Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fifth sitting)
(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing 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.”
Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.
I speak in support of amendments 23, 39 and 24 which, taken together, would do something simple but important: they would build a measure of flexibility back into the clause, so that jury trial is still available where the cause of justice requires it. The Minister should think carefully. As drafted, the clause creates a very blunt regime: unless the court predicts a sentence of more than three years, the trial is to be conducted without a jury. The amendments would go a small way towards softening that rigidity and making the system less arbitrary, more proportionate and hence more just.
With the amendments, two different Committee members take two different approaches to delivering the same outcome of additional flexibility in the clause. Amendment 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle, is broad in nature, setting out an additional condition for jury trial when needed to ensure natural justice, whereas the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden takes a more granular approach to the problem by listing the specific circumstances that might warrant the need for jury trial, again to ensure fairness. Both approaches seek to achieve the same thing.
I will speak to each amendment in a little more detail, starting with amendment 23. Clause 3 is currently built on one single condition for preserving jury trial in relevant cases: whether the defendant is likely to receive a sentence of more than three years if convicted. Amendment 23 would change the wording from “the condition” to
“one or more of the conditions”.
This is the gateway to allow amendment 24, which lists various conditions, to work.
The amendment matters because it opens the door to a more sensible approach, in which sentence is not the only thing that counts. That is exactly the right approach. When we deal with a constitutional safeguard as important as jury trial, the Committee should be wary of a system that turns entirely on a single mechanistic threshold. Human beings and criminal cases are not that neat, and Parliament should not pretend that they are. The amendment is therefore modest, tidy, entirely sensible and the necessary first step to add judgment, flexibility and common sense to a clause that has far too little of all three.
On amendment 24 and its list of conditions, the Government’s model under the clause is to ask the court at an early stage to forecast the sentence that would likely be imposed if the defendant were convicted. If the forecast is more than three years, there is a jury; if it is not, there is none. That is far too crude a test to bear the full constitutional weight that the Government want to place on it. The Bill itself exposes the weakness in the logic, because although the allocation decision turns on a prediction about a sentence above or below three years, the Bill also expressly states that nothing prevents a court sitting without a jury from later imposing a sentence of more than three years. In other words, even the Bill recognises that the initial prediction may not tell the whole story; if that is so, why should that prediction be the sole basis on which a person loses the right to jury trial?
Amendment 24 is so worth while because it states that in deciding whether a defendant should still have a jury, the court should not only look at the likely sentence but be able to consider whether: the defendant is of good character; they have previously been convicted of an imprisonable offence; they are treated as rehabilitated; conviction would cause significant reputational or professional harm; the gravity or complexity of the case might increase; and other exceptional circumstances. That does not strike me as radical. It is simply an attempt to make the law reflect reality and be less prescriptive. Additional flexibility makes for better outcomes.
One of the strongest parts of amendment 24 is the recognition it gives to good character and to those who have not previously been convicted of an imprisonable offence. I raise this because the Government’s crude threshold risks producing perverse results. The people who may be hit hardest by clause 3 are precisely those who are newer to the justice system, those of previous good character and those for whom a conviction would be utterly life-changing.
The Bar Council illustrated the point starkly in written evidence with the example of a 19-year-old student charged with possession with intent to supply after a small amount of Spice was found in their room—I am sure Members will remember my reciting that specific example in Committee on Tuesday. Because they are of good character, the likely sentence under the guidelines may be low enough that they lose jury trial altogether, even though the charge could destroy their future. Meanwhile, someone with previous convictions may be more likely to cross the sentencing threshold and so keep the right to a jury. That is exactly the sort of absurdity that amendment 24 tries to avoid.
That is wholly consistent with the broader critique of the Bill. Conservative Members have repeatedly argued that the Government are treating this as an administrative exercise, when in fact people’s lives are at stake. The shadow Justice Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), put it clearly on Second Reading when he said that the Government were proposing to remove fundamental rights
“without a mandate, without a case and without any evidence”.—[Official Report, 10 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 207.]
The Opposition also challenged Ministers on taking away jury trial for offences that cost defendants their jobs, their homes and their families. Amendment 24 responds precisely to that point.
I note the inclusion in amendment 24 of cases in which the defendant would likely suffer significant reputational damage or have their employment or professional qualifications adversely affected. That is important because the seriousness of a case cannot be measured by custody alone. A sentence of under three years can still destroy a person’s livelihood, strip them of professional standing, end a career built over decades and permanently alter family life. The Government keep speaking as though anything beneath their threshold is somehow low level. The Opposition have rightly made the point that even where a sentence is below three years, the consequences can be catastrophic. Amendment 24 simply recognises that reality.
There is an obvious point of fairness here, too. If the state wishes to prosecute a person in circumstances where conviction may ruin their livelihood or reputation for life, it is hardly excessive to say that jury trials should at least remain available. That is an ancient constitutional right and the Government should, even now, think very hard before removing it.
I also support paragraph (f) in amendment 24, which deals with cases where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the gravity or complexity might increase. Again, this is simply common sense. Criminal cases often evolve, evidence changes, witnesses come forward, and issues that initially looked straightforward become anything but in the crucible that is the courtroom.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
The hon. Lady is making an excellent point about the complexity of cases changing throughout. A legal professional recently shared with me the story of what was an assault case, but the victim passed away during the trial, so they are now dealing with hearing evidence of potential brain trauma injury. Does the hon. Lady agree that that case deserves the complexity of a full Crown court trial because the case has changed as the trail has developed?
Rebecca Paul
I completely agree with the hon. Lady. She has set out a good example of the type of things that happen in reality. Life is not tidy, and unexpected things happen. As we look at the Bill and whether a sentence is over or under three years, it is easy to think in simple terms but, in reality, people who work in the justice system—I have not done so, but I have spoken to people who do—understand the movement and flexibility that is required. That is why amendment 24 works really well by taking that into account. The hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden, who drafted it, clearly has real-world experience of what actually happens in a courtroom.
The Bill already recognises elsewhere that there can be a relevant change of circumstances requiring the court to revisit allocation, so the Government’s own drafting accepts that these matters are dynamic rather than static. If that is so, why would we not want to build in a bit more foresight at the front end as well? Paragraph (f) in amendment 24 is not some wild departure from the structure of the Bill; it sits comfortably with the Government’s own recognition that allocation decisions can become unsound as a case develops. It is simply a more prudent and realistic approach to cases in which the true seriousness may emerge only over time.
