Courts and Tribunals Bill

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats will be voting against the Bill, and we have tabled a reasoned amendment that sets out why we fundamentally disagree with the approach of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Courts Minister to tackling the Crown court backlog. Our views have been well aired in this place over the last few months, but today is an opportunity for us to lay out the reasons why the Bill should not progress in its current form.

Something that we agree on is that the current backlog is unacceptable, untenable and unsustainable. We agree with the Government that that is because of the historic and monumental failings of the previous Conservative Government, whose complacency and mismanagement of the justice system left the criminal justice system on the brink of collapse. It is a shameful legacy.

The backlog in our criminal courts now stands at 80,000. That disgraceful situation deprives victims and defendants of justice for years—cases are now being listed for the end of this decade. This has a huge impact on the quality of evidence, and it even causes victims to pull out of cases because so long has passed since the crime and they just want to move on with their lives. It also leaves defendants’ lives on pause while they await the opportunity to prove their innocence. The system as it stands fails everyone. Something must be done about this crisis, and it must be done now.

Sir Brian Leveson was clear in his report that the fundamental drivers of the ever-increasing backlog were systematic underfunding, the readiness of defence and prosecution teams, and the availability of witnesses, victims and defendants, but he did not identify juries as the cause of the problem. Between 2016 and 2024, the number of ineffective trials increased from 15% to 25%. In that time, the average court sitting time fell from 3.8 hours per sitting day to 3.2 hours. Juries are not the problem; inefficiencies are.

In my Crown court in Chichester, all cases were suspended for a fortnight in January because the heating system failed and it was too cold in the building. Across the country, there are stories of courts closing due to crumbling roofs, water pouring into courtrooms, gas leaks and general poor maintenance over many years. Juries are not the problem; crumbling infrastructure is.

[Dr Chambers]

I visited the Winchester courts recently and spoke to about a dozen barriers, who were all concerned about us taking a sledgehammer to jury trials, not only because they are a fundamental part of our justice system, but because doing so will not even help to clear the backlog, as jury trials are not the limiting factor. They reiterated that it is about defendants and prisoners getting to court on time, the number of sitting days and the crumbling infrastructure. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should listen to the professionals, who know what the problems are?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

Joanna Hardy-Susskind put it well today, when she said:

“I have seen the adjournment of two rape trials this year. It’s only March. Nothing in Lammy’s proposed Bill would have saved the trial dates in either case. Nothing.”

Barristers across England and Wales are reporting delays to their cases because of the failed prisoner escort and custody services contracts—something I have asked the Justice Secretary about many times. These issues regularly cause cases to run late because the defendant has not been delivered on time from prison, or because there is nobody on site to bring them up from the holding cells. Juries are not the problem; Government contracts are the problem.

[Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)]

I have been a civil and a criminal law practitioner. The civil courts are not that far from the criminal courts when it comes to delays, but there are no juries in the civil courts, so does the hon. Lady agree that the delays are due to a lack of investment?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention; I have also seen the amendment that his group has tabled, and I agree with that.

Trial by jury is deeply enshrined in our conscience and constitution, and it is respected all over the world.

[Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the original clause 39 of Magna Carta has guaranteed an individual’s right to due process in the court for 800 years, and that trial by jury is at its heart? This Bill asks the right question but gives a reckless answer. There is no modelling or evidence to show that this move will reduce the backlog.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I agree with some of what my hon. Friend said. I do agree that trial by jury is one of the only parts of our justice system that is still actually trusted. The possibility of being tried by one’s peers is fundamental to a fair trial in this country. The Deputy Prime Minister himself recognised that point in the Lammy review in 2017, and then again during the pandemic when curtailing the right to a jury trial was proposed to deal with the increasing backlog.

[Emily Darlington]

I am trying to understand the hon. Lady’s point. Is she saying that we should now extend jury trial to all trials, or that we should keep the status quo? Is she saying that it is sacrosanct and so should in fact be extended? I am confused.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I am happy to make it absolutely clear for the hon. Member. If I was allowed to get on, I could make that point. Trial by jury is not the problem. We agree that there is a problem that needs to be solved, but curtailing the right to a jury trial will not achieve what the Government and the Opposition want: the backlog coming down.

Leveson’s report proposed a bench division with a judge and two magistrates. The Government have gone further and proposed a swift court with just one sitting judge. Did they choose to ignore Sir Brian Leveson’s proposal of a Crown court bench division with a judge and two magistrates because, although they agree—I think—that the lay element to a trial is an important part of the system, they know that they do not have enough magistrates and are likely to struggle to find enough willing to preside over lengthy cases? Does the Courts Minister really believe that defendants opt for a Crown court trial because they want their cases to be heard in a Crown court building—because of the facilities or because it might have better coffee—rather than because they want a trial by jury?

[Pam Cox]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I will make some progress.

