Courts and Tribunals Bill (Sixth sitting)
Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts(2 days, 9 hours ago)
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Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I rise to speak in support of amendment 43, tabled in my name, and to amendments 25 and 12. Again, on this issue the Opposition and the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden have alighted on the same challenge or issue—the same thing we think is unfair. We have gone about our amendments in different ways, but we recognise the same issue. As we heard, the amendments address the retrospectivity built into the Government’s approach.
The Bill makes it clear that the new allocation regime will apply not only to future cases, but to existing Crown court cases that are due to begin on or after the specified day on which the measures are implemented. In other words, cases that are already in the system, in which defendants may have made decisions on the basis that they expect a jury trial, could be reallocated to a judge-only trial. Our amendment 43 would prevent that by ensuring that the new regime applies only to cases in which the first magistrates court hearing takes place after the change, and not to cases already in the pipeline.
The Government say the change is merely procedural and can therefore be applied to ongoing cases, but that understates what is happening. To change the allocation part-way through proceedings would not simply be technical; it would alter the ground beneath the defendant’s feet. In written evidence, JUSTICE shared our concerns, saying:
“The retrospective application of the provisions is contrary to the rule of law.”
It pointed to the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s legislative standards, which state:
“Retrospective legislation is unacceptable other than in very exceptional circumstances”
and
“must have the strongest possible justification”.
It is worth considering that legislative guidance, which states, first, that enacting legislation with retrospective effect should be avoided. Secondly, provisions that have retrospective effect should be drafted as narrowly as possible. Thirdly, individuals should not be punished or penalised for contravening what was, at the time, a valid legal requirement. Fourthly, laws should not retrospectively interfere with obligations when the liberty or criminal liability of the citizen is at stake. Fifthly, laws should not deprive someone of the benefit of a judgment already obtained. Sixthly, laws should not prevent a court from deciding pending litigation according to its merits on the basis of the law in force at the time when proceedings were commenced. Seventhly, retrospective legislation should be used only when there is a compelling reason to do so. Eighthly, a legislative power to make a provision that has retrospective effect should be justified on the basis of necessity and not desirability.
Having heard those points, we can immediately see the issues. On the principle that laws should not retrospectively interfere with obligations when the liberty or criminal liability of the citizen is at stake, it is clear that that liberty is absolutely at stake in these matters.
On necessity, we have repeated throughout the debate that the Government, in our eyes, have completely failed to make the case successfully that the measures in the Bill are the only way to drive down the backlogs. This morning, we debated the fall in backlogs in some areas seen in the latest published data; that happened without the measures in the Bill, and without other measures that we all think are necessary to help to drive down the backlogs. To our eyes, the retrospective element clearly does not meet the test of exceptional circumstances or necessity.
JUSTICE says that, given that the curtailment of jury trials will have a marginal effect on the backlog, it cannot see how retrospective applications can be justified, and I agree. It argues that it is deeply unfair for defendants who elected for a Crown court trial in expectation of a jury to have their cases heard by a judge alone under a process that did not even exist when they made that choice. Defendants who have opted for a jury trial may be incarcerated on remand awaiting trial by jury. Had they known that this would never materialise, they may well have opted for a magistrates trial and already been released.
There is, then, a risk that the reallocation of cases that are already in the Crown court caseload to the bench division will be subjected to judicial review. There is clearly no ouster clause in the provisions. How do we know whether many of those affected might decide that they should challenge the decision in the courts? JUSTICE suggests that it could happen with each and every case in the backlog that is allocated to trial without jury. This would require additional hearings and the preparation of representatives for every affected case already in the backlog, creating further delays and placing unnecessary burdens on the defendants and the prosecution who, as we have all accepted, are already under significant pressure.
What did the Prime Minister say about retrospective measures? We have already covered what the Prime Minister previously thought about the importance of jury trials, which he seems to have forgotten, but what did he say about retrospective measures? He said that
“they are usually a very bad idea”.
That is a direct quote from our Prime Minister. He said they were usually a very bad idea, yet here is his own Government enacting one.
Of course, we know what the Deputy Prime Minister thought about this issue. He appeared before the Justice Committee on Tuesday 16 December last year. He was asked about this issue by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), who said:
“There are currently in the region of 17,500 prisoners on remand in this country. Will these reforms apply retrospectively?”
What did the Deputy Prime Minister say? He said: “No.” The Committee must have to assume that that was his view of the right thing to do at the time. Why else would he have said no? It is reasonable for us to ask the Minister to explain why the Deputy Prime Minister has changed his mind.
Of course, the Minister herself has already been asked about this in the Justice Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) pointed out that a defendant committed to trial in the Crown court will expect a jury trial. He said,
“you will relook at cases that have been committed for trial at the Crown court and push some of them through the swift court—that is what you are telling me.”
The Minister replied:
“I think that is something we have to look at.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater said to her:
“So when the Lord Chancellor said it will not be retrospective, that was not a wholly accurate answer.”
The Minister replied:
“I think the answer he was giving was in the context of a question around the impact on remand hearings; I think that was the context in which he may have addressed that.”
My hon. Friend replied:
“No, he said the changes would not be retrospective, and now you are giving me a slightly different answer. If someone elects to go to the Crown court at the moment, it is on the assumption that there will be a trial by jury. What you are saying is that it might not be; they might be diverted to the swift court.”
The Minister agreed with that, saying: “That is right, yes.” That can be interpreted only as a suggestion that there was no difference with or without a jury as they are still in the Crown court—an extraordinary response.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater said:
“Minister, if you have been committed to trial in the Crown court at the moment, you are expecting to have a jury trial, and what you are telling me is that once these changes take effect, you will divert those people committed but whose trial has not started into the swift court.”
The Minister agreed, saying: “Yes”. My hon. Friend said to her:
“That is not what the Lord Chancellor said before Christmas.”
The exchange concluded with the Minister making this point:
“It is a change in relation to the procedure that applies to those cases. They are still getting a Crown court trial under the new proposals.”
We are back to an argument that we have revisited a number of times. When the Minister is pressed on a disadvantage in one form or another of having a trial without a jury, she insists that it does not make much of a difference as they will still get a trial that, in her view, has all the merits of a trial with a jury, to some extent. We made some progress on that earlier today, when the Minister acknowledged that there is something special about a jury trial. If there is something special about it, she must surely accept that those people who do not get one are missing something special and are therefore in some way disadvantaged.
