Jury Trials

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

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

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

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

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[Dr Murrison]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are alternative models for getting to the place where we all want to be—that is to say, for reducing this awful backlog, which is denying people justice? Will he take particular note—he probably already has—of the model introduced in the south-west by my constituent James Ward OBE? He introduced covid resolution courts, which were able to bring the backlog down from 52% to 2% through proper case management in the Crown Prosecution Service. That intervention alone saved 10 sitting years.

[Robert Jenrick]

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

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[The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to end and insert:

“believes that the Government inherited a justice system on the brink of collapse with a record and rising caseload created under 14 years of Conservative mismanagement, austerity and cuts to the justice system that has forced victims of crime to wait years for justice; notes that the justice system has historically evolved to match the needs of the society it serves; supports the Government in making the investment required, including continuing to break records on the number of sitting days funded; looks forward to Sir Brian Leveson’s upcoming recommendations on reforms to improve efficiencies across the courts system; further supports taking forward reforms to the justice system based on Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of the criminal courts in which victims and the public can have confidence; and further notes that the Government will introduce legislation and publish its impact assessment in due course.”

“Let’s fix it tomorrow”, says the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick)—tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow. What a luxury! Our justice system is in a state of crisis, as he has said, but although in every crisis there is risk, there is also opportunity. The opportunity here is one that we in government grasp, to modernise our justice system and bring it into the 21st century.

Let us start with the crisis. I did not hear an apology in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, but he did lay bare the facts about what the previous Government did to our justice system. Being in government is about choices. We know what choices His Majesty’s Opposition would make about the justice system because they had 14 years to show the world. Now the right hon. Gentleman says, “Let’s come together, talk about investment in our system and talk about solutions,” but what did the Conservatives do for 14 years? They closed half of all courts in England and Wales. Who did they entrust with the guardianship of our justice system? Liz Truss, Dominic Raab, Chris Grayling. They decimated our legal aid system and all but broke our prison system.

What is the result? Well, the right hon. Gentleman is right: there is consensus that we are in crisis and that the status quo cannot be tolerated. Nearly 80,000 criminal cases are currently waiting to be heard in the Crown court—more than double the waiting list pre covid. Victims are waiting years for justice—over 20,000 open cases in the Crown court backlog have been waiting for a year or more. Justice delayed is justice denied, and the Conservative party must bear much of the blame, but we will never hear the word “sorry.”

[Dr Murrison]

I am not interested in a party political rant, but plainly the Minister is. What I am interested in, however, is expediting justice for my constituents. She will have heard in my intervention on my right hon. Friend the shadow Justice Secretary that there is a model to solve that. Will she please explain why the model that my constituent James Ward brought forward, which had spectacular results in reducing delays in our criminal justice system, is not being applied but the abolition of trial by jury is?

[Sarah Sackman]

The Conservatives had 14 years to implement the solutions that they now say are blindingly obvious. The fact is that swift courts, flow courts, blitz courts—whatever we wish to call them—are being operated, but they cannot keep up with demand. Our justice system has simply not kept pace with the times and the demands of modern society. There is now record demand for criminal cases. There are more police officers, arrests are up by 10%, and cases arriving at the Crown court are up by 20%. Trials are more complex, with cases taking, on average, 71% longer. Technology, such as the smartphones we carry in our pockets, is creating more digital evidence than ever before. Jury trials take twice as long as they did in 2000.

Those delays mean that in many cases justice is simply not being served. With those delays, witnesses pull out, memories fade and, as others have pointed out, more trials crack. As a result, justice is not being served. We have a system in which, as we know, there are criminals who are planning to spend next Christmas, and the Christmas after that, at home with their families. They are gaming the system, while victims wait longer and longer for justice, dealing with isolation and mental torment, unable to heal and to move on.

No one is defending the status quo, yet no Government to date have been bold enough to take the necessary action towards finding a solution. I am a firm believer that politics is an agent of change—that is why I left my career in law to enter politics. When we are presented with a crisis, we see the opportunity, we find the plan, and we fix it—we make it better.

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[Jess Brown-Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I will come later in my contribution to the inefficiencies within the system.

