Criminal Courts: Independent Review

Ayoub Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)]

It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. This independent review comes at a time when our criminal justice system is at breaking point. I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for securing this debate. As a member of the criminal Bar, I know the importance that many barristers out there place on this debate.

We now know that Crown court trials could have a potential backlog of more than 100,000 cases by 2029. The review’s recognition of the need for significant reform is welcome, but restoring the criminal justice system cannot come at the expense of fairness, due process or the right to be tried by jury.

I understand, as it is currently set out, that the proposal to create a new Crown court bench division would allow select cases that carry a sentence of up to three years in prison to be heard without a jury. Under the proposals, it would be the judges, not the defendant, who decide where a case is handled, and who therefore hold the power to potentially change the entire trajectory of a criminal case. Unless there is forthcoming evidence to show that this change creates additional capacity without distorting judicial outcomes, we surely cannot consider such an idea.

The right to jury trial is, and should remain, a cornerstone of our justice system. For centuries it has served as a guarantee of public confidence and accountability. Any attempts to restrict or infringe upon that right should be approached with the utmost caution.

Before we consider surrendering our core principles of jurisprudence, we should first seek out efficiency reforms in part 2 of Leveson’s review and postpone any changes to jury trial until such changes have been fully implemented. At the very least, we need the Government to make reassurances that such changes would be reversed as soon as the backlogs are cleared, and to confirm their belief that trial by jury remains the best way of administering justice in this country.

In my view, removing trial by jury, even in complex or lengthy cases, risks undermining public trust, particularly among communities that already feel marginalised by the justice system. Non-jury trials should remain a measure of last resort rather than some administrative convenience.

I clearly believe that this is not the right path to follow. I fear that we are being made to consider watering down our justice system because the Government fail to understand that, even with reform, we will not be able to change the reality on the ground without proper investment. Creating a new court division will not in itself solve the backlog; it will merely shift the pressure from one part of the system to another.

Rather than sacrificing jury trials, we should be looking to solve things like the criminal legal aid system, which has been withering away thanks to years of chronic underfunding. Even with the Government’s recent £92 million commitment, more is required, especially if investment in one area comes at the expense of another.

Another key priority must be to reduce demand on the courts themselves—for example, introducing a rebuttable presumption that certain groups of offenders, such as first-time offenders or those suffering from mental ill health or substance misuse, should in appropriate cases be diverted from the criminal justice system at the outset. In those instances, out-of-court disposals could deliver justice more swiftly, more proportionately and without mounting pressures on an already overstretched system.

Finally, we cannot ignore the physical state of our buildings. Years of neglect have left our courts crumbling and have contributed directly to lost sitting days up and down the country.

The House will always support positive reforms that make key improvements to our justice, but reform must be principled, evidence-based and properly funded. That is the only way to clear our backlogs, and the only way to restore the criminal justice system to the essential and reliable public service that it ought to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I have picked out the main recommendations in the report that I cannot agree with. There are 45 recommendations in the Leveson report and some of them could go some way, but removing the key pillar of our justice system by removing the right to trial by jury is something that I cannot support.

[Ayoub Khan]

The Sentencing Council was headed by the late Lord Justice William Davis, who was a recorder at my local court in Birmingham. He made reference to the sentencing guidelines and the disparity in sentences highlighted in the probation report. We know that sentences were passed by judges. Given that judges have passed sentences that were disproportionate for certain communities, does the hon. Member agree that that is one of the reasons we must ensure jury trials remain?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. I will bring my remarks to a close. Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to ask the Minister my questions, but I will get back to her on a suitable occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Sackman]

I am delighted to hear that the hon. Member has read the report. I was not seeking to politicise the discussion. It sounded like, in many respects—other than the issue of jury trials, to which I will turn in due course—there had been an outbreak of consensus that something needed to be done. I want to draw attention to the central premise of Sir Brian Leveson’s report: that, in and of itself, greater financial investment—which of course is a necessary ingredient—will be insufficient to dig our way out of this crisis.

Grip is needed, and it is grip that the Government are showing. Three strands are required. One is investment. That is a question of the number of sitting days. As I said, we are setting record numbers of sitting days. That requires investment in our workforce and, as other hon. Members have pointed out, investment in the infrastructure of justice—investment in the court estate.

[Ayoub Khan]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Sarah Sackman]

I will give way in a moment; allow me to finish this point.

The second strand is modernisation. While we await part 2 of Brian Leveson’s report, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is undertaking modernisation and efficiency measures. The adoption of technology and the increased use of video hearings, which I witnessed on a visit to Kingston Crown court last week, are enabling us to realise some of those productivity benefits, but we need to go further and faster. I look forward to seeing what Sir Brian recommends in the second part of his review. We need investment and modernisation, but also, as I said, fundamental, once-in-a-generation structural reform to ensure that we progress cases quickly and more proportionately.

A number of hon. Members have outlined the variety of ways in Sir Brian’s holistic package in which we may reduce delays in the Crown court, retaining more cases in lower courts—where 90% of criminal cases are now heard without a jury—and also looking at how we might divert demand away from the system in the first place through making greater use of out-of-court disposals. There is also a proposal for a new bench division in the Crown court jurisdiction.

I understand and take heed of the contributions of a number of hon. Members—my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) and for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi), and the hon. Members for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan), for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), for Bexhill and Battle and for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller). All of them rightly expressed an admiration for jury trials and a concern that they remain a cornerstone of our legal culture and British justice. I can reassure hon. Members that the jury trial will remain a cornerstone of British justice for the most serious crimes.

The essay question, as it were, that we have set ourselves and Sir Brian is: how do we deal with more cases more quickly and proportionately, so that we can squarely look the victim my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford referred to in the eye and say, “We did everything within our gift to reduce the delays”? Timeliness is an essential ingredient of justice. We can all agree that the state’s obligation is to deliver a fair trial. It is not a right to a jury trial; it is a right to a fair trial, and timeliness is a key ingredient in that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Sackman]

As the right hon. and learned Member laid out, and as Sir Brian laid out, it is a highly complex system with lots of moving parts. The overall objective is to bear down on the backlog and reduce these delays. We must consider the totality of Sir Brian’s recommendations in careful detail and establish whether they do enough to achieve that overall objective. If we think they do not achieve that objective, it will be necessary to consider other ways to reduce the backlog.

We will put forward a holistic package, but I will not comment at this stage on whether it will include the entirety of these recommendations. That is something we will have to consider very carefully. Ultimately, as I said, our objective is to deliver swifter justice for victims and bear down on the backlog. How we achieve that has to be led by the evidence, and this is an important component of that, which is why I answered the hon. Member for Bridgwater in the way that I did.

[Ayoub Khan]

The Minister rightly points out that we need investment, modernisation and structural reform, but one of the biggest elephants in the room is prosecution and defence barristers. We have seen a very low take-up of that profession because graduates do not feel that the income, which can be below the national minimum wage, is sufficient. We have also seen a lot of people leave the profession, so although we can have all these sitting days, we simply do not have enough counsel in Crown court to deal with trials. What does the Minister have to say about that?

[Sarah Sackman]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. As I said, the workforce is key—they are delivering a vital, frontline public service. We need to invest not just in the barristers, but in the rest of the staff who run our courts every single day, and that is why we have made a record investment in criminal legal aid.

The hon. Member is right: when others speak about empty courtrooms and sitting days, we have to look at the capacity of the whole system. It is not simply a question of adding judicial time; it is about making sure that the system has enough capacity—enough court staff, solicitors, prosecutors and defence lawyers—to meet the demand coming in. We must make it an investment that ensures that this is an attractive profession and one that can meet the public’s needs.