Jury Trials

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Pam Cox

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns]

I have yet to make an argument, but I will shortly.

Who in this place can honestly say that if they were facing incarceration, they would be happy with just one judge and no jury making that decision? Think of the victims who face unconscious bias daily, and who will not get justice if just one person decides that question.

Most sinister of all has been the debate in the Chamber this afternoon. Labour MPs have argued that juries—ordinary people—cannot be trusted and are not up to the job. They have said that it is too complex and too detailed. What next? Will Labour strip their right to vote as well? It is deeply concerning. The Minister has said that this change is not the result of some crisis that Labour MPs want to blame on the Conservatives, and that the Government would be making it anyway. It is ideological. Every time Labour has come into government it has tried to strip jury trials—under Blair when I was a child, and yet again now.

Both the Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary have previously recognised the importance of jury trials; in fact, they opposed their abolition publicly. How will they justify their change of mind? Perhaps when the Justice Secretary is returned to Parliament after the next election, as he almost certainly will be, he will bring in trial by combat. Almost 40 of the Government’s MPs have opposed this change, and they are absolutely right to do so, because there are other options, including using unused sitting days and Sir Brian Leveson’s proposal to have one judge sitting with two magistrates; there would then be an element of a layperson having a say.

Clearly, the Prime Minister can admit it when he gets something wrong and can change course, as we saw—albeit far too late—with the family farm tax, welfare and grooming gangs. Do not leave it too late this time. The Labour manifesto made no mention of curtailing our right to jury trial. This is not a minor shift in policy; it is a worrying trend fundamental to the relationship between the individual and the state. We see this trend in the proposal for digital ID and the stripping of fundamental freedoms. Jury trials recognise the gravity of removing someone’s right to liberty.

[Pam Cox]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Alicia Kearns]

I am just wrapping up, but go on.

[Pam Cox]

I wonder what the hon. Member thinks about the history of jury trials, which shows that the right to trial by jury has not been an inalienable ancient right, but has been flexed over time.

[Alicia Kearns]

If the hon. Lady had listened carefully, she would have heard that I did not say that jury trial was an inalienable right. The law says that one has a right to a fair trial. However, we have established historically that jury trials mean that we do not see unconscious bias. There have been archaic and appalling cases that have shown that one individual making a decision about others is often not fair, transparent or right. As we heard from Sir David Davis, there is a greater number of retrials when an individual made the decision in a trial than when a jury made the decision.