are likely to go unrepresented or under-represented, and an unrepresented defendant in serious criminal proceedings is not a defendant receiving fair justice.

There is a cruel irony in the Government’s framing of the issue. Ministers argue that one problem with the current system is that defendants elect a Crown court to delay proceedings and therefore game the system. But why would a defendant in a serious case choose the Crown court? Often precisely because they know that in the Crown court they are more likely to have or to be able to afford a lawyer, and in the magistrates court they may not. The election is not a game. It is part of a system that has stood for a very long time. It is a rational response, in this case, to a legal aid system that is itself under severe pressure.

The Law Society has raised this concern formally in its evidence to the Committee. Unless the legal aid means test is aligned between the two tiers, there will be more unrepresented defendants in the magistrates court being tried in more serious cases. Unrepresented defendants in serious cases take longer to try. They are more likely to be wrongly convicted and, when they are wrongly convicted, they are less likely to know how to appeal and less likely to be able to afford proper help and representation. This is not just a speculative side effect of the Bill.

I will now take a moment to set out the range and weight of expert opposition to these provisions, because the Committee should understand what it is putting to one side if it orders clause 2 to stand part of the Bill. The Criminal Bar Association, as we have heard, represents more than 4,000 practising criminal barristers, and it is opposed to the provisions here when it comes to the role of a jury and the right to elect. As we have heard, its snap survey found that approximately 90% of its members are against the proposal.

Meanwhile, more than 3,200 legal professionals, including 300 KCs and 22 retired judges, have signed a letter describing the reforms as sacrificing the

“‘gold standard’ of British justice”.

These are practitioners, not a mathematical mirage or a fringe movement.

Alex McIntyre (Labour, Gloucester)

The hon. Member is giving a rather elongated speech this afternoon, which we are all enjoying. On the subject of the Criminal Bar Association, I seem to recall it rallying against the removal of the ancient right of double jeopardy, which it said would deny people a fair trial and ruin our criminal justice system. I am pretty sure his party was in favour of that removal back in the noughties. Those predictions have not transpired; it actually led to justice, for example, for Stephen Lawrence. Does he agree that the CBA may be wrong in some of its views?

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I thank the hon. Member for paying attention to my speech and staying with me on this. Fairly obviously, I do not think that the Criminal Bar Association is always right, but I do in this case.

The Institute for Government published “Beyond reasonable doubt?” on the day of Second Reading. Its conclusions were stark: the reforms risk prioritising speed over fair justice; the projected savings remain highly uncertain; a 10% to 15% increase in demand on the magistrates court will be difficult to manage in practice; and the structural reforms are likely to impede attempts to improve productivity and could make the situation worse in the short to medium term. That is not the view of lawyers protecting their professional interests; it is the view of independent public governance researchers.

The Law Society has raised concerns about the retrospective application of the provisions, the fundamental unfairness of removing trial rights from defendants who have already elected under existing rules, and the prospects for those with cases already listed. It has also raised concerns about the legal aid means test misalignment, proportionality and cases involving children, as well as the potential unworkability of fraud provisions.

I submit that the burden of proof in this debate does not lie with those opposing the Bill, when the entire criminal law profession, leading independent think-tanks, retired judges and KCs have come out so united in their strength of opposition. Indeed, when the Government are looking to tear up centuries-old principles, whether in whole or in part—depending on how we analyse the crimes that will no longer be allowed to proceed to the Crown court—the burden of proof must surely be on the Government to explain why they are all wrong. That explanation, in my view, has not been provided.

John Slinger (Labour, Rugby)

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that previous Governments of all political colours have changed the threshold for jury trials, including those of Jim Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher? It is not entirely accurate to say, in the way that he did, that it is the tearing up of centuries-old rights; Governments periodically look at the threshold for access to jury trial.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

Of course, the Minister made that point—in her view, this is about thresholds. Whether we want to call it an argument about thresholds, and whichever part of history we want to look at, the Opposition’s fundamental point remains. There is a distinct lack of evidence for this Government’s plans today, set against the range of other provisions that could be, and in some cases have been, introduced. In our view, they have not been given the time to bed in and potentially deliver the savings that the Government want. I accept the hon. Member for Rugby does not accept that, but I think that is the point of contention here.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I covered all the statistics on the reforms that the hon. Member for Rugby mentioned this morning. The scale of these changes, compared with the scale of those changes, is absolutely unprecedented. There has never been a reduction in jury trials of the scale before us today. In support of the point being made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East, the burden of proof must become higher and higher as the change being made gets bigger and bigger. This change is unprecedented, so let us have an unprecedented level of evidence to support it before asking us to consider it.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I agree with the shadow Minister, and I really have nothing to add—his words stand for themselves.