[Dr Murrison]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I will make some progress, if the right hon. Gentleman does not mind.

The Government claim that this decision has stemmed from the review undertaken by Sir Brian Leveson, the first part of which was published last year. The objective behind the review commissioned by this Government was rightly to find solutions to the overwhelming backlog, and Leveson’s original suggestion was the creation of a Crown court bench division, including a judge and two magistrates, which was modelled to reduce trial length by 20%. The Government, however, have gone further than Leveson recommended, meaning that those accused of crimes with likely sentences of less than three years will, for the most part, not be heard by a jury. New so-called swift courts will be created where just one judge hears cases. The efficiency savings quoted by the Government are the same figures suggested by Leveson under his Crown court bench division model, but the modelling has, like this entire proposal, been widely criticised for lacking transparent data behind the calculations.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is also a member of the Justice Committee, for her important point that Leveson did not make this proposal at all. He was talking about a separate division, which the Deputy Prime Minister has announced as a swift court. He has ignored the impact of having two laypeople as magistrates as part of that. It does not make any sense to me, and it does not make sense to many people in this Chamber.

[Dr Murrison]

Does the hon. Lady share my dismay that not only did the Minister admit in her closing remarks that her plans are ideological, not practical or expedient, but also that she spent 30 minutes without talking about the central issue, which is that the majority of cases listed in our courts crack on day one, meaning that the courts are there, but nobody is working within them? That is what needs to be sorted out, rather than this maladroit plan to reduce liberties that we have enjoyed for 800 years.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

The right hon. Gentleman pre-empts what I will go on to say in my speech. We are yet to see an impact assessment. That was spoken about by the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). It is also mentioned in the amendment tabled by the Government. We need to see the modelling and the impact assessment, and understand where these savings are coming from. Even if the figures are accurate, they avoid the glaringly obvious fact that they are measured against a completely inefficient system. The system is fundamentally not undermined by jury trials, but instead plagued by years of under-investment, creating an ever-growing list of unaddressed issues across the system. The Government seem willing to ignore that fact, despite it being present in every piece of discourse surrounding their proposals. They have bought a car that will not run, and they have decided to spend all their time and money on a new paint job before opening the bonnet.

This proposal is utterly shameful, fundamentally because there are alternatives, despite the narrative that the Government are advancing. They do not have to attack jury trials, especially when their own Ministers and their own Prime Minister have been fierce advocates of jury trials in the past. Instead, they should be looking at the real issues within the system that have led us to this point. Chief among them is the productivity decline that our criminal courts have experienced since 2016. Wasted time in and around courts is caused by a wide range of issues, all of which are being ignored by the Ministry of Justice. It means that the Government’s increased investment is being used inefficiently. It also means that many of these issues will persist, even if their attack on jury trials leads to reductions in trial length.

The solutions are out there, and the majority of legal professionals opposing the Government’s reforms are overflowing with practical suggestions, but the Government are not listening, so today I will lay some of them out. First, there must be investment in the courts estate, not only to reopen the hundreds of courts closed under the Conservatives—including my court in Chichester—but to properly maintain those that remain open. Evidence of leaking roofs, foul smells and flooded rooms across the estate is hardly indicative of a properly functioning justice system, and that must be addressed. Trials being abandoned because the heating is not working or there is no running water is unacceptable for those victims.

Even at the roughest of estimates, the restriction of jury trials will at best save 9,000 sitting days in court a year. That is based on not being able to see an impact assessment. The Government could increase the number of sitting days up to the possible 130,000, which would far exceed the apparent savings they would gain from the removal of trials. The concept of a restriction on sitting days is artificial. If there is a case, a courtroom, a defendant on remand and court staff ready to go, the case should be heard.

Prisoner Releases in Error

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right: there were 17 releases in error per month in 2024. Just in the Conservatives’ last days in office, there was a step change in those releases in error, and it very much started back in 2021 on their watch. But why did it start? It was because of the complexity of the system and the need to introduce new mechanisms to get prisoners out of an overheated prison system while being able to lock up the most violent people. That is why it has happened. Now, of course, we will do everything we can to get a grip.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is good to see a quieter, more emollient and, even by his own lights, humbler Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box than the one we saw last week. Will he say how many people have been wrongly detained and how much money his Department is setting aside for the likely ensuing litigation?