Finally, the reference in amendment 24 to “other exceptional circumstances” is extremely important. No statute, however carefully drafted, can predict every factual scenario. That is especially true in criminal justice, where the facts and human consequences of a case can vary enormously. A residual exceptional circumstances test is therefore not a weakness; it is a mark of maturity in the law. It recognises that Parliament should not force judges into injustice. If the Government truly believe in justice rather than mere throughput, they should have no objection to preserving a narrow, exceptional route to jury trial where justice plainly demands it.
Amendment 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle, deals with the alternative, broader approach to building flexibility into clause 3. It is an especially important amendment because it puts the issue in the clearest possible terms: those of natural justice. The amendment says that a trial should still be conducted with a jury where the defendant demonstrates that to be tried without one
“would amount to a breach of the principles of natural justice.”
That is an extremely modest safeguard. It would not wreck the clause; it would merely build in additional protection through allowing an element of judgment to decide the mode of trial. It would not restore the right to a jury trial in every either-way case; it simply says that where the injustice is plain, a jury trial must remain available. I struggle to see how any Government serious about fairness could object to that.
This is an issue of paramount importance on our side, and I hope on the Government’s side too. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle tabled amendment 39, as well as amendments elsewhere in the Bill—in relation to clause 1, in relation to reallocation under clause 3, and in relation to clause 4—to seek to protect natural justice. We will keep making these points. If Ministers insist on creating judge-only routes, they must at the very least accept a residual safeguard based on natural justice.
For all the reasons I have outlined, I support amendments 23, 39 and 24. They would deliver the additional safeguards needed, so I urge the Government to adopt either the Opposition’s amendment or the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
It is great to have you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I am looking forward to today’s debates. I have not tabled any amendments to clause 3, but I want to talk about some necessary changes to the clause that fit in with this group of amendments. I hope the Committee will have patience with me.
I want to raise again the principle of jury equity, which the Government are effectively abolishing by abolishing the right to elect a jury trial completely. I previously asked whether the Minister had considered the Bill’s impact on jury equity when drafting it, but she did not answer. I also asked whether the Minister could tell us whether we can honestly expect a judge triaging a case under the provisions in the Bill ever to allow a jury trial on the grounds on which some people currently choose one, which is to allow for the possibility of jury equity to achieve real and proportionate justice, rather than the criteria in clause 3.
This issue is complicated, and trying to fix it in the context of a Bill that includes clause 1, which abolishes the defendant’s right to choose, is tricky, which is why I spoke so strongly against it. The principle and the right of juries in respect of jury equity comes out of common law. I mentioned the 1670 case, and the High Court has commented that it has been a well-established principle in common law ever since then. As it is not in statute it is, by tradition, relatively unspoken. I spoke of the case of Trudi Warner, who tested the principle through her desire to make sure that the information about jury equity was seen by people taking part in a protest. She did that not just in case they spotted the plaque in the Old Bailey, but through the demonstration that she passively took part in.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.
I want to begin by touching again on the question of necessity. One of the key arguments for clause 3, and one of the reasons why the Opposition think there is a debate to be had, is that we do not feel that the new provisions are entirely necessary to bring down the backlog, and that there might be other means by which we might do so.
We have had a debate about what the figures say, and I have laid out why I think they are important. They are important because the Government accept that, quite plainly, they have not yet implemented the reforms that they think are absolutely necessary to bring down the backlog. While the Government and the Opposition recognise that some steps that might help have been taken, such as the lifting of the cap on sitting days, the Minister herself accepts that even that measure will not have had full effect yet. On other measures, such as on prison transport, there has not been any significant reform or undertakings to do things differently. We are at a very early stage of the approach to bringing down the backlogs in the significant way that the Minister and the Opposition would like to achieve.
In that scenario, given that so little has been done in comparison with what we would hope to achieve—with or without the Bill—if there were some suggestion that backlogs were falling, that would be incredibly important for the Committee to understand. It would give us the confidence to question whether, at this early stage, there is an alternative approach. If we are managing to bring the backlogs down in some parts of the country, we could base that approach on understanding what is happening in those areas and expanding on it before taking the unprecedented step of restricting jury trial rights.
The Minister and I had an exchange about this in an earlier debate. I suggested that there have been positive developments and a reduction of the backlog in some areas. I want to be clear about what I said to the Minister:
“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.”
I echoed those points in other parts of the debate. The Minister responded:
“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.”––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2026; c. 159.]
In response to my question as to whether the backlogs were coming down in some parts of the country, the Minister told the Committee—on the record—that they were not.
As Members might imagine, I went away and had a further look at the data to ensure that that was the case. My understanding of the latest available published statistics is that the Minister may have inadvertently misled the Committee in stating that the backlogs were not coming down in certain parts of the country. As of December 2025—the latest period for which we have this data is from quarter 3 to quarter 4—there has been a drop in the backlogs in the south-east, the north-west and Wales. We have seen a drop in the backlogs in the quarter-on-quarter data in three parts of the country, and it is extremely important that the Committee understands that.
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
As the shadow Minister has the backlog data to hand—I do not—would he mind sharing with the Committee the data for all the other regions and the overall backlog picture for the whole country?
Dr Mullan
In all the other regions and overall, the backlogs are going up. That is why we have to understand what is happening regionally and why I asked the Minister about that. Throughout this Committee, one of the main arguments from Opposition Members, the Criminal Bar Association and other opponents of the Bill has been that if we are able to replicate what is happening in the best parts of the system, we should be prioritising that.
For example, Liverpool Crown court does not have what might be called unacceptable levels of backlog. As Sir Brian and others have pointed out, every Crown court has a backlog in the sense of a trail of cases that are due to be heard. That is a normal and needed part of the process of case management, and no one argues that there is an unsustainable and unacceptable backlog in Liverpool Crown court. If Liverpool and whole regions can get it right, surely we should be prioritising trying to replicate that.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)
The shadow Minister is talking about the north-west, and I am an MP for that region. The numbers are going down in Preston, Liverpool and even Bolton Crown courts, and one reason for that is that they have taken a proactive approach to case management. They are regularly monitoring cases, and going into courts to judge whether cases are trial ready. That is unlike in some parts of the country, where a case is set for trial in two or three years’ time and nobody looks at it or tries to sort out problems until literally two days beforehand, which then leads to a delay.