JUSTICE is not alone in its criticism of the retrospective element of the proposals. As I have said previously, Mr Robertson, the founder of the chambers that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Attorney General all practised at—someone they surely give some weight and credibility to—is critical about this. He writes:
“Those charged by police with offences currently carrying a right to elect a jury trial will go through newly devised ‘allocation proceedings’ where they will lose that right if it appears to the court to be more suitable to have a non-jury trial or if it appears to the court that the value of the property involved exceeds a sum to be set by the government.”
By that, I think he means in relation to the severity of the case.
Mr Robertson goes on:
“This means, for all 80,000 cases in the backlog, more time—days perhaps—will have to be set aside for novel pre-trial proceedings featuring arguments about suitability and value of stolen property. There will be legal challenges to the government’s proposal that such legislation should apply to defendants who have already been charged or are awaiting trial. Applying these changes retrospectively amounts to a fundamental injustice, undermining legal certainty and the long-standing principle that individuals should be tried according to the rules in place at the time of the alleged offence.”
He is right, is he not?
Mr Robertson is not alone. The Bar Council says:
“The application of this proposal retrospectively inevitably will face a constitutional challenge. The Criminal Bar Association estimates that up to 30,000 cases will be affected. Not only is this extraordinarily unfair to those who have already elected the Crown Court, understanding that it is a jury trial, it interferes with legal certainty and runs the risk of tying the courts up in appeals, further increasing the backlogs.”
I hope that the Minister can reflect, as always, on those clear views, as well as the views of thousands of other legal professionals, academics and former judges, that provisions in the Bill are not necessary to bring the backlog down, and therefore should not be enacted retrospectively. They are fundamentally unfair, unconstitutional and against the usual practices of this place when it comes to retrospective legislation. I hope the Minister will support our amendment to make sure that the measures are not applied retrospectively.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Although I have proposed the removal of clause 3 in its entirety—we will come to the arguments for that later in proceedings—I will speak to amendment 12, tabled in my name, which seeks to remove subsections (2) to (4) of the clause. Those subsections provide that cases can be assigned to be heard by a judge alone, even if the case has already been assigned to be heard in front of a jury.
Dr Mullan
I rise to speak in support of amendment 40 in my name and to consider other related amendments. At this point, we are considering in more detail the allocation decisions, how they work in practice and the likely legal risks and pitfalls inherent in the new process.
I will begin by laying out the process that will exist. The Bill will introduce a Crown court bench division where cases are tried by a judge alone. To ensure that jury trials remain in place for certain crimes, only triable either-way cases that are assessed as likely to receive a custodial sentence of three years or less will be allocated for trial in a bench division. Indictable-only offences cannot be tried there.
To determine whether a triable either-way case should be allocated for trial in a Crown court bench division, a Crown court judge will assess whether the offence or offences to be tried are likely to attract a custodial sentence of three years or less. That decision will be taken at the first opportunity for the defendant to enter a plea in the Crown court using a plea and trial preparation hearing. If cases involve multiple defendants, judges must assess eligibility based on the highest likely sentence of any one defendant. Offences to which defendants have pled guilty are not included in the assessment of a likely sentence, and youth defendants are not exempt from the bench division.
The bench division will operate as a lower tier in the existing Crown court—that is important. The Bill will not create a separate jurisdiction or intermediate court. The usual Crown court procedures will apply in the bench division, including the appeal route from the Crown court to the Court of Appeal. Judges sitting in the bench division will also retain the full sentencing powers of the Crown court and may impose sentences of more than three years where appropriate, even if the allocation was initially based on the likelihood that they would not do that.
The Bill and explanatory notes are clear that no new appeal route is created for decisions to allocate a case to the bench division. It is important to set out the distinctions between different types of allocation decisions both now and in the future, if these proposals are passed. There are some elements of allocation decisions at present that we would all agree are not subjective, but based on offence classifications. I may be wrong, but I do not imagine there remains much debate about allocation decisions in those scenarios. Summary and indictable-only offences will be heard in the magistrates court or the Crown court based on that classification, though there are some exceptions that I will ask the Minister to clarify later.
Under the Government’s proposed reforms, there are similar black and white scenarios, with summary-only remaining with the magistrates and indictable-only going before a judge and jury. However, we will continue to have decisions on either-way offences, which consider the subjective—the not black and white—consideration of what the likely sentence length is. The consequences for defendants are entirely new territory for criminal defendants for the offences concerned.
Of course, defendants may disagree with allocation decisions at present, and may want to stay in the magistrates court, but the court may decide that they must be heard in the Crown court. However, importantly, as I understand it, a defendant cannot actually legally challenge that decision through judicial review. I am not a legal expert, and if the Minister receives advice that that is wrong, I would welcome that clarification, but as I said, my understanding is that judicial review would not be possible in that scenario. I also understand that it would not be the case in relation to the Crown court where the allocation would take place. Importantly, as I pointed out at the start, this will be taken in the Crown court, not some new or different court, so we should read across the rights and procedures that already exist in the Crown court.
As I understand it, triable either-way offences, if heard in the Crown court, are then in legal terms considered to be a trial on indictment. If a triable either-way offence is tried in the Crown court, it becomes a trial on indictment as if it were an indictable offence as per the other offences that are always indictable. Again, I am happy for the Minister to say whether that is the case, but that is my understanding of it.
Why is it important? Because there are constraints on the use of judicial review in relation to a Crown court trial on indictment. Under sections 28 and 29(3) of the Senior Courts Act 1981, no appeal by way of case stated or judicial review is possible in respect of matters relating to trial on indictment, so it will not be available with regard to any decision relating to the conduct of a Crown court trial on indictment. These measures, in this important way, are specifically taking away an existing legal right: the right to challenge an allocation decision. That cannot be right, fair or reasonable, and I am not even confident, as it is not mentioned, that I have seen in any of the Government publications related to this that it is something the Government have recognised they are doing.
It is also potentially a mistake in another way: in relation to the efficiency and smooth running of the courts that the Minister is seeking to achieve. At conviction, the defendant can apply for leave to appeal in the Crown court. At that stage, is the proposal that the defendant will be prevented from appealing the allocation by the judge, so a defendant might argue that a judge could act unlawfully on allocation with no appeal safeguard?