John Slinger (Labour, Rugby)

The shadow Minister states that the reforms proposed by this Government are unprecedented. Actually, the reforms of the Callaghan Government removed jury trials for theft, burglary, actual bodily harm and certain drug offences in 1977, and the Thatcher Government did the same in 1988 for criminal damage. Those are quite substantial changes, so I object to what I believe is hyperbolic language that some Opposition Members have used not only in Committee today but more widely. It undermines public confidence in the judicial system.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

rose—

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

In an attempt to resolve a debate that is not immediately mine, I will give way to the shadow Minister.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

It would assist the Committee to know why we are making these comparisons. I have figures on the effect of the reclassification of criminal offences in the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which is one of the examples that the hon. Member for Rugby used in order to say that we are unfairly comparing the categorisations.

Let us bear in mind that the changes before us today will result in a 50% reduction in jury trials. According to the Home Office statistics bulletin, which provides a summary of the effect of those changes for comparison, that legislation resulted in a 5% decline. The Government are asking us to support something that will lead to a 50% decline, yet the hon. Gentleman says that we are being hyperbolic in comparing the two and saying that one is insignificant and the other is significant. I think the difference between 5% and 50% is pretty significant.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I thank the shadow Minister. I am probably not in a position to arbitrate between the two arguments; the hon. Member for Rugby will have to forgive me, as I come from the starting position that I back the shadow Minister, not least because he was wielding a particularly substantial file when he just spoke.

I want to address a provision that is not the immediate subject of this grouping, but which fundamentally determines the significance of clause 2—the reform of appeal rights from the magistrates court contained in clause 7. Currently, a defendant convicted in the magistrates court has an automatic right of appeal to the Crown court. That right is exercised in approximately—

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

On a point of order, Ms Butler. I seek guidance on how we get back to clause 2, because we have veered off significantly from it. Clause 2 relates to provisions that have not yet come into force but could well come into force in the future, specifically in relation to how cases could proceed from the magistrates court to the Crown court by way of written submissions. The idea behind that provision was to avoid the need for a court hearing if everybody agreed. How can we get back on to clause 2, because I fear we are veering significantly away from what it is trying to do?

Dawn Butler (Labour, Brent East)

I will give a little leeway, but I ask the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East to please go back to clause 2.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

On a point of order, Ms Butler. This speaks to the heart of the confusion at the start of the debate. On the one hand, the Minister wants to say that it is arbitrary and inconsequential, but the explanatory notes say that this is fundamental to enacting clause 1. That is what the Minister said—that these two things sit together, so everything that clause 1 is doing is surely in scope if the Minister’s argument is that clause 2 is needed to fully enact clause 1.

Dawn Butler (Labour, Brent East)

I take the shadow Minister’s point. I call Joe Robertson.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

Thank you, Ms Butler, and I will of course stick to clause 2. I welcome any challenge that a specific point that I have made does not relate to clause 2. There is possibly a slight lack of clarity across the whole Committee, and I do not profess to be the only expert in the room; indeed, I am not an expert. However, I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate that there seems to be a distinct lack of clarity about what clause 2 does. I am not suggesting that the Minister does not know, and I welcome an intervention if she feels that I need to be brought back into scope in this part of the debate.

Clause 2 specifically replaces automatic rights with a permission stage. When clauses 2 and 7 are combined, a defendant who believes they have been wrongly convicted must first persuade a Crown court judge that their appeal has sufficient merit before it is even heard. The Government argue that the 41% success rate shows that meritorious appeals will get through, but in my view, that misses the point.

The Law Society has identified precisely why the current simple route matters. A significant proportion of defendants in the magistrates court do not have a lawyer. As I have argued, under clause 2 more of them are likely to be unrepresented. Owing to the misalignment of legal aid means testing, an unrepresented defendant who has been wrongly convicted will surely be less likely to know how to draft grounds of appeal. They will not be able to identify legal errors that may appear in magistrates’ reasoning or decisions in the same way. As I understand it, they will also not be able to commission a transcript of proceedings in the same way and construct a submission that meets the permissions test. The permission stage is, in practice, a barrier that falls disproportionately on those least equipped to overcome it.