Dr Mullan
The hon. Member has articulated extremely well that these things can be done differently and have a different outcome. I heard about case management directly from Liverpool Crown court. It has an aggressive approach to case management: it swept the cases and was clear whether it needed to be hearing a case or whether it could do any work to get a plea. It does a lot of work, and if every court was doing that, it would deliver different outcomes. The Minister might rightly point out that different courts have different circumstances, but surely the goal should be to correct those circumstances so that the positive things enabling some courts to bring the backlogs down can be done everywhere.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
My point follows on from the powerful point the hon. Member is making about the need to look at good practice, which is something we should all get behind. Over my many years of working for the Crown Prosecution Service, I saw various schemes aimed at doing just that, but unfortunately, given that we are here today, they did not sort out the issue entirely.
Does the hon. Member recognise the evidence Sir Brian Leveson gave specifically about Liverpool Crown court, in which he cautioned against suggesting that that case could simply be replicated across the whole country? Liverpool Crown court deals with a single police force and Crown Prosecution Service, and has a very small local Bar that work together well. Although we would like it to be, that is not necessarily the case across the country. Does the hon. Member recognise that those circumstances are unique and may not be possible for the whole country?
Dr Mullan
Yes, absolutely. In the NHS, I worked on what we might call change and improvement programmes or quality improvement programmes. We worked hard to replicate the best clinical practice everywhere, but it is simply not possible to directly replicate everything that goes on in every unit, although that is not to say that we cannot do some of what goes on. As the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden pointed out, we are not talking about a single court; that is why I was clear about looking at this on a regional basis. I do not think that the data in any of these regions is getting better because of one court that has specific circumstances that cannot be replicated. That is why we have to show a high degree of interest in understanding what can be replicated and in trying those measures.
As we heard from the representatives of the criminal Bar and the circuit, we should give them a chance to try some of these things before we do something so unprecedented that will lead to a curtailment of rights. Nobody thinks that the other, positive parts of the Bill, or the measures that do not even require legislation, take away from anything else; they are just exceptionally positive things we could be doing where we do not pay some kind of price. Surely, we should try those before taking the step proposed in the Bill. Whether or not we think this step is reasonable—Labour Members have made it clear that they do—I doubt they think it will not lead to a loss in relation to jury trial rights.
Rebecca Paul
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point about the existing backlog starting to go down, and why it is important that we look at that and understand the impact that other measures are having. Does he agree that the recent change to suspensions for three-year sentences, which went live only a few weeks ago on 22 March, will decrease receipts to court, as it will increase guilty pleas? Whether that is good or bad is a totally separate debate, but it will surely reduce the backlog further.
Dr Mullan
Yes, and my hon. Friend did an excellent job of pointing out that although that might have been in some non-statutory documents, we do not know, because we do not have the details. We do not know whether that was included in the impact statement or the modelling that the Government have relied so heavily on to make their case. As I have said, it is extremely important that the Minister said, on the record, that there was no lowering of the backlogs in any of the regions. The data I can see suggests that there has been a quarter-on-quarter lowering of the backlog in three regions.
Alex McIntyre
For the sake of clarity for the whole Committee, is it not also true that quarter-on-quarter data generally shows a decrease in backlog between Q3 and Q4 in most years for which we have data, because there is a drop in receipts around that time of year? Does the hon. Member recognise that if we look at the data for the overall year, the backlog has been reduced only in the north-west, and by only 2%? If we reduced the backlog by 2% a year, it would take 50 years to clear.
Dr Mullan
I accept the first point. If the Minister had said, “Yes, there is a drop in the backlog in those three regions, but we tend to see that because of this,” citing the points the hon. Member made, we would be having a different discussion, but she did not say that; she said there was no drop.
On the second point, the hon. Member is also right: if that rate of drop was all we were ever going to get, it would not make a material difference to the backlog. That is why I was very clear that, if we are getting a drop, in a context where everybody agrees we are very early in the process and have done a fraction of the things we could do, it is important for us to look at it. If we were at the end of the process and had done all the things we all agree are positive and should be done, and that was the rate of return we were getting, we would be having a different debate. But we are not at the end of it; we are at the start.
Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)
I thank the shadow Minister; I am listening to what he is saying and I am finding it really interesting. But let us not forget that, until 2019, we had a backlog of something like 40,000, and that has now doubled to nearly 80,000. The Tory party was in power at that time and presided over all this. We are trying to make a difference. It has been said that everything that has been done is wrong, but I ask the shadow Minister why he did not bring in at least some of the preliminary changes that he says we should have brought in. At least then we would have some of those statistics to work from now that we are trying to make changes in the system.
Dr Mullan
I draw the Committee’s attention to my remarks at the outset of our proceedings: our judicial system, victims and defendants and how we manage crime in this country are my personal priorities. That is primarily the reason why I sought to be elected to this place, so I will never disagree that justice should get a higher priority than it has historically. I also pointed out that Labour Members more broadly have accepted that justice getting insufficient priority in our political system has gone on for many decades.
The hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington is right in pointing out the backlogs that existed prior to the pandemic, and they were actually lower than those we inherited from the previous Government. If we are talking purely about what happened with the backlogs, our record prior to the pandemic was an improvement on that of the previous Labour Government. That does not mean it is okay; that does not mean we say, “We did a great job,” but it is important, in balancing and understanding the debate, to know that.
In terms of what we did in relation to the covid pandemic and all the challenges it posed, we had uncapped sitting days and Nightingale courts, and we took steps to try to address the backlog. I served on the Justice Committee, scrutinising what the Government were doing at that time. I was very frustrated, because we would visit Nightingale courts and one of the biggest challenges they faced was the lack of certainty about whether they would be renewed in the future. I questioned Ministers at the time about that. To all of us on the Committee, on a cross-party basis, it was obvious that those courts would need to carry on for longer—why not just get on and agree that and let them run in that sustained way? There were many things we could and should have done better. That is not to say that we did not do anything or that, prior to the pandemic, our record did not compare favourably to that of the previous Labour Government.