I have not had my attention drawn to an ouster clause. More generally, there is the provision that there is no specific appeal to the decision in isolation, but not an ouster clause in terms of the appeals that are allowed in the Crown court. I am confident that there will be legal arguments about that, at least to start with, until common law settles the matter. It would be extraordinary for the Government to introduce such a clause. We might find examples where a judge in the Crown court has completely incorrectly and legally unjustifiably allocated a case, and when that is brought up as part of the appeal at the point of conviction, be told that that is not a matter on which the court can have an opinion. I think that would be extraordinary.
Does the Minister think it would be right, if it forms the basis of an appeal against allocation happening after conviction, for the Court of Appeal to be constrained from having the power to return the case for trial by jury if it agrees the allocation decision was unlawful? I cannot believe that she would think that was right. Therefore, we create the exact opposite effect of what we are seeking to do—to make the best possible use of Crown court time—particularly in relation to barristers and other people working across the courts, by not allowing an earlier appeal. That is with regard to both appeals that take place and, more importantly, where a whole new trial may have to be ordered before a jury because it is found that the initial allocation decision was wrong.
Consider the scale on which that may happen—hundreds of cases may suddenly have to be retried. If, for example, the measures are in place for seven, eight or nine months, there is no onus or expectation regarding at what point a defendant—a convicted criminal at that point—might seek legal advice and then successfully choose to challenge an allocation decision. That would then be heard by a court, and then that court of appeal will make a ruling as to whether the circumstances under which that person was allocated were unlawful and a retrial with a jury is required.
If any other case has been allocated under those same circumstances that the appeal court determines are unlawful, every single one of those who had been convicted would have the right to say that the precedent has been set that the way they were allocated was unlawful and has to be retried. That could happen six months, a year or two years in. We are talking about a huge potential reallocation and retrial of all cases if the Minister insists that there should not be an appeal on the right of the allocation decision.
A separate initial safeguard—an appeal against allocation at the stage that it happens—is not only the right thing to do to ensure that an existing right is not eroded, but the more efficient way to approach these things. The amendment is sensible, rational and will provide greater confidence in the new court that the Minister is insisting on creating, and its processes.
I ask the Minister to clarify an important matter of law in relation to the allocation decisions in the first place—just the sort of thing that might be appealed if it is not clarified by the Minister during the passage of the Bill or through amendments to the legislation. We are clear about the idea of summary offences that go to the magistrates court. Indictable-only offences will have a trial with a judge and jury. In a number of cases, however, the offence is triable either way, but provisions that this House has introduced mean that in particular circumstances it can be tried only on indictment.
Some examples of that are three-strikes class-A drug trafficking offences, three-strikes dwelling burglary offences, dwelling burglaries involving violence or threats of violence, and the minimum mandatory sentences for firearms offences. Those were decisions taken by Parliament to say that, while the offence more generally could be tried either way, these cases in those circumstances are too serious to be heard by a magistrates court; they must be heard by a judge and a jury.
What are the consequences of the Bill on those scenarios? Will the Government respect the will of Parliament in relation to considering those cases to be more serious, as the Government accept for those cases that retain a jury trial, and that they should therefore remain with a jury trial? It is important that we have clarity on this issue specifically because, as I said, it is something that would almost certainly be subject to appeal if clarity is not provided.
I finish by reiterating the point that, if the Government refuse to accept our amendment, they will be actively legislating away a right to appeal allocation decisions that currently exists in our system. They will be actively choosing to do that if they are unable to insert a similar right through other means, such as through our amendment or an amendment at a future stage. I think it is important that the Committee reflects on that, and I hope the Minister can agree.
Jess Brown-Fuller
I will speak to amendment 18, tabled in my name, which seeks to ensure that a defendant has the right to appeal against a judge’s decision to allocate a case for trial by judge alone, whether because of the likely sentence length or because the case is assessed to be complex or lengthy. I will also be supporting amendment 40, tabled in the name of the shadow Minister, and amendment 28, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden.
As stated, triable either-way offences, with potential sentences of up to three years, could be tried in the new Crown court bench division swift court. I argue that cases where a defendant may receive a sentence of up to three years are not minor offences; we are talking about life-changing sentences. Often in this category, we are talking about possession with intent to supply, actual bodily harm, death by careless driving, or section 20 unlawful wounding or grievous bodily harm, including where there is a grave injury. We must safeguard those sorts of cases against rough justice—an issue that much of the legal profession has warned could arise. It is vital that the Government provide an appeal system against decisions on whether to allocate a case for trial in front of a judge or jury.
I would like some clarification from the Minister: when we talk about summary offences, indictable offences and then triable either-way offences, are the measures being introduced in this Bill removing the concept of triable either-way offences? Are we then moving all those categories of offences into what are described as summary offences—these offences that carry long, life-changing sentences?
Briefly, amendment 28 would add a procedural requirement, but it is an important one because it would mean that the court could not simply decide, on the papers, to move a case to a judge-only trial; both parties would have to have first been given the opportunity to argue the point at a hearing, and only if both sides expressly gave up that right could the court proceed without one.
That goes back to the point that I raised earlier about the Canadian model, which I know the Government have been exploring and have spent time in Canada looking at. There, people have the right to elect a judge-only trial, so there is still an element of choosing what that looks like. That is not what this Government are proposing; they are proposing that there be no choice in the system, and that there be no legal precedent for it. I would appreciate the Minister’s answer to that.
Yasmin Qureshi
I will speak to amendment 28, regarding page 9, line 20 of the Bill. Essentially, the amendment states that, if the prosecution and defence waive their right to a hearing, the court can then make a determination under proposed new section 74AB of the Senior Courts Act 1981. That proposed new section, which will be introduced by clause 3, contains provisions regarding what the court must look at when determining allocation, such as whether a jury trial is to be declined. It is a fairly self-explanatory amendment, but a vital safeguard.
Jess Brown-Fuller
I accept that it might be a mischaracterisation to describe it as rough justice, but does the Minister agree that in this case it will be summary justice, which by its very definition is rougher around the edges, because it is summary?
Sarah Sackman
I am happy to sit down with the hon. Member again to clarify what she means by summary. There is no curtailment of the trial. All the elements of the trial happen in exactly the same way: the prosecution presents its evidence; the defence presents its evidence; witnesses are cross-examined; the evidence is tested. It is not summary in that sense—but if she wants to come back on that, I am happy to give way.
Jess Brown-Fuller
I appreciate the opportunity to come back on that. That poses another question: if judge-only trials are going to take the exact same amount of time, how will this speed up the court backlog?
