Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Grant Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Grant (Maidstone and Malling) (Con)]

At Justice questions last Tuesday, the Minister for Courts and Legal Services restated her total support for the Government’s attack on jury trials. She described it as “pragmatic structural reform”, and suggested that those who oppose it are burying

“their heads in the sand”—[Official Report, 30 June 2026; Vol. 788, c. 743.]

She also said that it is a point of principle to limit trial by jury, and that she would pursue the policy regardless of the crisis in the courts. Whatever the practical concerns, are the proposed changes to jury trials also a point of principle for the Solicitor General—yes or no?

[The Solicitor General]

As I have set out at this Dispatch Box over recent months, Sir Brian Leveson said in his report that investment alone was not enough, and that reform was also necessary to bring down the backlog of 80,000 cases that we inherited from the previous Conservative Government. Inaction just was not an option. The Ministry of Justice has had to take difficult choices. I remind the hon. Lady that, unlike the previous Conservative Government, we have invested in our courts, introduced unlimited sitting days and invested in victim services. We are doing everything we can to get the backlog down, so that victims can have their cases heard without having to wait years and years for justice.

[Helen Grant]

The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), likely the next Prime Minister, has said that jury trials are the

“lynchpin of a fair society”

and that the plans to curb them should be paused. When he takes over, can we look forward to the Solicitor General’s supporting the scrapping or watering down of the very same changes that she has robustly supported? Does she think that any jury would believe a defendant whose story changed quite as often as this Government’s?

[The Solicitor General]

The hon. Lady will know that I am not the spokesperson for my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield, but I am sure that, like all of us in the House, he is concerned about the unprecedented court backlogs that this Government inherited, and that he will engage with Ministry of Justice Ministers as the Courts and Tribunals Bill progresses through Parliament. Victims are waiting years for a date in court. That is why the Government have invested record amounts in the court system and will continue working to bring down the backlog.