As I said, in that particular example we introduced the innovation of making the provisional data available earlier. In June, given the challenges with that data being wrong on occasion, a decision was taken to temporarily stop publication, to see if we could close that gap. If that data is significantly different from the revised published data, there is sense in looking again at the methodology and seeing whether the gap between the provisional and final data can be closed. But here we are, almost a year later, and the Government have not chosen to reinstitute the publication of that provisional data. I think everyone on the Committee would benefit from seeing that data, so I would be interested to know whether that is the basis on which the Minister has said the backlogs in some regions are not going down, when in fact, from the evidence and data I have seen, they are.
Our amendments are aimed at delivering a fairer system. Amendment 23 also seeks to achieve that outcome, in a more specific but equally valid way. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate said, human beings in criminal cases are not neat, so we need a degree of flexibility. There is not flexibility in all parts of the system at the moment, but allowing a judge, on their own, in these types of cases, to allocate, hear the case, determine guilt and issue a sentence is unprecedented in our judicial system—
Linsey Farnsworth
District judges in the magistrates courts sit alone every sitting day and hear cases and trials. They then go on to sentence if that person is convicted, or to release them if they are acquitted. That happens every day, so there is precedent within our criminal justice system. District judges hear the most serious and complicated cases that go to the magistrates courts. So there is already precedent for this, and indeed in the youth court as well.
Linsey Farnsworth
I am afraid I have to disagree with the hon. Member, because the youth court has powers to sentence people for up to two years, so it already has higher sentencing powers than magistrates. Many of the cases we are talking about in the Crown court bench division would command a sentence of perhaps two years.
Dr Mullan
I covered that in earlier remarks, when I pointed out that those people are not adults, so it is a different set of circumstances. If the hon. Member is asking me to be ultra-specific—I am happy to be—what is proposed is unprecedented for cases of this nature, with adults, with these sentence lengths. That is, of course, the vast bulk of our justice system. There are lots of things that we do differently for children than we do for adults in the justice system. I am not familiar with arguments suggesting that those distinctions cannot be made, and that something we do with the youth custodial element or judicial process must therefore be perfectly acceptable with the adult estate. We do not do that.
Linsey Farnsworth
But the hon. Member is happy that youths are treated fairly in the criminal justice system, even if a single judge hears their case.
Dr Mullan
Again, we talked about this before. There are degrees of fairness. Specifically on whether a defendant will get a judge who is as fair as possible in terms of representation, understanding their background and so on, I think it is less fair than a jury system. But I made it clear that other factors are given greater weight in the youth court. For example, the intimidation that a young defendant might feel in the adult court versus the youth court is given greater weight. I might think overall that the deal, so to speak, for the youth defendant is fair and reasonable, but that does not mean that I cannot say that the absence of a jury might be less fair for a youth defendant in some regards.
Linsey Farnsworth
I think the hon. Member is saying this is a balancing exercise. It is about having a fair trial, but one that is equipped within our criminal justice system. That is exactly what the Government are doing here. Of course we need fair trials, but we also need a criminal justice system that is fair, and justice delayed is justice denied. That is not fairness. Would the hon. Member recognise that?
Dr Mullan
To use the word that the hon. Member used at the start of her intervention, it is a balance. We in the Opposition are clear that the Government have that balance wrong, which is why we oppose the measures. As I said, the Government want to have this both ways: on the one hand, when it suits them, they say that it is a balancing exercise, but on the other hand, when we point out flaws in the balance, they say, “Everything’s fine. You would be just as happy in a trial with or without a jury.”
The Government should be consistent. If the Government just said, “This is a balancing exercise. There will be some detriment to people as a result, but we believe that it is right”, and then stuck to that line, at least it would be intellectually coherent. The Minister might think that makes it a debating point, but I think it is pretty important in politics to be intellectually coherent. We take a different view from the Government.
The other point that we think is different, too, is that the proposal will not achieve the desired outcome. Even if we agreed, in theory, that the balancing exercise was correct and that the trade-off that the Government seek to achieve were a reasonable one to make against the loss of the rights that we are talking about, we do not think that the Government will get those outcomes. We therefore think that the Government’s argument is fatally flawed in two respects, which is why we continue to oppose the Bill.
As I said, fairness is important. We focused on the example where a first-time offender might end up with fewer rights in our judicial system than a repeat offender; in respect of, for example, loss of respect, reputation, employment or income, the person who has more at stake has their rights removed. That is a point made clearly by JUSTICE, which supports our amendment 39. JUSTICE states that the three-year threshold is likely to lead to outcomes that are seen as unfair by those within the system and by the public. Repeat offenders are more likely to qualify for a jury trial, because their previous convictions would push the likely sentence above three years, while first-time offenders committing the same offence may be denied a jury trial.
When we put that to Ministers, as I said, they say that it is perfectly fine for those people to have a trial without a jury, and that is fair. Ministers also say, however, that they are keeping jury trials for the most serious cases—but if they are keeping it for the most serious cases, they must at some level accept that it is a superior system in some way. Otherwise, why keep it for the more serious cases, as they define them? The Government cannot hold both positions coherently.
Absolutely, as I said, the core issue is fairness. The Government want to have it both ways in this argument, but of course the defendants will not get to have it both ways. The defendants will just have what they are told by the judge, without any ability to exercise their rights in the way that they think is fair or consistent with the broader point. We therefore continue to press our amendment 39 and that is why I ask Labour Members to think carefully; this might not be universal, but how many of them would feel happy if they—with their previous good character, and all the damage that could happen to their reputation and income from a conviction—were not allowed to have the option of a jury trial? I cannot say for sure, but potentially some of them might feel differently then.
The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden and the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle for their amendments. I will address amendments 23 and 24 first.
The test for the clause is framed intentionally framed around a single condition: the likely sentence. We are ensuring that jury trials are preserved for the most serious offences. Under proposed new section 74A, indictable-only offences will always be tried by a jury. In all other triable either-way cases, the likely sentence provides the clearest and most objective way of identifying seriousness, ensuring that cases where the likely sentence exceeds three years’ imprisonment or detention are heard by a jury. That follows recommendation 30 of the independent review of the criminal courts.
That is already a feature of our system—every day, magistrates courts determine allocation by assessing the likely sentence on conviction. The clause applies that well-established approach in the Crown court; it is not, in that sense, a departure from the current system, but a consistent extension of it. We do not exclude broad categories of defendants from such an assessment in the existing system, and nor do we intend to do so under the reforms. Doing so would risk undermining the impact that the reforms are designed to deliver.