Sarah Sackman
As we have heard extensively in evidence, whether from Sir Brian Leveson, the three experienced judges or our international comparators, including the Attorney General for Ontario, it does save time in a number of ways. The most compelling characterisation I heard was from Clement Goldstone, the recorder of many years’ experience from Liverpool. He said:
“in my experience it is wrong to confine the savings, or the assessment of the savings, to empanelling and swearing in a jury. That is where it begins.
Every sex case, I suspect probably nationally, now comes before the court with a direction that there will be no witnesses before 2.15 pm on the first day or, if the case is starting at 2.15 pm, until 10.30 the following morning. If there is no jury, there is no bar to the evidence starting within 10 or 15 minutes... Half a day, at least, will be saved on every sex case that is heard in the Crown court. That is before you start with time lost as a result of jury sickness, or a juror being delayed”.
He went on to say—and we heard this from the Canadian witness as well—that
“It is also easier to call a witness out of order if you are not trying to take a jury through in the order in which the evidence would otherwise be called.”––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Bill Public Bill Committee, 25 March 2026; c. 76, Q161.]
He said, in terms, “I do not accept that there will not be a significant amount of time saved.”
It is not right to call a judge-only trial summary. It is not right to call it rough justice, and it is also not right to say that time will not be saved. Substantial time will be saved.
Jess Brown-Fuller
I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 3, page 6, line 25, at end insert—
“(4A) A trial conducted without a jury will be heard by one judge and two magistrates.”
This amendment implements the recommendation of the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts to have cases heard in the Crown Court Bench Division by a judge and two magistrates.
Sir Brian Leveson and the Minister, on the many occasions on which we have discussed this issue, have been very clear that the proposals set out in the independent review of the criminal courts were not to be treated as a pick and mix. Sir Brian was clear that it was meant to be a package of reforms, alongside stating that juries are not the cause of the backlog; I want to make sure that that is on the record.
But the Government have indeed chosen to pick and mix from Sir Brian’s recommendations, because he never proposed a judge sitting alone in the Crown court bench division. He proposed including a lay element, with two magistrates sitting with the judge; the magistrates would have equal decision-making authority on matters of fact, evidence and sentencing, while the judge would retain responsibility on rulings of law. The purpose of having two was to enable them to outvote the judge on matters of fact and, importantly, to maintain public participation and legitimacy in the absence of a jury.
Sir Brian referred to that in part 1 of his review. He said:
“In a similar vein, the inclusion of two magistrates in the composition of the bench would also ensure that the CCBD would satisfy the expectation of”
being judged by “one’s peers.” He continued:
“I...will not revisit those arguments here. I do, however want to acknowledge the diversity of the current magistracy, which I believe goes some way to satisfying this expectation and would help ensure a fair and balanced representation in the CCBD.”
The magistracy has done an excellent job of improving its diversity, although one could argue that there is still more work to do. A former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, has said:
“It seems to me that if one is going to reduce the involvement of the general public, as members of a jury, in the relatively low-level cases that go to the Crown court, maintaining public involvement through the magistracy is a good course to follow. It also has the great advantage of simply replicating a constitution and jurisdiction that exists in the Crown court at the moment. When there is an appeal from the magistrates court against conviction or sentence, including an appeal against conviction in an either-way case, it is heard in the Crown court by a judge and two magistrates.”––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 25 March 2026; c. 75, Q159.]
The Government cannot shirk their commitment to fair justice free from bias. If these changes are to be implemented, they should include the safeguard of two magistrates in the Crown court bench division. I would appreciate the Minister’s outlining why the Government have departed from Leveson on the point. Is it because there is a concern about finding enough magistrates to fill the roles? Is it because the magistracy will already be overwhelmed by the additional cases given to it as a result of the new sentencing powers outlined in this Bill? Or is it because the Government believe that having the lay element provides no additional safeguard in the interests of fair justice? Through the amendment, we seek to implement the recommendation of Brian Leveson’s review of the criminal courts.
Joe Robertson
The hon. Member for Chichester has set out the reasoning behind her amendment very well. If the amendment were agreed to, it would not go anywhere near restoring jury trials, but it would plainly be an improvement. The leading argument in its favour is that it is what Sir Brian Leveson recommended. The Government have repeatedly cited Brian Leveson’s review, and rightly so—that is what the Bill flows out of—but as the hon. Member for Chichester says, it cannot be a pick and mix. The Government cannot cite Leveson on the one hand and ignore him on the other.
Quite aside from the fact that the opinion expressed in the independent review has been ignored here, there are objectively good reasons why a trial heard by a judge and two magistrates is preferable to a trial heard by a judge alone. For a start, there would be three decision makers rather than one; with a jury there are 12, but clearly three is better than one. But it is not just a matter of numbers. Magistrates could be viewed, and certainly have been viewed, as a hybrid of jurors and judges. They are not judges, and they are not legally qualified people. They bring the quality that jurors bring—varied life experience—to the decision-making process. Of course, in a magistrates court, they are guided in the law by a legally qualified clerk.
It is fairly obvious that magistrates as a group are less diverse than the population of the United Kingdom, from which jurors are drawn, but at least they represent a greater diversity and variety of experience than judges. Judges all share one thing: they went to law school, they are legally qualified and they have had a career that is privileged—that is not a criticism, but I do not think it is an unfair word to describe a judge’s career. Magistrates have a greater variety of life experience. To bring magistrates into the decision making alongside a judge, as Sir Brian Leveson envisaged, would be to bring at least some element of a jury trial: the quality of being unjaded by a career in law and being unencumbered by the experience of being a well-paid legal professional.
I struggle to support the amendment, because it does not go anywhere near maintaining the system that we have today, but it would at least be a small improvement. It is an obvious point, but judges sit alongside magistrates today; it is a tried, tested and understood approach, not an obscure or novel one. Indeed, appeals are often heard in that way, as I understand it, because there is added rigour in having a magistrate sitting alongside a judge.
Of course, having a judge sitting alongside magistrates is an improvement on having magistrates alone, because judges bring professionalism from their legal training and experience of the law as part of the judiciary. There is a benefit there, although of course the benefit is already delivered by the Government’s own amendment, notwithstanding that it is worse than what we have today.
I commend, or at least understand, what the hon. Member for Chichester is trying to achieve. It comes from a good place, but unfortunately—this is not her fault, but the Government’s—it does not go anywhere near maintaining the status quo, which in my view is plainly greatly preferable both to her amendment and to the Government’s approach.