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Member knows that we release those statistics on an annual basis. I think behind his question he knows that, just as the system releases prisoners in error, it sometimes retains prisoners when they should be released. The two go hand in hand.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I applaud my hon. Friend. She is a passionate champion of the next generation. She will have seen my right hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) launch her curriculum review, which will deliver high standards for every child, giving them the skills they need to thrive and boosting their engagement in our democracy. I am proud that we will also be giving 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote in our UK elections to make their powerful voices heard.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Q8. Burning waste is as polluting as burning coal, and our incinerators are already over-capacity. When will this Government renew the previous Government’s pause on new incinerators, end perverse deliver-or-pay contracts with incinerator companies, and deliver an incineration tax, such as the landfill tax, to encourage waste reduction, reuse and recycling?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is very experienced. He knows that on energy, our country’s future is in renewables, and that is why we are investing in them. He should listen carefully to what the Prime Minister has to say at COP. The Chancellor will have heard the right hon. Gentleman’s observations about further taxes; he will have to wait until the end of the month to see what happens.

Legal Aid Agency: Cyber-security Incident

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

I will not disclose the name of the perpetrators of this malign attack. I do not think it would be responsible for me to do so while the investigation is live and while they are being pursued, not least through legal avenues. I am not able to share that information at the moment, but when I can share it, I will of course update the House.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

In her zeal to have a pop at the previous Government, the Minister implied that this country was peculiarly vulnerable to cyber-attack. There will be people listening to her out there who may be encouraged by that, so will she correct the record and reflect upon the International Telecommunication Union’s global cyber-security index, which found Britain to be right at the very top of the league table for cyber-security, along with countries known to be experts, such as Estonia and Germany? Does she agree that while we must not be complacent, it is important to tell the whole truth?

[Sarah Sackman]

As I said, those responsible are the baddies here, but let me be clear: I was absolutely shocked when I came into the Department to find the state of the Legal Aid Agency’s legacy IT systems. They were fragile, vulnerable, at risk and, frankly, not fit for purpose. That is not my view; that is the view of the Law Society and lots of users. They have to use an arcane system that is not only slow but, as we have now found, is so fragile that it has exposed many of its users to an unconscionable risk. That is not good enough. It is not talking down the system; it is the state of the system. That vulnerability has been exposed by these malign actors. The fact is that the previous Government knew about it and failed to fix it. We will not make the same mistake.

Criminal Injuries Compensation

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Laurence Turner]

I am delighted to hear a reference to a White Paper from 1993. I am a great believer in the theory that obscurity is a source of strength, and my hon. Friend has provided some evidence for that.

The Treasury takes a legitimate and necessary interest in annually managed expenditure. On the other hand, there is a real risk that changes made at relatively short notice, with curtailed time for scrutiny in this place, could deliver a worse service. That must be avoided at all costs, as we have seen from some negative experiences with past changes to the scheme.

Building on the Minister’s welcome commitment to continue to work with Members of this House and victims across the course of this Parliament, I hope that we can secure the positive changes that she wants to achieve. I thank all hon. Members who supported the application for the debate, including some who are unavoidably absent, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles (Michael Wheeler) and the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), who gave notice that unfortunately they have been detained by other matters. This is the first debate on the important subject of criminal injuries in this Parliament, but I am sure that it will not be the last. I thank you for your chairship, Dr Murrison, and I thank everyone for their contributions.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)]

Thank you. Contributions are always more powerful when they are rooted in personal experience, as we have heard today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered compensation for criminal injuries.

HMP Birmingham

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

We read the reports of the independent monitoring board and take action. We read that report. The prisons Minister and I are in constant touch with governors on these specific issues.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Some reports suggest that up to 75% of the inmate population have one or more mental health problem. Does the Secretary of State agree that we are unlikely to be able to reform our prisons fundamentally until we get to grips with mental health in the criminal justice system?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have been discussing with the Health Secretary how we can improve mental health provision in prisons and in the criminal justice system overall. We are giving governors power over mental health commissioning jointly with the NHS to make sure that we have the right services in our prisons.