As such, the test does not introduce separate gateways based on the personal characteristics of the defendant; it is focused rather on the seriousness of the offending. Introducing such gateways would remove a significant number of cases from scope. Nearly a quarter of those convicted in the Crown court are first-time offenders, and these amendments would carve out even more cases than that, as they include wider defendant-specific factors, thereby undermining the purpose of the creation of the Crown court bench division, which is to ensure more efficient processing of cases to reduce the overall backlog on a sustainable basis.
As a general rule, those defendants are not given automatic priority in procedural decisions; case management decisions, such as on adjournments, disclosure directions and trial scheduling in the Crown court, do not tend to turn on the characteristics of the defendant. The amendments would change that approach by determining mode of trial by a number of independent defendant-specific factors. Every defendant in the Crown court will receive a fair trial, and that is not affected by the mode-of-trial decision. We have confidence in our judiciary, who take a formal judicial oath to act independently, impartially and fairly.
Sarah Sackman
As I have said consistently throughout this debate, we regard jury trials as a cornerstone of British justice. They are part of our legal culture, for all the reasons that Members on both sides of the House have articulated, and we do see a role for citizen participation in our justice system, not least to preserve its legitimacy. But what corrodes the legitimacy of our justice system is a backlog in which we see appalling delays, causing people to lose faith—whether they are witnesses, complainants or indeed defendants—and to pull out of trials. That is corrosive of trust in our justice system. We therefore of course want to preserve juries for our most serious cases. But trust in a system is built on many foundations, and the timeliness and proper administration of that system, including the proper resourcing of the system—which was not the case in the previous 14 years—is paramount when it comes to trust in the system.
Sarah Sackman
The premise of not just these amendments, but amendments that we have already debated, is that other tiers of the system, whether that be the magistrates court or the proposed Crown court bench division, somehow offend the principles of natural justice. The principles of natural justice are essential; they are foundational. They are based on impartiality, freedom from bias and fair process. All those things are guaranteed under our current system in the magistrates court, and would be guaranteed in a judge-only trial, as articulated by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley; district judges make those decisions on a daily basis.
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle wants me to say that, somehow, this would be a lesser justice. I will not say that. I am recognising that there is something special about jury trials—of course there is; it is why I have said consistently that they are a cornerstone of our legal system—but we have to deploy what is a very particular resource that demands a great deal of jurors. We have not spoken about jurors all too often in this debate, but there is something called jury burden. That is why, as we will hear when we come to the clauses that deal with judge-only trials for long and complex cases, particularly for fraud, which place a huge burden on jurors, often with cases lasting months on end, we have to use that resource and deploy it carefully.
However, as I have said repeatedly, and I will say it again, the state’s obligation at every level of the justice system, at every level of seriousness, is to guarantee an individual defendant a fair trial that upholds the principles of natural justice, which is what the hon. Member’s amendment actually focuses on. I am firmly of the view, and the Government are firmly of the view, that, whether by lay magistrates, by judge alone or by a judge and jury, our system upholds those principles of natural justice and is therefore fair throughout.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
I have listened patiently to the Minister’s arguments for two sittings. She said something that I really do want to ask her to reflect on. She has talked about jury burden, and about the fact that it is important for confidence that the citizenship takes part in the system. The Minister and the Government are seeking to halve the number of jury trials, and therefore halve the number of times that members of the citizenship will actually take part in juries and in the criminal justice process. Does she not see that that undermines the whole system? Many people will not now have a chance to take part in juries and that is a crucial thing. Talk to anyone who has been on a jury, and they will say that they hated the idea when they were called up for it and loved it afterwards because they have actually taken part in the system. The Government are halving the possibilities of people doing that.
Sarah Sackman
I do not accept the premise or assumption that everybody has a positive experience of the criminal justice system when they participate in a jury. As the Minister for Courts, I do thank all of those who perform their civic duty. However, when asking people to do that, we must ask them to do it in a way that is fair and proportionate to them, as well as to the other participants in the system—not least the defendants in indictable-only cases and those that, under these reforms, attract a sentence of three years or more.
Cases can and do sometimes evolve as they progress through the courts. Proposed new sections 74B and 74C of the Senior Courts Act 1981 make clear provision for cases to be re-allocated to a jury trial, where the seriousness increases even after a judge-only trial has begun. The basis of these reforms is to ensure that cases are allocated according to the seriousness of offending, with jury trial preserved for the most serious cases.
Paulette Hamilton
I am learning so much from these sessions. I have a question on choice. Many people feel that the removal of choice is a real problem. Can the Minister explain why that choice is not being given to people who feel that they need it because they feel that the system is working against them? How will they feel that they have that choice even without a jury present?
Sarah Sackman
It is a good question and one that we touched on in our earlier debate in the context of clause 1, where we were discussing the proposal to remove the defendant’s right to insist on their choice. When we step back and look at the entirety of the system, if a person is charged with a summary-only offence that will be considered by the magistrate, there is no choice; you are allocated directly to a trial by the magistrate’s jurisdiction. If a person is charged with an indictable-only offence—a more serious offence—there is again no choice and that person goes to the Crown court whether they like it or not.
Under our system we have this feature of triable either way, where we extend the choice to defendants in a category of cases that we, as a society, have chosen. As I have said, lots of other jurisdictions—and I use the Scottish one as an example because it is proximate—do not have this feature. In many ways, when I came to this debate and to reflect on the policy choices that we might make, driven by the critical—dare I say emergency—context in which we find ourselves, this feature of our system seemed to me quite strange. I cannot deny that it is a choice that people have obviously enjoyed and utilised, with many opting for Crown court trials even when the seriousness of their case meant that it could have been dealt with a lot more swiftly and efficiently in the magistrates court.
We know that people are making those choices, so there must be a reason for that the preference. It might be driven by lots of things: because of confidence and also presumably because people think that they will get some advantage and perhaps a better chance of being acquitted if the trial is heard in the Crown court. However, it is strange when thinking about public services and how we triage and ration what is ultimately a limited resource.