Sarah Sackman
As ever, my hon. Friend raises a very good point. Overall in the country, 14% of our magistrates are drawn from black and minority ethnic communities. The picture is not bad in the midlands, which my hon. Friend takes a particular interest in. The reality is that we are not in a position to pay our magistrates, but it touches on another consideration in this context. As I have said, I fully accept that magistrates would add a community element to the Crown court bench division, but it is also true to say that in relation to longer and more complex matters, which necessarily are what we are talking about when we are talking about the Crown court bench division, the type of magistrate who can give up their time for the length of time needed to hear longer trials—for weeks at a time—is, I would suggest, inevitably skewing towards the less diverse end of the magistracy.
The other point to make, in addition to the practical one, which I have been transparent about throughout, is the normative one. If I can put it colloquially, the Government make this policy choice because we believe our judges can do it. We believe they can do it for the reasons that I have reiterated in earlier parts of the discussion: their integrity, impartiality and ability to manage the court efficiently. And we see parallels—international comparators. I will again draw on Canada, where this is done to good effect while maintaining the fairness and integrity of the trials.
Introducing a requirement for magistrates to sit alongside judges would risk delaying the implementation of these reforms and, with that, delaying the benefits to victims, defendants, complainants, witnesses and the wider justice system. The Government’s view is that in that time the backlog would continue to grow and remain unresolved, and we cannot have that. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Chichester to withdraw her amendment.
Jess Brown-Fuller
I recognise the comments made by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East. I agree that the amendment would not go towards restoring jury trials, and I will continue to push for jury trials to remain at their current thresholds. However, in the absence of the Government budging on that issue, I will continue to table amendments as we go through this process, and I know that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle echoed those points.
The Minister rightly talked of the pressure in the system that must be met. We all feel that deeply across the House; no party represented on the Committee thinks the status quo is acceptable, or that a good version of justice is being served for anyone who is sitting in that backlog, or who is being told that their case will not be heard until 2029. However, the Minister also recognised that the lay element is really important, which surely strengthens the argument that she would not be doing this if she had capacity in the magistracy. If the magistracy was running at full volume, or at its numbers from 15 years ago, she would be including that lay element in the Crown court bench division.
There is a balance to be struck, and the balance should not see our fundamental justice system reduced or degraded in any way. It is something that we should be proud of in this country, and we should protect its core principles. I will push the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Sarah Sackman
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden, who is no longer in her place, and the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle for their amendments.
I will begin with amendment 26. The defendant’s interests are already embedded into decision making on mode of trial reallocation. Parties are given the opportunity to make representations on reallocation, meaning the defence can draw the court’s attention to how the factors in the Bill intersect with a defendant’s interests, including the impact of delays to proceedings. Parties are also able to override a judge’s decision to reallocate to a jury trial if they both consent to remain in front of the Crown court bench division judge-alone, allowing, for example, a consensus for swifter justice to prevail.
At the same time, clause 3 requires the court itself to have regard to the interest of complainants—victims—when deciding whether reallocation would be appropriate. Those interests would be properly weighed by the court alongside the other factors set out in the Bill.
Finally, an additional “interests of justice” factor would be superfluous, not least because many of the factors that already fall under an “interests of justice” test, such as delays to proceedings and the impact on witnesses, are already taken account of. Introducing such a broad and undefined factor would risk undermining the structured and calibrated framework that Parliament is being asked to approve. It would also reintroduce uncertainty into the decision making that the clause is designed to make clear and workable in practice—not just the clause, but any accompanying criminal procedure rules. I have faith in our judiciary to make informed and robust decisions on the mode of trial reallocation. As such, I urge my hon. Friend to withdraw her amendment.
Turning to amendment 44, where an indictable-only offence is added to a bench division case, it will always be reallocated to jury trial. Where a jury trial has started, it can never be reallocated to the bench division. The principles of natural justice encompass the right to a fair trial, the rule against bias and the duty to act fairly. All of those elements are preserved in these reforms. The amendment would not add any substantive protection beyond those safeguards already in place.
Jess Brown-Fuller
On a point of clarification, in the instance where a jury trial may begin but the case is adjourned for any reason, could it be reallocated to the Crown court bench division at a later date when it is rescheduled, or would it continue to have a jury trial?
Sarah Sackman
Under the provisions, where a jury trial has started, it cannot be reallocated to the CCBD.
Jess Brown-Fuller
I am just trying to get some clarification about when a jury trial “has started”. If a jury trial is listed on a day but the case is adjourned, it does not go ahead. Cases can be adjourned for many different reasons—the defence or the prosecution could not be ready. In that instance, where the case is adjourned to be relisted on a different day, would the defendant maintain their right to a jury trial or could it be reallocated to the bench division?
Sarah Sackman
What circumstances does the hon. Member envisage would trigger that reallocation? The allocation has been made—it has been allocated to a jury trial. She is right that it has not yet commenced, which is the point I was dealing with, but the circumstances we are dealing with here fall into two broad categories: first, where the nature of the offences in question changes; or secondly, where new evidence comes into play mid-trial, which is so material as to lead to an application to reallocate, or even to a judge of their own volition deciding that the seriousness necessitates reallocation. I cannot see, where it has been allocated already but has not yet commenced, why that would be triggered. But maybe I have missed something.
Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fifth sitting)
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Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.
I speak in support of amendments 23, 39 and 24 which, taken together, would do something simple but important: they would build a measure of flexibility back into the clause, so that jury trial is still available where the cause of justice requires it. The Minister should think carefully. As drafted, the clause creates a very blunt regime: unless the court predicts a sentence of more than three years, the trial is to be conducted without a jury. The amendments would go a small way towards softening that rigidity and making the system less arbitrary, more proportionate and hence more just.
With the amendments, two different Committee members take two different approaches to delivering the same outcome of additional flexibility in the clause. Amendment 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle, is broad in nature, setting out an additional condition for jury trial when needed to ensure natural justice, whereas the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden takes a more granular approach to the problem by listing the specific circumstances that might warrant the need for jury trial, again to ensure fairness. Both approaches seek to achieve the same thing.
I will speak to each amendment in a little more detail, starting with amendment 23. Clause 3 is currently built on one single condition for preserving jury trial in relevant cases: whether the defendant is likely to receive a sentence of more than three years if convicted. Amendment 23 would change the wording from “the condition” to
“one or more of the conditions”.
This is the gateway to allow amendment 24, which lists various conditions, to work.