Police Funding Formula

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

One of the things we can ensure is that the calculations and modelling within the formula done by the statisticians are looked at very carefully. One thing we are looking at, which has been a recommendation from the Select Committee, is to get an independent peer review towards the end, but whatever happens this formula needs to change so it is fairer for everybody.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on instigating the police funding formula review, which was promised by the Labour party when in office but never delivered. In pausing this process, which is an inevitability, may I urge him not to wait too long because many authorities, particularly those that deal with sparsely populated communities, feel they have been seen off in a major way for many years and would rather like to see the formula amended in a transparent and open way, and hopefully in a way that will correct the imbalance they perceive in police funding?

[Mike Penning]

One reason that the funding formula was not changed by the previous Administration or any other Administration is that it is so damned difficult. I know that that is not parliamentary language, Mr Speaker, but it is true. I have experienced this in the past couple of months. The fact that it was hard was not an excuse not to do it, however, and we do need to get it right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

One of the reasons why I was visiting the European Union Commission on Friday and speaking to the official responsible for implementation of the agreement was to help deliver that. It is just a slight pity that in the negotiations undertaken by the last Administration, they managed to give Poland a five-year delay and Ireland a complete opt-out.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

In designing prisoner transfer agreements, will the Minister ensure that the legitimate expectations of the victims of crime in this country are satisfied? Too often we find them fearful that their natural desire for retributive justice is going unfulfilled.

[Mr Blunt]

That is an important part of any consideration about the transfer of prisoners, and one that I certainly give attention to in considering applications that are made to me.

Victims and Witnesses Strategy

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Yes. The reason that we are raising more money from offenders through the surcharge is precisely to improve the services offered to the victims of crime. Whatever the source of the money, it will all be directed towards improving those services across the country.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I very much welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s statement. He is right to direct the services of the criminal injuries compensation scheme towards those victims who have suffered the most. People who develop mental health problems as a result of a crime often find that their conditions are difficult to quantify or are not readily apparent. What can be done to ensure that such people are not disadvantaged?

[Mr Clarke]

As my hon. Friend says, the problem is often one of obtaining a proper diagnosis, in order that the consequences of crime can be recognised. In order to concentrate on the most serious offences that have lasting and sometimes permanent consequences, we had to draw the line somewhere. Below that line, the amount of compensation starts steadily to be reduced under the tariffs, with the very lowest tariffs receiving no compensation at all. Mental illness occurs at various levels in the tariffs, according to the lasting consequences that are being suffered, and to their severity. We will therefore still have the problem of assessing and diagnosing each case accurately, to ensure that it is the serious, lasting problems that are compensated, as they quite properly are now.

Courts Service

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood, and I am grateful to have secured this debate. Reorganisation of the Courts Service will have a significant effect on the way in which justice is provided throughout the United Kingdom. I hope that this debate will provide an opportunity for hon. Members throughout the House—there is a healthy bias from Wales in the Chamber—to reflect on facilities that may be changing in their constituencies. Notwithstanding consultations, I am sure that the Minister will take note of the points raised this afternoon. In the spirit of constituency interests, I shall concentrate on the future of the magistrates court in Cardigan, and access to justice in Ceredigion and more generally in the rural communities that many of us serve.

The consultation document usefully sets out the distances involved in closing various courts, and the public transport implications for constituents. The alternatives to the magistrates court in Cardigan are Aberystwyth in the north of Ceredigion and Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire. The consultation document states that Cardigan is 38 miles from Aberystwyth and 29 miles from Haverfordwest. They are further away than any of the alternative courts that are proposed for closure anywhere in Wales. The distances that people will be expected to travel are longer than any others on a long list in Wales.