That is why I use the health analogy—and not just because my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington is so experienced in that field. When we think about how we triage finite resources within the NHS, we give patients choices around their healthcare, but ultimately the triaging is done by the experts. In this context, the expert is the court. The court knows, based on the seriousness of the offence, what mode of trial is most suitable in the context. Under these reforms, we are saying that it is the court that should decide, rather than the defendant being able to insist on their choice, even if that choice comes at the expense of the complainant, who might end up being the victim in the case, and needlessly dragging things out.
We must be honest and pragmatic. It seems to me a quite unusual feature of our system that it is the defendant that always has the right to insist when, in lots of contexts, the defendant does not get a choice. It is only in this narrow cohort of cases that they do.
Dr Mullan
I have a background in healthcare. The Minister has talked about triage being led by healthcare professionals, but there is another side of healthcare where people can insist on choice. This Government have introduced Martha’s rule, where the family member can not only insist on choice, but override what the treating clinical team think is the right course of treatment. They are given a route to go around them, to call someone, to insist that they are wrong and that they fundamentally disagree with them, and to get somebody else in who will challenge what the consultant in charge of the patient thinks is right. The Minister points to one element of the healthcare system where the state has a greater degree of control, but does she accept that there are other aspects of the healthcare system where we allow people to override what the healthcare team want to do?
Sarah Sackman
I do not want to labour the analogy—forgive the pun—but in many senses, we do allow that. Under this system and the reformed system, we preserve the right of the defendant to appeal. Having allocated the trial to the venue, be it judge-only or the magistrates court, if the outcome is perverse in some way or the defendant takes issue with it, they can appeal the verdict, provided that there is a proper legal and rational basis for doing so.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
The Minister cited Scotland as a good example within the United Kingdom. Scotland has seen a significant drop in the backlog of cases over the last several years, partly as a result of the system that she has explained. Does she think that the modelling within our country—some of the best practice we have seen in Scotland—might be a solution for England and Wales?
Sarah Sackman
I think there is some consensus here. We are all extolling the virtues of our system. As the Minister with responsibility not just for courts, but for legal services more generally, promoting our legal services and courts around the world, I am very proud of that. Being proud of our system in England and Wales, however, does not mean that there are not things that we can learn from other jurisdictions, particularly where they are producing better outcomes in timeliness or in the treatment of minorities, women, rape and serious sexual offences. It is why I went to Canada to learn from practitioners and judges there. We will take the lessons from wherever we find them. I will pick up later on the point about regional differences, because we must always learn lessons, whether internationally or closer to home.
Jess Brown-Fuller
We heard oral evidence from Doug Downey, who talked about the Canadian system. He also talked about how the right to elect is a protected characteristic of their justice system. The difference is that they have the right to elect a judge-alone trial. Did the Minister explore the option of maintaining the right to elect, but allowing defendants to choose whether they would like to have their case heard in a Crown court bench division with a judge alone?
Sarah Sackman
The hon. Member asks a typically great question. We did think about it. I am well aware that the right to elect exists, once a defendant is in the superior court in Canada. We considered whether the right to elect to go before the Crown court bench division should be included as part of the reforms. The reason we did not, and the reason why these reforms are predicated on the consistent principle that it is for the court to determine mode of trial, is partly about the balance we wanted to achieve within the system between defendant rights and the rights of other participants—I am wary of using the word victim—or complainants within the system.
We received representations from many complainants and people who have been victims of crime, and those who represent their interests, such as the independent Victims’ Commissioner and London Victims’ Commissioner. Many felt that it was so often the defendant’s choice and right to insist on choice that was driving the process and was part of an imbalance in the process. There is both a pragmatic element to our choice, because we think that by introducing a new Crown court bench division we will save time and speed up the processing of trials, and a normative principle behind it, which is about who is in the driving seat in these decisions. We think it should be the court and not always the defendant.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
We have heard from Opposition Members this morning about how defendants should have confidence in the system and about choice and being fair, whether it is in magistrates courts or Crown courts. On the point the Minister has just made, is it not right that victims and witnesses should also feel confident in the system? The only way to achieve that is by levelling things up, because ultimately victims do not have a choice about which court cases are heard in. Witnesses do not have any choice in the matter whatsoever. By doing both, we could get better confidence among every member of society, rather than just defendants.
Sarah Sackman
We do think this is the right balance, which is why we brought it forward. It is the test that was recommended to us by the independent review and we think it is a considered, objective and balanced test. We are bringing it forward because we think it is the right one. Expanding the test for—
Sarah Sackman
I have to make progress. Expanding the test for eligibility beyond seriousness would dilute the focus and risk undermining both the clarity of the allocation framework and the savings these reforms are designed to deliver. I therefore urge my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden to withdraw her amendment.
Amendment 39 would introduce a new route to jury trial, where the defendant demonstrates to the court that the circumstances of their case are such that to be tried without a jury would amount to a breach of principles of natural justice. As I have already said and sought to reassure the Committee, those principles of natural justice are, I believe, preserved in the reforms. Those include the right to a fair hearing, the rule against bias and the duty to act fairly and to give reasons where required. As such, I do not consider that the amendment would add substantive protection beyond the safeguards already in place.
I want to pick up on one or two of the points raised earlier in the debate. There was an exchange between the hon. Members for Reigate and for Chichester relating to change of circumstances. That is dealt with in clause 3, which makes provision that where a charge is added to an indictment—an indictable-only charge—the case would be reallocated to a jury trial. Similarly, there are change of circumstances provisions where there is material new evidence meaning that the judge can make a decision that a case should be more appropriately heard before a jury. That is provided for and is intended to meet the sorts of complex scenarios that both hon. Members raised.
The hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion raised again with me the issue of jury equity. I have heard the arguments. I have listened carefully to her as she has raised them on a number of occasions and I listened to the witness who raised them as well, but we do not think it is appropriate to make a specific carve-out for a specific category of offences in this context.
Finally, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle raised again with me the argument that we either do not need to do any of this, or we should wait to see how our other measures pan out—the huge investment in lifting the cap on sitting days and in legal aid, the workforce and the efficiency drive.
Siân Berry
I appreciate the Minister’s comments, but will she clarify what she meant by a particular category of offence? I could not have been clearer in my speech that I did not want to make an exception for protesters. I spoke specifically about people being prosecuted in cases where it was the powerful versus the underdog. Will she clarify what it is she is rejecting?