The amendment matters because it opens the door to a more sensible approach, in which sentence is not the only thing that counts. That is exactly the right approach. When we deal with a constitutional safeguard as important as jury trial, the Committee should be wary of a system that turns entirely on a single mechanistic threshold. Human beings and criminal cases are not that neat, and Parliament should not pretend that they are. The amendment is therefore modest, tidy, entirely sensible and the necessary first step to add judgment, flexibility and common sense to a clause that has far too little of all three.
On amendment 24 and its list of conditions, the Government’s model under the clause is to ask the court at an early stage to forecast the sentence that would likely be imposed if the defendant were convicted. If the forecast is more than three years, there is a jury; if it is not, there is none. That is far too crude a test to bear the full constitutional weight that the Government want to place on it. The Bill itself exposes the weakness in the logic, because although the allocation decision turns on a prediction about a sentence above or below three years, the Bill also expressly states that nothing prevents a court sitting without a jury from later imposing a sentence of more than three years. In other words, even the Bill recognises that the initial prediction may not tell the whole story; if that is so, why should that prediction be the sole basis on which a person loses the right to jury trial?
Amendment 24 is so worth while because it states that in deciding whether a defendant should still have a jury, the court should not only look at the likely sentence but be able to consider whether: the defendant is of good character; they have previously been convicted of an imprisonable offence; they are treated as rehabilitated; conviction would cause significant reputational or professional harm; the gravity or complexity of the case might increase; and other exceptional circumstances. That does not strike me as radical. It is simply an attempt to make the law reflect reality and be less prescriptive. Additional flexibility makes for better outcomes.
One of the strongest parts of amendment 24 is the recognition it gives to good character and to those who have not previously been convicted of an imprisonable offence. I raise this because the Government’s crude threshold risks producing perverse results. The people who may be hit hardest by clause 3 are precisely those who are newer to the justice system, those of previous good character and those for whom a conviction would be utterly life-changing.
The Bar Council illustrated the point starkly in written evidence with the example of a 19-year-old student charged with possession with intent to supply after a small amount of Spice was found in their room—I am sure Members will remember my reciting that specific example in Committee on Tuesday. Because they are of good character, the likely sentence under the guidelines may be low enough that they lose jury trial altogether, even though the charge could destroy their future. Meanwhile, someone with previous convictions may be more likely to cross the sentencing threshold and so keep the right to a jury. That is exactly the sort of absurdity that amendment 24 tries to avoid.
That is wholly consistent with the broader critique of the Bill. Conservative Members have repeatedly argued that the Government are treating this as an administrative exercise, when in fact people’s lives are at stake. The shadow Justice Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), put it clearly on Second Reading when he said that the Government were proposing to remove fundamental rights
“without a mandate, without a case and without any evidence”.—[Official Report, 10 March 2026; Vol. 782, c. 207.]
The Opposition also challenged Ministers on taking away jury trial for offences that cost defendants their jobs, their homes and their families. Amendment 24 responds precisely to that point.
I note the inclusion in amendment 24 of cases in which the defendant would likely suffer significant reputational damage or have their employment or professional qualifications adversely affected. That is important because the seriousness of a case cannot be measured by custody alone. A sentence of under three years can still destroy a person’s livelihood, strip them of professional standing, end a career built over decades and permanently alter family life. The Government keep speaking as though anything beneath their threshold is somehow low level. The Opposition have rightly made the point that even where a sentence is below three years, the consequences can be catastrophic. Amendment 24 simply recognises that reality.
There is an obvious point of fairness here, too. If the state wishes to prosecute a person in circumstances where conviction may ruin their livelihood or reputation for life, it is hardly excessive to say that jury trials should at least remain available. That is an ancient constitutional right and the Government should, even now, think very hard before removing it.
I also support paragraph (f) in amendment 24, which deals with cases where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the gravity or complexity might increase. Again, this is simply common sense. Criminal cases often evolve, evidence changes, witnesses come forward, and issues that initially looked straightforward become anything but in the crucible that is the courtroom.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
The hon. Lady is making an excellent point about the complexity of cases changing throughout. A legal professional recently shared with me the story of what was an assault case, but the victim passed away during the trial, so they are now dealing with hearing evidence of potential brain trauma injury. Does the hon. Lady agree that that case deserves the complexity of a full Crown court trial because the case has changed as the trail has developed?
Rebecca Paul
I completely agree with the hon. Lady. She has set out a good example of the type of things that happen in reality. Life is not tidy, and unexpected things happen. As we look at the Bill and whether a sentence is over or under three years, it is easy to think in simple terms but, in reality, people who work in the justice system—I have not done so, but I have spoken to people who do—understand the movement and flexibility that is required. That is why amendment 24 works really well by taking that into account. The hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden, who drafted it, clearly has real-world experience of what actually happens in a courtroom.
The Bill already recognises elsewhere that there can be a relevant change of circumstances requiring the court to revisit allocation, so the Government’s own drafting accepts that these matters are dynamic rather than static. If that is so, why would we not want to build in a bit more foresight at the front end as well? Paragraph (f) in amendment 24 is not some wild departure from the structure of the Bill; it sits comfortably with the Government’s own recognition that allocation decisions can become unsound as a case develops. It is simply a more prudent and realistic approach to cases in which the true seriousness may emerge only over time.
Finally, the reference in amendment 24 to “other exceptional circumstances” is extremely important. No statute, however carefully drafted, can predict every factual scenario. That is especially true in criminal justice, where the facts and human consequences of a case can vary enormously. A residual exceptional circumstances test is therefore not a weakness; it is a mark of maturity in the law. It recognises that Parliament should not force judges into injustice. If the Government truly believe in justice rather than mere throughput, they should have no objection to preserving a narrow, exceptional route to jury trial where justice plainly demands it.
Amendment 39, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle, deals with the alternative, broader approach to building flexibility into clause 3. It is an especially important amendment because it puts the issue in the clearest possible terms: those of natural justice. The amendment says that a trial should still be conducted with a jury where the defendant demonstrates that to be tried without one
“would amount to a breach of the principles of natural justice.”
That is an extremely modest safeguard. It would not wreck the clause; it would merely build in additional protection through allowing an element of judgment to decide the mode of trial. It would not restore the right to a jury trial in every either-way case; it simply says that where the injustice is plain, a jury trial must remain available. I struggle to see how any Government serious about fairness could object to that.