The opposition to the clause is broad and has not been answered. In some cases, the opposition is expert; in others, it comes through lived experience. I will briefly look at the range and weight of expert opposition to the provisions, some of which I have referred to already, because the Committee should understand— I am sure it does—what it is seeking to perhaps have regard to but set aside if it passes clause 2.

As we have heard, the Criminal Bar Association represents more than 4,000 practising criminal barristers. In answer to an earlier intervention, I do not say that the Criminal Bar Association’s word must be final, but it is clearly heavily persuasive, especially on this issue, which has already faced much scrutiny and disagreement from people with particular expertise in the field of criminal justice. As we have heard, its snap survey—so that is individual members, rather than the association—found that around 90% of members are against the proposals.

We have also heard about the Institute for Government’s own published report, and the concerns that have been raised by the Law Society, which represents solicitors.

Alex McIntyre (Labour, Gloucester)

Will the hon. Member give way?

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

Will the hon. Member give way?

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I will give way to the Minister.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman because he is making important points, but the point was well made a moment ago that in line-by-line scrutiny the intent is to go line by line. Clause 2 deals with making what were uncommenced online procedures consistent with the changes made in clause 1 to the current ability of a defendant to choose venue. The hon. Gentleman is making a wide-ranging speech on whether one can appeal the mode of trial decision, and the permission to appeal. That will come later when we get to clause 7. I venture that these are all valid points that we will want to debate, but that might be the appropriate place to discuss those matters, because right now we are looking at clause 2. I am happy to reclarify the points I made in relation to clause 2, but if we range on to clause 7 in the scope of clause 2, we are not going to get the line-by-line scrutiny that we all want to achieve.

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I thank the Minister for rather politely encouraging me to come towards the end of my speech. I will finish by addressing the idea that somehow, because something does not happen in Scotland, it must be okay not to happen in England. That plainly has nothing to do with politics or even football—not that I am suggesting the Minister thought it did. I am happy to say, as a proud citizen of the United Kingdom, that I think the English and Welsh legal system is the best in the world. The common-law system is the foundation, it has been adopted all around the world, and is by far the most widely-used legal system. It is possibly our greatest export, along with the English language.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

While I am very proud of our legal system, I do not necessarily take the view that ours is best and we cannot learn from other systems. Indeed, some of the places that we have exported to, such as Canada, are the places that we are looking to learn from when seeking to ameliorate our own system. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, with its strong foundations, one of the strengths of our system is our fiercely independent judiciary? Much has been said about the judiciary, but does he agree that it is a fundamental pillar of our outstanding legal system and we should seek to defend it—and when judges are called enemies of the people, we should call it out?

Joe Robertson (Conservative, Isle of Wight East)

I am very happy to say that I agree with all the things the Minister said. I also agree with learning from other systems. Plainly, the English legal system, like the English language, has been successful in its ability to adapt and evolve. Without going back to the beginning of my speech, started just a few minutes ago, for the reasons I have set out, I believe that this is an evolution—or arguably a revolution. [Interruption.] Was that another intervention? I think these measures are a stage too far.

Jessica Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat, Chichester)

I would like to briefly refer the Committee to some remarks that Sir Brian Leveson made during the evidence session we had before the recess. He said:

“We need people to confront what they have done. I do not want anybody to plead guilty who is not guilty and has seen the evidence. I am not asking to change the guilty plea rate, but in the early days, you pleaded guilty on the first or the second occasion you appeared at the Crown court—now there are many examples of that happening on the fifth or the sixth occasion you are in the Crown court. Each one of those takes a considerable amount of time. That is what is sucking up part of the time.”––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 25 March 2026; c. 8, Q9.]

Sir Brian tried to explain that a lot of people look at the evidence and say, “Yes, I will plead guilty, but I will do so after Christmas”—that was his example. He said that now, because of the Crown court backlogs, people know that their case will not be heard until 2028.

The point that Sir Brian was trying to make is that we need to incentivise those who look at the evidence of their case, and recognise that a guilty verdict is probably going to be arrived at, to put in a guilty plea. Does clause 2 not risk having the reverse effect? People will see that if they put in a guilty plea, the one opportunity they have to argue whether the case should be heard in a magistrates court or a Crown court—although I imagine the majority of them would argue that it should be heard in the magistrates court in this specific example—is taken away from them. Are we not then disincentivising people to put in a guilty plea at an early stage, when we want to see the Crown court backlog come down?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Reflecting on what has been said, I think that confusion remains. I welcome the further remarks from the Minister, but I am still not clear on whether there will be any impact in the real world for people as a result of the change. Earlier, I read out a sentence from the explanatory notes that talks about how the clause relates to sentencing, but the sentence before that says it relates to a

“written indication of a guilty plea”.