If the Deputy Prime Minister and the Courts Minister believe that this is fundamentally the right thing to do practically and ideologically, why did it not feature in the Labour party manifesto? Like many Members, I take issue with the Deputy Prime Minister’s messaging around the Bill. He chose to describe defendants as “offenders”, rather than applying the principle of innocent until guilt is proven. He also described a case that carries a sentence of up to three years as akin to having a grazed knee and seeing a consultant. I think most of the public outside this building would argue that three years’ imprisonment is a life-changing sentence. If I were tried for a crime that I was arguing that I did not commit, I would like that to be in front of a jury of my peers.

I believe the Government are wasting severely limited political capital on something that will not shift the dial. They stated themselves that they expect all the measures in the Bill to show just a 5% decrease in the backlog by the end of this Parliament and a return to pre-covid backlog levels only in a decade.

Instead of these drastic changes, we are urging the Government to look at alternative options to reduce the Crown court backlog. We should look at measures that have been tried and tested before, such as those piloted during the pandemic to supercharge the Crown courts, when extended sitting hours allowed am and pm trials. Used in select courtrooms, that method can funnel through cases that have been stuck in the backlog for years. In the original pilots, the approach cleared 3.5 cases per courtroom each week, compared to fewer than one in courts operating standard hours. That is how we can begin to reduce the backlog without removing liberties that we should all hold as sacred. Will the Government please give consideration to the Liberal Democrat proposals, which would not only boost efficiencies in the Crown courts but would make the experience for jurors, victims and judges better, and could attract retired judges back into the system to preside over half-day cases?

Another glaring flaw in the Bill is that more serious cases will be heard in the magistrates court, where there is a higher income threshold to qualify for legal aid. Many more defendants who could be accused of crimes that carry sentences of up to 24 months will be unrepresented and defending themselves. That is very likely to drag out hearings, which will lower the overall savings that the Government claim to be making with these reforms. How will the Government respond when magistrates courts start pushing cases with longer sentences back to the Crown court as they struggle to absorb the additional work, as happened with the previous reform of magistrates’ sentencing powers?

The Government are also proposing to abolish the right of appeal from the magistrates court. Why does the Deputy Prime Minister believe that should be done when 42% of appeals from the magistrates court are successful? If the Government are willing to include an important clause on the presumption against parental responsibility in the Bill, why will they not extend the scope of the Bill to address the fundamental reforms needed in the broken family court system?

The Government’s proposals are opposed by the Criminal Bar Association, the chair of the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Four Bars, the Secret Barrister, Judge Rob Rinder, Jo Hamilton OBE, many Labour Members and 3,200 legal professionals, who have written to the Deputy Prime Minister today. If they will not listen to all those organisations and people who have spent their lives committed to making the criminal justice system, which has been poorly managed by successive Governments, as effective as possible for victims and defendants, who will they listen to?

I have a huge amount of respect for the Courts Minister and for the Deputy Prime Minister, which is why I am disappointed to be here making this speech. It is not too late for them to change course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Hatton]

I completely accept that there have been successes in some parts of the country, including in Liverpool, but that is not the case elsewhere, which is why a much wider package of structural reforms is essential. I firmly believe, in response to that point, that we must pull every lever at our disposal to stabilise the system and begin to turn the corner on the rising backlog in the Crown court. We need transformative change, backed up by investment and modernisation, to fix the problem. That is not optional; it is essential. That is why, in my view, the reforms in the Bill form a coherent package designed to deliver system-wide change. We cannot indulge in a game of pick and mix and simply implement the measures that we prefer. We must understand that, to relieve the scale of pressure currently facing the Crown courts and the wider criminal justice system, this Bill must make its way through this place.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

If the hon. Gentleman believes that we should not have a pick and mix approach to Sir Brian Leveson’s proposals, why does he think that the Government have chosen only some of the measures and not others?

[Lloyd Hatton]

The Government can put certain measures into one piece of primary legislation, but there could be others down the line to pick up the recommendations of the review.

We must remember that magistrates, prison and probation officers and police officers will not thank us if we preside over an unreformed system in which Crown courts are allowed to crumble and backlogs are allowed to balloon for years to come. Every aspect of reform is required, otherwise cutting the backlogs and providing more timely justice will never be achieved, and we in this place will have done too little.

Finally, I add my voice to the chorus of parliamentarians who have been speaking up for victims who have so far been failed by the status quo. At the heart of the criminal justice system are people waiting for justice—waiting for wrongs to be put right, for fairness, for their day in court and for closure.

The progressive case for court reform is not a technocratic exercise in efficiency; it is a fundamental argument about how our legal institutions serve the British people, because when the criminal justice system breaks down, it is the most vulnerable who always pay the highest price. We must not lose sight of that today. We can either manage the slow decline of our courts, watching as victims are neglected and abandoned, and public confidence drains away, or we can support the Bill and modernise and repair the system so that justice is delivered quickly and fairly. I enthusiastically choose the latter option.