This is an issue of paramount importance on our side, and I hope on the Government’s side too. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle tabled amendment 39, as well as amendments elsewhere in the Bill—in relation to clause 1, in relation to reallocation under clause 3, and in relation to clause 4—to seek to protect natural justice. We will keep making these points. If Ministers insist on creating judge-only routes, they must at the very least accept a residual safeguard based on natural justice.
For all the reasons I have outlined, I support amendments 23, 39 and 24. They would deliver the additional safeguards needed, so I urge the Government to adopt either the Opposition’s amendment or the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden.
Sarah Sackman
I think there is some consensus here. We are all extolling the virtues of our system. As the Minister with responsibility not just for courts, but for legal services more generally, promoting our legal services and courts around the world, I am very proud of that. Being proud of our system in England and Wales, however, does not mean that there are not things that we can learn from other jurisdictions, particularly where they are producing better outcomes in timeliness or in the treatment of minorities, women, rape and serious sexual offences. It is why I went to Canada to learn from practitioners and judges there. We will take the lessons from wherever we find them. I will pick up later on the point about regional differences, because we must always learn lessons, whether internationally or closer to home.
Jess Brown-Fuller
We heard oral evidence from Doug Downey, who talked about the Canadian system. He also talked about how the right to elect is a protected characteristic of their justice system. The difference is that they have the right to elect a judge-alone trial. Did the Minister explore the option of maintaining the right to elect, but allowing defendants to choose whether they would like to have their case heard in a Crown court bench division with a judge alone?
Sarah Sackman
The hon. Member asks a typically great question. We did think about it. I am well aware that the right to elect exists, once a defendant is in the superior court in Canada. We considered whether the right to elect to go before the Crown court bench division should be included as part of the reforms. The reason we did not, and the reason why these reforms are predicated on the consistent principle that it is for the court to determine mode of trial, is partly about the balance we wanted to achieve within the system between defendant rights and the rights of other participants—I am wary of using the word victim—or complainants within the system.
We received representations from many complainants and people who have been victims of crime, and those who represent their interests, such as the independent Victims’ Commissioner and London Victims’ Commissioner. Many felt that it was so often the defendant’s choice and right to insist on choice that was driving the process and was part of an imbalance in the process. There is both a pragmatic element to our choice, because we think that by introducing a new Crown court bench division we will save time and speed up the processing of trials, and a normative principle behind it, which is about who is in the driving seat in these decisions. We think it should be the court and not always the defendant.
Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)
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Sarah Sackman
Absolutely; the comment from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington was really important. In fairness, the hon. Member for Reigate also made the point about the equality impacts. The way that the measures in the Bill, and indeed our current justice system, impact on different communities in differential ways rightly concerns the Government. It is precisely why we committed to an independent statutory review, and it is why too I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington for tabling her amendment, so that the Committee will have an opportunity to discuss those important issues on a cross-party basis.
We need to ensure not only that we have the right safeguards, monitoring and data collection, but that the reforms in the Bill do not entrench a status quo that has sometimes fallen short of our collective aspirations for justice and equality, so that they can command the confidence of all communities as we implement, monitor and refine them in future, if needed.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
The Minister is making an impassioned plea for trying to equalise the system. Does she not share my concern about the Government’s proposals? Person A could be accused of sexual assault on the tube, and have never been in any criminal justice situation, while person B could have had a string of offences that they have been charged with and ended up serving prison time for. They would get a jury trial because of their past offences, but somebody of previous good character would not, under the Minister’s proposals.
Sarah Sackman
It would depend on the facts of the case. First, I do not entirely understand the rancour behind the examples. If someone has committed a serious crime that could attract a six, seven or eight-year sentence, those are indictable-only offences. I think we all agree that we would want them to have a jury trial, which they would under the proposals in the Bill, because anything likely to get a sentence of three years or more will receive a jury trial.
In the scenario the hon. Lady described in respect of the person of good character, it is right that at the plea and trial preparation hearing—the mode of trial allocation phase—the likely sentence depending on the seriousness will be looked at. In that process, the likely sentence would no doubt take into account—albeit it is a high-level assessment, in line with the sort of assessment that magistrates courts make every day—the mitigating factors, which might include the person’s good character. In bringing forward the reforms, I believe that that person will get a fair trial wherever they get it: in a magistrates court, in the Crown court bench division or, indeed, at a full jury trial if the crime is likely to get a sentence of three years or more. It is not about the person who has done the more serious crime enjoying greater rights. It is because it is a more serious crime that it gets a jury trial. That is a proportionate use of the resources in our system.
Jess Brown-Fuller
The Minister may have misunderstood my point. If person A and person B have committed the exact same offence—they might have done it a day apart, in the same place, in the same circumstances—but person B has previous record, they are more likely to be heard in front of a jury trial. With person A, who is of good character, the offence remains the same, but the fact that person B has had previous offences means they are charged with a higher offence. The case and the evidence might be exactly the same, but they would end up with a different type of trial. Does the Minister think that is fair?
Sarah Sackman
We have an obligation to guarantee a fair trial. I believe that wherever cases are heard in this system, they will be heard fairly. It will be a different mode of trial, but it will be heard fairly. Ultimately, it comes back to a fundamental difference between us. The view has been taken by those on the Opposition Benches that, somehow, what one gets in a magistrates court—where 90% of our trials are heard—is less fair. That is in front of not just lay magistrates but district judges hearing cases. Some of the most serious civil matters such as the decisions around care proceedings—to remove children from their parents’ care—are determined by single judges. I believe that a single judge can determine cases fairly and impartially. That is the system that exists in different jurisdictions, including our own, and it works well and fairly. It is not unfair for somebody to be allocated a trial type based on the seriousness of the offence they are alleged to have committed.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Does the shadow Minister agree that to try to compare the CPS with, for example, the Criminal Bar Association is nonsense because the CPS is a non-ministerial Department? As the hon. Member has pointed out, the policy position is to agree with structural reform because they know that the system is broken. None of us is disagreeing with that today or disagreeing that there is a problem in the system that needs fixing. Of course, the CPS would say that we absolutely need to do something. However, it is not its role as a non-ministerial Department to say that it thinks that the Minister has got it wrong. What it is saying in broadbrush terms is that it agrees that something needs to be done. In contrast, the Criminal Bar Association actually surveyed all its members, because it is an independent organisation, and 88% of them came back and said that they were opposed to the reforms. They are two totally different things.