Sarah Sackman
I am rejecting the addition of any other carve-outs or exceptions beyond the test of seriousness that we lay down in these measures, which is dictated by the likely sentence, the test proposed by the independent review of the criminal courts.
Dr Mullan
The Minister said earlier, and she just said again, that it was the test recommended by the independent review. But if we are being specific, the test that was recommended was two years. The Government have made the test three years, so it is not the test that was recommended. It is important that the Minister does not repeat that inaccurate phrase.
Sarah Sackman
The point that I was making is that it should be the seriousness of the case that is the sole dictator of the mode of trial, and that likely sentence is the best and most objective test that we have. We must also be mindful of how we administer a system. Sometimes, adding lots of tests not only leads to complexity and introduce uncertainty, but introduces one of the things that we are trying to eliminate—delay. If we have a straightforward, well-understood test that is consistent with the sorts of allocation decisions that magistrates routinely make, we can apply that test consistently.
Returning to another point that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle made in relation to necessity, we maintain that we have a serious, nationwide problem. We maintain that that the national overall backlog of 80,203 outstanding cases in the Crown court, as it stood in December 2025, is an emergency. The central projection for the number of sitting days we are likely to need in very short order is 139,000. If I took an optimistic view that the central projection was too high, even in a low scenario we would need 130,000 sitting days. That is not to say that there are not, on a short snapshot basis, parts of the country that are doing better. I have given evidence to the Justice Committee where we have looked at that. Historically, there are parts of the country—Liverpool and Wales are often cited—that have lower backlogs. But there is no doubt that as a national picture—we do not want a postcode lottery in our justice system—the situation needs tackling.
Yasmin Qureshi
I think I am possibly the oldest person in this room. As somebody who was prosecuting, defending and dealing with criminal cases back in the late ’80s, ’90s, 2000s and so on, I saw the criminal justice system at first hand. When I started practising at the Bar, we had full legal aid at all levels, so whenever defendants appeared in the magistrates court they had proper advice. We had section 6(1) type of committals, where we could test the prosecution evidence and therefore get rid of a number of cases. We had full courtroom sittings; if Snaresbrook Crown court had 15 courtrooms, 14 or 15 of them were running. We had a full capacity of judges running and we did not have a backlog of jury cases. Will the Minister please rethink? The reason we have delays in our court system is not because of the juries.
Sarah Sackman
If I may say so, and as long as it is not indiscreet, my hon. Friend seems far younger and more energetic than she claims to be. She makes an important point because she does have long-standing experience in this area; before she came to this place she practised for a long time. I do not know when my hon. Friend finished practising, but we know that—it is one of the central insights of the independent review—the average jury Crown court trial is taking twice as long as it did in 2000.
That increase is driven by a greater complexity in cases and the changing profile of crime. As I have said before, we now have forensic and CCTV evidence, and also—this is something to commend people from previous Parliaments for—procedural safeguards put in place over time that rightly create a fairer system, such as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. All that is adding to the length of jury trials.
As Sir Brian Leveson himself said, juries are not the driver of the problem, but it is true that jury trials and Crown court trials are taking longer and longer. That is not about to change, and it will not be changed by whatever measures one may bring forward in relation to speeding up prisoner transfer or case progression. The fact that jury trials take up 60% of the hearing time within the Crown court is exactly why the independent review asked us to look at it. I understand the picture my hon. Friend paints of the world we want to live in, but the world we live in now has been transformed and it is the job, particularly of progressives, to move with the times and to build a system that is fit for the profile and technology that we now encounter.
Rebecca Paul
It is clear that the Minister honestly believes this change will address the backlog. I do not doubt her sincerity—we believe differently, but I understand that that is what she believes. What concerns me is this: how many miscarriages of justice is she happy to accept in order to bring down the backlog? Why on earth, when miscarriages of justice are clearly going to happen as a result of these measures, are they not mentioned in the impact assessment? It makes no mention of one downside being a potential miscarriage of justice. I find that astonishing.
Sarah Sackman
Miscarriage of justice should concern us all. That is why I am happy to see the responsibility for looking into miscarriages of justice being given to the Criminal Cases Review Commission under the leadership of Dame Vera Baird. She gave evidence to the Committee, and her support for these measures is notable. I am not sure why the hon. Member for Reigate thinks that miscarriages of justice will increase under them; there is no evidence for that. One miscarriage of justice is, of course, one too many, but I do not accept the premise of her question, which is that the reforms introduced by this aspect of clause 3 will somehow lead to an increase in the number of miscarriages of justice.
Dr Mullan
The hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden highlighted the Post Office scandal. She talked about those involved in that case as an example of people who supported the defendants feeling that there was a risk of greater miscarriage of justice, so it is not a proposition that my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate has plucked out of thin air. Other people with direct experience of these matters think that is a risk, so would the Minister at least accept that it is a valid concern?
Sarah Sackman
The circumstances of the Post Office Horizon scandal are incredibly serious. Part of the reason why they came about is because people were essentially fabricating evidence and using computer evidence in a way that was fundamentally dishonest. However, I do not think that the reform that we are talking about in this context, which is the allocation test, or mode of trial, and allocation to a Crown Court bench division should of itself reduce the confidence that the public can have in the integrity of our justice system. For all those reasons, and the way in which clause 3 is drafted with a focus on delivering swifter justice for victims, witnesses and defendants alike, I urge the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle not to press amendment 39.
Yasmin Qureshi
There has been a lot of discussion about the amendments. As I said on Tuesday, I will not be pushing my amendments to a vote. They are meant to be probing amendments, and I hope the Government will still look at them and consider what has been said.
I wish to talk about a few issues that have been raised. We have heard it mentioned that Scotland does not have a jury system, but it has never had a jury system, so we are measuring different things. Scotland also has its own unique system. For example, it has an in-between verdict: there is not guilty, guilty and something in between. Scotland has its own legal system, but our system has been the jury system for hundreds and hundreds of years. We either think the jury system is good and we keep it for either-way or indictable offences, or we think the jury system is so cumbersome and so bad that we should abolish it altogether. Then we can have a different argument, and we do not have to have it even for indictable offences. What we cannot have is indictable offences and either-way offences being dealt with differently. I respectfully disagree with the Minister.