The legislation says that a written plea is not actually a guilty plea, so there could still be a trial—someone might change their mind. The difference that the legislation talks about is that if someone gives an in-person plea, that is their plea. This reform introduces the idea of a written plea, and, probably quite sensibly, it was decided that that should not be seen as the final example. Decisions are being made at that point, but then the plea could be changed and there could be a trial. It could have a real-world impact; it is not a technical change.

If the Government are clear that they are not enacting this measure, why not? There must have been a reason why they thought that written guilty pleas were of use. I suspect it probably was an efficiency measure at the time and they thought, “If we allow people to more easily give an early indication, that might encourage them to do so, and we can get all the benefits that flow from that.” If the Government are on an efficiency drive, why are they not enacting the measure? I would have asked the same of my Government if they had the ability to enact it. I do not know what the timeline was—was there a natural lag or a deliberate decision not to enact it?

We need it laid out in black and white: will this change have any real-world impact—yes or no? What exactly will that impact be? Because of the quite open possibility that it will have a real-world impact in terms of reducing someone’s ability to go to the Crown court—that is what we are talking about—all the concerns that Members have about clause 1 apply to clause 2.

I want to pick up on some of the changes. The Minister mentioned how we have listened to Canada. The point I made quite clearly in our evidence session with the Attorney General of Ontario was that they brought their backlog down without making any changes to jury trials whatsoever, so I am not sure how helpful that is as an example of why we need to change the system.

Members mentioned a sunset clause. If the Bill were just about bringing the backlog down, there would be a sunset clause in it. That again demonstrates that the Government actually think this is a better way of doing things. If that is the case, they should make that argument. They should just say, “We are making these reforms because they are the better way to do things. There will be an additional benefit in terms of bringing down the backlog,” but they have not said that.

I certainly would not use the language that the Minister used, but I am absolutely clear that we need to improve judicial accountability. We had a whole panel in the evidence sessions in relation to the family courts, for example, and whether they are making the right sorts of judgments about the interests of the child. We heard quite clearly that judges should not place too much weight on the idea that there is a good relationship with both parents when making decisions. The reason the Government are proposing changes on this issue is that they clearly do not think that judicial decisions are consistently doing the right thing.

My first encounter with this lack of accountability in judicial decision making—this is very important if people will be subject to individual judicial decisions—was the case of a constituent who had fostered a young girl in difficult circumstances. The young girl was physically fit and healthy, but struggling. The family—the original parents—had applied to get custody back. The foster mother did not want the girl to go back to the family, and nor did the local authority or the wider family, but the judge decided—again, we are giving more power to judges by removing the power to elect—that the girl should go back.

That girl is now in an almost vegetative state—it is not quite like that, but she is extremely disabled. The wonderful lady who fostered that young girl, even though the girl was then in a very difficult physical state and was going to be extremely dependent for the rest of her life, adopted her, which was an extraordinary thing to do. She approached me to say, “Social services have to account for what has happened. The police, if they had been involved, would have had to account for what happened. Can you tell me what happens to the judge who made that decision, which led to these consequences?” I wrote the Lady Chief Justice asking whether she could explain to my constituent what the consequences were. If there is a legal matter, it goes to the Court of Appeal; other than that, there is no issue for the judge. That has really driven my view about a need for more judicial accountability. I recognise the Minister’s right to say that we have to be careful about the language we use when talking about these things, but there is nothing wrong with saying that we need a more accountable judiciary.

On the need to increase sitting days, the Government like to claim that there are record levels of sitting days. I do not know whether the Minister knows that that is not a fair reflection of what is going on, but we changed the way in which we measure sitting days. There used to be two separate counts of sitting days—trial days and judge days—and we then combined them. If we look at the figures fairly, the counts are at some points pretty similar, if not higher previously. The figure is higher now because there is just one figure. I am not seeking to take away from the Government’s efforts in that regard, but we should be fair and accurate in how we describe the historical record.

