Jury Trials

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)]

The right to trial by jury is not some procedural convenience capable of being abridged when the administrative weather turns foul; it is one of the great constitutional expressions of liberty under the law. It is overwhelmingly legitimate, because it places the citizen, and not the state, at the heart of criminal judgment. When the state proposes to narrow the circumstances in which it must persuade 12 of a defendant’s peers, it is not merely managing a backlog; it is fundamentally recalibrating the balance between the individual and the Crown.

There is no doubt that the criminal justice system is under acute strain. Victims and defendants wait too long. Justice is stretched thin. However, the issue before us is not whether reform is necessary, but whether this reform is justified, proportionate and supported by evidence.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

I hear everything my hon. Friend says. In his opening speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) laid out a number of matters that could be acted on immediately to improve efficiency and ensure that we maintain the pillar of society that is our jury trials. Do you agree that we should be focusing immediately on that, rather than demolishing—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. No “yous”—it is not me responding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I wanted to be a barrister from when I was a child. I did not know any lawyers, and I think I got most of my ideas about what lawyers did from TV shows, but jury trials is what I wanted to do. Some of my most memorable moments as a barrister were prosecuting and defending in front of juries, so I get the importance of jury trials, but I also saw courts falling down and delays getting longer and longer, and I have spent recent years hearing former colleagues talk about cases that are listed for three, four or five years’ time. We have heard that the Crown court backlog is sitting at 78,000 cases, and in every single case, justice is being put on hold—a family is left reeling from a burglary, a teenager is recovering from assault, or a survivor of sexual assault is waiting years for her day in court. It is not acceptable.

Of course I want increased funding, and with this Labour Government we are already beginning to see that; an additional £450 million per year has been earmarked for the court system over the spending review period to fund the increased number of court sitting days. However, Sir Brian Leveson made it abundantly clear that the current system cannot stop the backlog from growing. With more digital evidence being presented in court; more DNA, cell site, electronic and social media evidence; and the massive disclosure exercises, trials are more complex. Sir Brian Leveson found that jury trials are taking twice as long as they did in the year 2000.

I spent over a year of my time as a barrister working on a complicated insider trading fraud case. We spent huge amounts of time and resource working out how we would present that prosecution to a jury. This is not to say that juries are not capable, but in terms of suitability and proportionality, I need no persuasion that trial by jury is often not appropriate in fraud trials and similarly technical trials.

We must be absolutely clear that the proposal is not to scrap jury trials. The proposal is to amend the type of cases that are heard by juries. The types of cases being heard by jury have changed and evolved over time. It was the Conservatives who, through the Criminal Justice Act 1988 , made offences such as common assault and criminal damage summary only, and not subject to jury trial. We are rightly proud of our legal traditions, but it is untrue to suggest that the lack of jury trials is somehow unique to despotic regimes. Sweden, which is No. 1 in the World Justice Project’s global rankings, does not use jury trials at all. Norway, which is ranked No. 3, also does not—nor do Germany and the Netherlands. In France, Denmark and Canada, only the most serious cases are heard by juries.

I believe that jury trials are a fundamental part of system, and it is right that they remain so, but something has to change. Without really bold action, the backlog will continue to grow.

[Alison Griffiths]

I just wonder why the hon. Lady would not look to implement the recommendations from the shadow Secretary of State before seeking to restrict jury trials.

[Catherine Atkinson]

There are a huge number of additional measures that will be rolled out, and I look forward to continuing to engage with Justice Ministers on other measures that I believe will help. We have more coming after the next stage of the Leveson review.

We need bold action to ensure justice for victims across the country—and not years in the future. They need a criminal justice system that works. We all—the British people—need to have faith in our criminal justice system again.

Prisoner Releases in Error

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right that the Friday release issue is often about public services not being available over the course of Friday evening into Saturday and the homelessness problem that that pertains to. That is why I think it is important that we relook at what is happening in the system—the system that we inherited.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

On 10 October, Ola Abimbola, a violent Nigerian criminal, walked out of Ford open prison in my Bognor Regis and Littlehampton constituency. He has not been seen since. He is meant to be serving 21 years for grievous bodily harm, kidnap and possession of an offensive weapon. How many other prisoners are at large from Ford open prison and what offences were they imprisoned for?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Lady will know that absconding is a serious criminal offence, and that any defendant who commits this crime could face longer behind bars. This is of course a different issue to releases in error. Category D prisons have always existed, and absconds by prisoners are assessed, but I assure her that there is a downward trend in those who are absconding—57 in the year to March 2025.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)]

The Minister for Women and Equalities is already wearing a pink jacket. I absolutely pay tribute to the group in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who is the Minister with responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls, will be visiting Stroud very soon and has offered to don the pink jacket on our behalf.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, last night I was honoured to speak at an event you kindly hosted with the Royal National Institute for Deaf People. I met Craig, the chief executive of Action Deafness, which delivers vital services across my constituency, as well as Stuart, an academic focused on the needs of deaf young people. They told me that deaf people too often navigate support from siloed health, education and welfare systems that create barriers. What steps is the Minister taking to co-ordinate cross-departmental support for deaf people to prevent them from falling between the gaps?

[Bridget Phillipson]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. I would be more than happy to make sure that she has a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss her concerns, and that action is being taken across Government to address them.

Legal Aid Agency: Cyber-security Incident

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

Once we have resolved this investigation, once we can be assured that the hackers are no longer in the system and that people’s data is safe and once we can be assured that our legal aid platform is operating properly and is handling people’s data in a safe way, there will need to be a stocktake and an effort to learn lessons, not least as we embark—we are already in the process of doing this—on stabilising and transforming this system so that it is fit for the future. No doubt, there will be lessons from this particular attack for other public and Government bodies. The question of compensation must wait for another day. My priority is removing the hackers from the system, making sure that they feel the full force of the law and ensuring that, in the meantime, no person who needs legal aid cannot get it and the system continues to operate.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

Recent cyber-attacks on retail targets have highlighted the cost to businesses and individuals of an organisation’s failure to take cyber-security sufficiently seriously. This attack on the Legal Aid Agency, resulting in the theft of millions of pieces of deeply sensitive personal data, is perhaps the most egregious yet. Why has it taken a newspaper article to bring the Minister to the Chamber? What else is she not telling us?

[Sarah Sackman]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady has got her chronology the wrong way round. There was a newspaper article because the Ministry of Justice had published a public statement as soon as it became aware of the full extent of the threat. It did that to protect legal aid providers and their clients, the end users. We have been utterly transparent. It is not following the newspaper article; the hon. Lady has her facts exactly the wrong way round.