Dr Mullan
The hon. Member is doing a good job of highlighting the whole additional set of complexities of the new system. We cannot predict how those are going to pan out. She referenced the separation of what a judge will hear and what a jury will hear, to preserve the fairness of the jury’s sentiment. We are now going to be in a position to a much greater extent—it might happen in other courts and other circumstances—where the judge has to hear material that is not going to be deemed relevant to the finding, and then make a finding. I am sure that there is going to be a whole new set of case law, with challenges where defendants and potentially prosecutors will say, “That clouded the judgment. That made the judgment unsound.” There is unpredictability and greater complexity in using this system.
Yasmin Qureshi
Yes, absolutely. At the moment, one of the beautiful things we have is that the judge determines sentence and directs on law, and the jury decides on the innocence or guilt of a defendant. It is fantastic, because that also protects the judges.
In a system where judges are going to be dealing with Crown court cases—we will come on later to complex cases and fraud cases, where they are going to be spending months and months on cases—the judges are going to have to write very long decisions. This is not similar to a district judge in a magistrates court, where the average trial takes maybe half a day or a day, two or three at the most. That is normally the limit.
In the Crown court, the average trial date is two to three days or five days to a week. The judge is going to be writing up all that evidence; because he or she will have to make the decision at the end on innocence or guilt, they have to pencil their decision in a very detailed way, covering not just the law, but an assessment of each witness who gave evidence—for example, “I accept the evidence of that witness because of this, this and this; I don’t accept the evidence of that witness because of this, this and this; this witness is unreliable because of this, this and this.”
All of that will have to be included; if it is not, the defendant who is found guilty will want to appeal, and so the judge is going to spend ages writing decisions.
Sarah Sackman
I appreciate that my hon. Friend was not present for all the evidence sessions, but I wonder whether she would reflect on the evidence we heard from Clement Goldstone, who was the recorder at Liverpool. He said:
“I also do not accept that there will be additional time spent in the writing of judgments. The vast majority of decisions will follow the conclusion of the defence speech”.––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 25 March 2026; c. 76, Q161.]
Judges give a route to verdict in any event, so it is all part of the summing-up process.
Yasmin Qureshi
I understand that in some of the more simple, routine cases of two or three days, but for trials lasting eight, nine or 10 weeks, I respectfully disagree that judges can come to that judgment in just a few days, because they have to go through a whole load of evidence, comment on it and come to a decision.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
The hon. Member speaks with eloquence and experience. I understand the Minister’s point: she has framed this as simply removing a choice from a defendant, as though this is a benefit that need not exist, but does the hon. Member agree with my analysis that this constitutes the removal of a right rather than a choice—the right to be tried in the Crown court, unless trial in a magistrates court is preferred?
Yasmin Qureshi
I do agree. It is important to remember which offences are kept in the magistrates court. There was discussion on Tuesday about burglaries and other offences making it to a magistrates court. With respect, burglaries have never been reduced to being tried in a magistrates court.
What happened was the way that motor theft offences were tried was tweaked. What used to happen is that people, particularly youngsters, would take away a car and were charged with the theft of a car, but as everybody knows, the definition of theft includes intention to permanently deprive. Those people never had the intention to permanently deprive; they were just taking the car for joyriding, and they were then going to leave it somewhere else.
That is why a new offence was introduced: it was initially called TWOC—taking without owner’s consent—and then it became TDA, or taking and driving away a motor vehicle without the consent of the owner. That offence went down to the magistrates court, because it was seen as a misdemeanour—something that a young person might do—and was not the same as giving someone a theft conviction. We had to make some changes, which were very sensible changes. Look at all the cases being dealt with in magistrates courts at the moment: any charge that goes to the issue of honesty is still either-way or indictable.
Linsey Farnsworth
No, but it could very well come down to credibility. My hon. Friend is suggesting that no offences in the magistrates court would come down to credibility, or am I misunderstanding her point?
Yasmin Qureshi
I was giving the example of TDA and theft legislation. I was talking about offences involving dishonesty, such as theft and burglary or defrauding someone. Even producing a fraudulent insurance document is an either-way offence, because it involves dishonesty. Even now, producing a dodgy insurance certificate is not a magistrates court offence; it is still an either-way offence, because of the element of dishonesty—not in the sense of people saying different things but in terms of intent. That is what I am talking about—not what my hon. Friend was saying.
Linsey Farnsworth
I recently introduced the criminal offence of unauthorised entry of a football stadium. That is a summary-only offence. There are examples in the magistrates court where credibility and dishonesty are key points of summary-only offences.
Yasmin Qureshi
My hon. Friend is comparing apples and pears. Entry of a stadium that someone is not entitled to be in is not the same as being charged with stealing, even in minor instances, such as stealing a bottle of water. They are two different things. For example, entering enclosed premises is dealt with in a magistrates court. There are different elements involved. What is at stake if I steal a bottle of water? That is very different from entering a stadium that I am not meant to be in.
We have had a good discussion. I still ask the Government to look at my amendment. As I have said from the beginning, I will not put it to a vote, but I am asking them to consider it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 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.”—(Dr Mullan.)
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.
Siân Berry
On a point of order, Dr Huq. I alerted the Minister earlier to the fact that I was going to say this. I want to ask what can be done to correct the record in respect of the Minister’s comments about a case that I referred to in my speeches on Tuesday and that Tim Crosland referred to during evidence. On Tuesday, the Minister said 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.”––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 14 April 2026; c. 140.]
I am afraid that the Minister was referring to a different case from the one I was referring to. The recent case that has been in the news surrounding a retrial was related to a break-in at Elbit Systems in August 2024. The November 2022 jury acquittal that I referred to was about protesters who threw red paint symbolising blood at the London headquarters of Elbit Systems in October 2020. In that case, none of the offences was indictable-only; they were all related to criminal damage. I just wanted to put that on the record, and I hope that the Minister will accept that correction to her comments.
Sarah Sackman
Further to that point of order, Dr Huq. I am happy to respond. We were probably at cross purposes. There was obviously a very high-profile case, which is the one that I thought the hon. Lady was referring to when she mentioned Elbit Systems. That did involve the indictable-only charges of aggravated burglary and grievous bodily harm with intent, but if she was referring to a different case and we were at cross purposes, I am happy to correct that aspect of the record.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.—(Stephen Morgan.)