We discussed whether it was fair to use the term “abolition”, which has come up repeatedly. I am very careful about the language I use, and I do not say that, but I will not take any lectures on the issue from a party that, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) was Prime Minister, put out a Facebook campaign saying that he did not think that paedophiles should go to prison—a disgusting misrepresentation of the reality. The Labour party was happy to do that, so I will not take any lectures from Labour Members.

Dawn Butler (Labour, Brent East)

Order. I allowed the hon. Member to rise to make a quick contribution on clause 2. Would he sum up?

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

My final point in opposition to clauses 1 and 2 is that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who is not here today, would have had a lot to say during our proceedings. He is a Labour MP who has quite literally never rebelled against the Labour Whip. Ms Butler, you have probably been here longer than all the rest of us, so you know that in our parties we have the usual suspects, who rebel when they get the opportunity and take any chance to disagree with the governing party—we all have a sense of what that means. The hon. Gentleman is not one of the usual suspects. He is a passionate practitioner. He will have dealt with clause 2 cases. He will have sat in court and dealt with the sorts of things that clause 2 covers.

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

Clause 2 relates to measures that have not come into force yet, so my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East cannot possibly have any experience of that.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

I am not clear that that is the case.

Linsey Farnsworth (Labour, Amber Valley)

It is the case.

Kieran Mullan (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle)

Sorry—I am not clear that there will not be real-world consequences in the kind of ways that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East will understand. The Minister nodded her head when I suggested that fewer people will get a Crown court trial as a result of clause 2. The Minister indicated from a sedentary position that it is correct to say that fewer people will get a Crown court hearing specifically as a result of clause 2. If the Minister can clarify that, I am very open to hearing her. I ask Labour Members to think very carefully about the fact that one of their own, who is not one of the usual suspects, is so vehemently opposed to the change.

Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green)

I will address clause 2 and respond to some of the remarks the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East made about the equalities impact, as well as the point about efficiencies and the time scale over which they can be realised to address the problem that we all say that we want to address: the backlogs.

Clause 2 changes uncommenced provisions in section 17ZB of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 so that appropriate guilty pleas are sent to the Crown court for sentencing. To answer the question that the hon. Member for Reigate asked about the meaning of the word “court”, in this context, it refers to the magistrates court, which is where the first hearing takes place. I hope I have clarified that. It was before my time but, as I understand it, the measures aimed to provide the defendant with the chance to indicate a plea at the earliest possible opportunity and to enable allocation decisions to be made without the need for an initial in-person hearing. They will not change anything around the allocations procedures moving forward.

On the shadow Minister’s question about why we do not just do that, it is not a priority for the now, as we have a lot of other priorities. System readiness is essential for the commencement of an online plea and allocation procedure and we do not have a date for that commencement, so there is an air of the hypothetical here. However, clause 2 aligns with what we spoke about in the debate on clause 1 so that, should this or a future Parliament choose to implement the online plea and allocation procedures, the measure is clear.

To answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Chichester, no, the Government do not think that the measure would alter behaviour around early guilty pleas, although she is absolutely right that one thing we are striving to do—through not just these legislative reforms, but our approach to the reform of legal aid fees—is to change behaviour in the criminal justice system to achieve the early guilty plea rates that we saw before the backlog raced out of control, at the very least. The sooner we get those early guilty pleas, the more efficient the process is, for the system and for people’s ability to move on.

Currently, when a defendant has indicated a guilty plea and the magistrates court considers its sentencing powers to be inadequate, the court cannot commit the case to the Crown court for sentencing without the consent of both the defence and prosecution. Clause 2 removes both parties’ ability to object. Instead, the magistrates court must invite written representations from both parties on whether its sentencing powers would be adequate, and then, having considered those representations, decide whether to send the case to the Crown court under section 51 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

Under the process as amended by the clause, should the provisions be commenced, defendants would continue to indicate their plea in writing, but decisions about the appropriate venue for trial would, as a consequence of the changes under clause 1, be made by the court alone. The Committee debated the merits of those changes in our significant and lengthy discussion on clause 1, but the policy decision in the clause is that the court rather than the defendant should make the decision on the venue of trial.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight East commented on the impact of the current system, and of any reformed system, on minorities, which, as I indicated earlier, is really important. That topic is an important aspect of the Committee’s work and, as we reflected on earlier, it will be an important part of our future discussions. I genuinely look forward to the debate we will have on the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington, which will no doubt lead to important discussions across both sides.

