Courts and Tribunals Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 27th October 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I always love following the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and hearing about his exploits. The story about judges’ acquittal rates is perhaps because they are deeply misogynistic—but I do not know. At the start, the noble Lord, Lord Ashcombe, talked about there being a lot of great legal minds in the Chamber. I am sure there are, but clearly I am not one of them. However, I have quite a strong sense of fairness and justice, and therefore some concerns about the Bill. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Stace, for not hearing his maiden speech, but I promise to read it in Hansard and give him feedback tomorrow. I am sure he would love to hear it.

I move to the Bill. Nobody disputes that 14 years of Conservative underfunding have left our Crown Courts with an appalling backlog and that victims are paying the price. The Government say that they want to get justice moving; of course I support that, but I would like to see a fix for the problems that stop courts hearing cases. The Bill is moving around who gets to hear them and taking away some of the safeguards that protect defendants. I feel that is the wrong approach. The Government have rightly dropped their proposal to remove jury trials for less serious cases in the Crown Court, but keeping thousands of cases in magistrates’ courts, without a choice, is still a restriction on jury trials, and the Government have still not shown that they will solve the backlog.

We need to ask a simple question: why are cases not getting to court on time and what would make a difference? The Government expect their proposals to move about 25,000 cases a year away from the Crown Court, but where are those cases going? The court system already has a huge backlog, fewer magistrates than it had a decade ago and shortages of legal advisers. The organisation Justice has warned that there is insufficient evidence that magistrates’ courts can cope with this extra work, so why are the Government pressing ahead? Moving cases between courts does not make the problems disappear, and removing some of the right to jury trials does not magically make a case straightforward or ensure that a hearing can go ahead.

The Government’s proposals also risk leaving more defendants without legal aid. People who might have had a lawyer in the Crown Court could end up representing themselves in the magistrates’ courts, even when they face the possibility of prison. That is massively unfair. It can also mean longer, more complicated hearings, and the accused cross-examining victims on cases such as assault. The Government are chasing efficiency savings in the wrong places while risking changes that could undermine them and our justice system.

On the right of appeal, Justice has highlighted how often appeals against magistrates’ decisions succeed. These appeals are a safeguard against wrongful convictions and wrong sentences. Making people seek permission to appeal, often without a lawyer to help them, risks shutting people out of justice.

If there is a risk that these changes will make an already difficult experience of the justice system even worse for people who are vulnerable or marginalised, we should examine that properly before going ahead. You cannot always put things right after someone has been denied a fair hearing.

What about the age and background of magistrates and who is able to volunteer during the week? The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, explained this very clearly. If the Government are serious about clearing the backlog, they need to deal with what is actually going wrong. Trials are delayed because witnesses are unavailable, defendants are not brought to court, and court buildings and technology need investment. There are shortages across the criminal legal workforce, and legal aid must be sufficient to ensure that people can get proper representation. These problems are not solved by taking away a jury or making an appeal harder; they are solved by making sure that hearings go ahead, that courts have the staff and facilities they need, and that cases are properly prepared. Not much of that is in the Bill.

I support the new measures for witnesses, but I cannot support provisions that remove the right to elect a jury trial, restrict the right of appeal and expand magistrates’ sentencing powers. I also cannot support the measure in the Bill to allow the Secretary of State to add further offences to the list for judge-only trials through secondary legislation. That means that a future Government could extend the restriction on jury trials even more, without having to bring forward primary legislation for Parliament to debate.

I will press the Government to explain how they intend to address the real causes of delay and to provide a properly funded plan for courts expected to take on more work. They were right to rethink that part of the Bill, but they should now look again at the rest.

I am also worried about the bigger picture here. I did not expect to spend my time having to fight to defend basic civil liberties against this Government, but here we are, arguing about jury trials while the Government expand curbs to protesting, facial recognition surveillance and restrictions on people seeking asylum. Taken together, they give the state more power over people and take away some of the safeguards that are supposed to protect us from the misuse of power. It is often minorities, protesters and people who challenge those in authority who are most exposed to those consequences. We have only just repealed the Vagrancy Act 1824, which grouped the poor and the homeless together with criminals. That is how we saw them then. I dread the justice system getting harder for people to access and harder on the people who need to access it.

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I urge those on the Government Front Bench not to let this go on. Of course, I understand the need for a Government to get their manifesto Bills through, but they should do it properly and produce good legislation, not rushed and ill-considered legislation.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—words I thought I would never say. I will definitely vote for his amendment if he decides to put it to a vote at any time. I have been with Government Ministers recently who sniped about your Lordships’ House being a cause of delay for legislation, which is totally unfair because if they did their job at the other end, we would not have to do quite as much here. I say well done to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Rooker seeks information on amendments debated in the Commons. I therefore thought it would be useful, in keeping with responses to similar amendments to other Bills, if I set out the scrutiny the Bill has had in the House of Commons.

The Bill had its Second Reading in the House of Commons on 10 March 2026, as my noble friend noted. The House of Commons then ordered that the Bill should be committed to a Public Bill Committee for its Committee stage. The Public Bill Committee itself decided its sitting pattern. The Committee completed its scrutiny in 12 sittings over six days. As usual, all clauses and schedules were considered, as were all proposed amendments and new clauses that were selected by the chair. The Bill was carried over, and on 13 October the other place took a full day on Report. All proposed amendments and new clauses selected by the chair were considered.

I have no doubt that noble Lords will add to the work of the other place with their usual high-quality scrutiny as we go through the rest of the stages on the Bill. There will, of course, be time to debate all the issues the noble Lord raises on the Bill in detail as the Bill progresses through this House. With that, I ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.