However, there is optimism about the public transport alternatives, although my confidence in the public transport system is not shared by many of my constituents. Someone going to court in Aberystwyth in the morning would have to catch a bus from Cardigan at 7.20 am, and then face a significant walk from the bus stop. When referring to points on a map, we are talking not about A to B or B to A, but about vast geographic areas. We are talking not just about the people of Cardigan going to Aberystwyth, but about large communities—Aberporth, Llanarth, Llandysul—and huge swathes of west Wales. We are talking not about bus services and other transport links from Cardigan, but about those from outside. Rurality and public transport has largely been ignored in the consultation document to date. Many residents of the villages in south Ceredigion are simply unable to get to Aberystwyth or Haverfordwest in the morning by public transport.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that problems with public transport bear down particularly on those who are most vulnerable and who lead the most chaotic lives in society? The previous Government were happy to close down magistrates courts, including that at Trowbridge in my constituency. That argument may apply more to magistrates courts than to county courts, but it worries many of us that those who will be most disadvantaged by the closure programme are the most vulnerable in society.

[Mr Williams]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. There is an underlying assumption that public transport is an add-on and that people can access court facilities in a private vehicle, but that does not apply to many of the people to whom he referred. They are completely reliant on public transport, and all too often it does not exist.

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[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) on securing this important debate. Unlike the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), I believe that the consultation will be conducted in the right spirit. I am also sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will be open to reasonable persuasion, and I make my remarks in that context. Equally, I understand that he, like all Ministers, needs to effect savings in the extremely difficult financial circumstances that we have inherited. Nevertheless, it is an important principle of law in this country that there should be equality before the law and that people should have equal access to justice, and it is access that chiefly concerns me.

In Trowbridge, the county town of Wiltshire, which is a very rural area, we have experience of court closures. Under the previous Administration, we had the closure of Trowbridge magistrates court, and I have to tell the Minister that that has not improved access to justice one bit. Although I fully accept that vulnerable groups are perhaps likely to be more disadvantaged in magistrates courts than in the county court system, because of the kinds of case that are heard in them, the same argument nevertheless applies to county courts. Some hon. Members will be surprised to learn that there are a large number of vulnerable and disadvantaged people in my constituency, and they will be disadvantaged by the closure of Trowbridge county court. I am concerned about them above all because they will be relatively disadvantaged in accessing justice, while others will have an advantage over them, which cannot be right.

The consultation document describes Trowbridge county court as underused, but that is not so. It is open five days a week, which is not necessarily the case for many of the courts under consideration. For example, it is used more than Bath, which is 12 miles away, and Salisbury, which is 30 miles away.

The proposals seem to rely on assumptions about the utility of video links, telephones and online services. I would counsel a bit of caution, however, because I have great experience of the health service, where plans have historically been put in place that rely on assumptions about developments and innovations that are, in fact, several years down the line. If the current proposals take effect, and we close court houses on the assumption that innovation would take up the slack in some way, we might be a little premature.

The proposals are driven by a need to update premises and to ensure that we comply with domestic and European legislation. That is all very well, but there is a dynamic between the need to upgrade and the need to maintain equal access to justice. We note that Lord Young is reviewing the impact of health and safety legislation, and many of his findings may be relevant to the debate. We have some experience in Wiltshire of the need to upgrade court houses. In Salisbury, a great palace of justice has been created, and its case was based on the need to upgrade premises. As a result, we lost Trowbridge magistrates court, disadvantaging my most disadvantaged constituents.

I genuinely hope that the consultation will be conducted with an open mind. Indeed, under the stewardship of my hon. Friend the Minister, I am confident that it will be. I am equally confident that he will see good sense and make sure that Trowbridge county court is removed from the list of the vulnerable.

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[Maria Eagle]

The right hon. Gentleman is correct. However, I did not expect to read promises in local newspapers that members of my Government, bound by collective responsibility, would campaign against my proposals.

[Dr Murrison]

In a similar vein, does the hon. Lady recall the conduct of Jacqui Smith, the former Member for Redditch, in relation to the closure of facilities in her constituency when those facilities were the responsibility of the Department in which she was a Minister?

[Maria Eagle]

My view of ministerial and collective responsibility is that Ministers talk to each other behind the collective view of the Government if they want to make representations. They do not send press releases to their local newspapers.