I want to pick up on a figure that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East cited. I heard him say—I wrote it down—that someone is 40% more likely to be convicted if they are an ethnic minority defendant in the magistrates court than in the Crown court. That is not a figure that I recognise and it is not one reflected in the equality impact assessment that accompanies the Bill, which cites the Ministry of Justice’s data. What our data shows is that someone is not more likely to be convicted if they are an ethnic minority defendant in the magistrates court. In general, conviction rates are 15% higher in the magistrates court compared with the Crown court for triable either-way offences or equivalent offences, but that is consistent across ethnicities.

I do not take issue with the hon. Member’s point that many who currently elect for a jury trial, including those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, may well do so because they think they will get a fairer hearing or some other advantage by going before a jury. There is also no doubt that juries command a higher degree of confidence in those communities. I am sure that that will be teased out in the debate that we will have, but it is important that we are as careful as we can be. I am not suggesting that he was not being careful, but I do not recognise that 40% figure.

A statutory review mechanism for the ongoing monitoring of and response to racial disparities, whether in relation to sentencing outcomes, conviction rates or disproportionality in the CPS, is important. It is also important that where we see improvement and get things right, we talk about that, too. How will we command the confidence of our diverse communities unless we also talk about the improvements that are being made? I think sunlight is the best disinfectant. We need to be candid about the issues that exist in our current system and the status quo, and how that in many regards fails some of our communities. But if we seek to improve it, we have to be really clear on the data. I just wanted to clarify the statistic on conviction rates, which, as I said, is higher across all ethnicities, but of course that will include black, minority ethnic and mixed race defendants as well.

I want to say something about the efficiencies. Everyone agrees, not least as the backlogs have raced out of control, that the system has become more and more inefficient. It becomes a vicious cycle. Common themes have been raised and I agree that there are areas that need focus, such as prisoner transfers. Members will have heard about initiatives that the Government have already set in train in terms of opening up bus lanes. The Prisons Minister in the other place and I have established a prisoner escort and custody services prisoner transfer oversight board. I was at Wandsworth prison the other day. I got in a Serco van and talked to some of the prison officers and Serco people about how it operates and where there is grit, as it were, in the system. We are looking at it from end to end, as we must, including by engaging—this might come as a surprise—with the likes of the Bar Council. I have regular constructive engagement with it because it has lots of first-hand evidence of prisoners failing to turn up on time in court, sometimes because they have not left the prison and sometimes because they are in the cells in the court and there is no one available to bring them up. Getting to grips with those problems is really important.

I must bring Members back to the very clear evidence of Sir Brian Leveson’s review team. Although we must deal with the recommendations—indeed, we are doing so in real time, even before this Bill makes it on to the statute book—they will not be sufficient to reduce the backlog. One of the challenges consistently put to me stings pretty hard: “Even with everything you’re doing, Minister—even with the 20% savings that you say this will realise, even with the efficiency drive, and even with uncapping sitting days—you only begin to get the backlog down at the end of this Parliament. In the meantime, all the defendants on remand, all those complainants and all those actual victims of crime have their lives on hold. It is not happening nearly fast enough.” That is why we are choosing to pull every lever, including the levers in this Bill, which, by the way, includes clause 2. I commend clause 2 to the Committee.

Clause 3 - Trial on indictment without a jury: general rule for allocation

Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Bolton South and Walkden)

I beg to move amendment 23, in clause 3, page 5, line 25, leave out “the condition” and insert

“one or more of the conditions”.

Dawn Butler (Labour, Brent East)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 39, in clause 3, page 5, line 26, at end insert—

“or,

(c) the defendant demonstrates to the court that the circumstances of his case are such that to be tried without a jury would amount to a breach of the principles of natural justice.”

This amendment would ensure that trials by jury continue for indictable offences carrying a sentence of less than three years in prison if the defendant can demonstrate that it would be in the interests of natural justice.

Amendment 24, in clause 3, page 5, line 28, leave out subsection (5) and insert—

“(5) The conditions in this subsection are met in relation to a defendant if—

(a) 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 for the offence or offences (taken together);

(b) the defendant is of good character;

(c) the defendant has not previously been convicted of an imprisonable offence;

(d) the defendant would be treated as a rehabilitated person under section 1 of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974;

(e) 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;

(f) there are reasonable grounds to believe that the gravity or complexity of the case may increase; or

(g) other exceptional circumstances pertain to the case.”

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.