Dr Mullan
I did raise an eyebrow at the level of evidence that the individual from the CPS chose to give in relation to commenting on Government policy in that way. I have spoken to previous Justice Ministers, and that was unprecedented. Again, if we want to give validity to its views, can Government Members point to a single time that the CPS has got up and directly opposed the policy of the Government of the day? It does not do that. It is all very well and good to champion it when it agrees with this particular point, but it is nonsense if it has never disagreed with Government policy because it is a non-departmental Government body. Again, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford is perfectly entitled to raise it, but to try to give it the weight and character of the other organisations that are lobbying, campaigning and representing does not hold up to much scrutiny—as we have seen.
Dr Mullan
I thank the Minister for explaining the measures as she understands them. I do not mind admitting that some of the explanations in the explanatory notes and the information from the Library have left us with questions about how the measure will operate. The clause refers to written indication of guilty plea, and the explanatory notes refer to this as being available to those who are pleading guilty. I do not mind admitting that the Minister is much more directly experienced with the legal system than I am, as are other members of the Committee, but I do not quite understand the idea of someone choosing the mode of trial after they have pleaded guilty. If they have indicated at the outset that they are going to plead guilty, will the hearing not be about sentencing, rather than trial? My remarks will be focused on that.
The obvious thing to ask is this. If this measure is purely about sentencing, why would anyone who has pleaded guilty ever elect to have a sentencing hearing in the Crown court, where they know there could be a higher sentence, rather than in the magistrates court, where they know there will be a cap on what sentence can be passed? Our arguments have been about the process of the trial itself, and I have touched on some of the elements other than sentencing. That is not to say that there may not be perfectly reasonable grounds for someone to object if they think the decision made was wrong. Again, these are people who have admitted guilt, so we can clearly say they are criminals. Some of them may have spurious reasons for wanting to approach the system in that way, by seeking not to go to the Crown court, but they may also legitimately think that the decision was wrong or not fair. They may well have legal advice that the decision was not consistent with the sentencing guidelines, and that they would have been expected to have stayed in the magistrates court. As we discussed this morning, a significant number of the appeals in the magistrates court are successful, although I accept that those who seek an appeal are in the minority. We all accept that the magistrates courts make mistakes.
It is important that we understand how this measure will work in practice. Can the Minister tell us how many people are objecting and using the mechanism at the moment? That is also confusing, because the explanatory note says that these provisions are not yet in place, but what is her projection of the difference this will make? What will be its material impact? The provisions have not been commenced, but the Government and civil servants must have a view about how objections would have operated and what they would have achieved, versus the right to make representations. What is the difference between those two mechanisms? A guilty person cannot insist on being sentenced in a magistrates court. If the magistrates think that someone is going to hit a higher tariff and should go to Crown court, the person can, in theory, object, as I understand it, but they cannot stop it. Before we vote on the clause, I want the Minister to explain in detail exactly how this will be different from what the Government envisioned was going to happen.
Is there a risk in theory that more things will go to the Crown court? If the Government are saying, “You can’t object,” they must think that at the minute, in theory—if the provisions were to be commenced—some people would be kept in the magistrates court inappropriately. The Government must want more of those people to go the Crown court. If they thought everyone was just going to stick in the magistrates court anyway, why would they be doing it?
Jess Brown-Fuller
The shadow Minister is clearly articulating his confusion, which I share. I believe that clause 2 is at odds with the rest of clauses 1 to 8, because it does the opposite of what those other clauses are trying to achieve. Let us say that, on the advice of legal counsel, Person A has been told that, if they plead guilty, they will most likely receive a suspended sentence. They are keen to move on with their life and therefore they are willing to enter a guilty plea, but they are then told by the magistrates that they would like their case to be heard in the Crown court, which could carry a higher tariff. At the moment, they have the right to object to their case being taken over to the Crown court, because the conditions in which they pleaded guilty have changed. By removing that right, we are making sure that people do not get to say whether they want their case heard in the Crown court, which could push more cases into the Crown court. That makes clause 2 feel at odds with the rest of the clauses, which are trying to remove things from the Crown court. Does the shadow Minister agree?
Dr Mullan
I do. In the other direction, the Institute for Government highlights that
“only around 30% of sentences of 6-12 months were handed out by magistrates”
since their sentencing powers increased from six months to 12 months. That indicates a hesitation in the magistrates courts to award higher sentences. If the Government have the objective of sending these cases to the Crown court, but there is evidence to suggest that magistrates hesitate when it comes to higher sentences, ultimately this measure will not change that.
I want to be clear, because I think that there is some confusion about what is written in the Bill and the explanatory notes. The explanatory notes say:
“The amendments remove the ability of the defendant or the prosecutor to object to the case being sent to the Crown Court for sentence”.
We are talking about sentencing, but that is not exactly what the Minister said or what the Bill seems to say. Before we are asked to vote in support of the clause, the Government need to clear this up, so that we can all understand what exactly this change will achieve that is different in theory from what was going to happen.
I appreciate that this is challenging because we are discussing changes that have never been put into operation, but that is not really an excuse. The Government should have a view of how things were going to operate, and therefore must have formed a view about how they want them to operate differently as a result of this change.
Joe Robertson
I am very happy to say that I agree with all the things the Minister said. I also agree with learning from other systems. Plainly, the English legal system, like the English language, has been successful in its ability to adapt and evolve. Without going back to the beginning of my speech, started just a few minutes ago, for the reasons I have set out, I believe that this is an evolution—or arguably a revolution. [Interruption.] Was that another intervention? I think these measures are a stage too far.
Jess Brown-Fuller
I would like to briefly refer the Committee to some remarks that Sir Brian Leveson made during the evidence session we had before the recess. He said:
“We need people to confront what they have done. I do not want anybody to plead guilty who is not guilty and has seen the evidence. I am not asking to change the guilty plea rate, but in the early days, you pleaded guilty on the first or the second occasion you appeared at the Crown court—now there are many examples of that happening on the fifth or the sixth occasion you are in the Crown court. Each one of those takes a considerable amount of time. That is what is sucking up part of the time.”––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 25 March 2026; c. 8, Q9.]
Sir Brian tried to explain that a lot of people look at the evidence and say, “Yes, I will plead guilty, but I will do so after Christmas”—that was his example. He said that now, because of the Crown court backlogs, people know that their case will not be heard until 2028.
The point that Sir Brian was trying to make is that we need to incentivise those who look at the evidence of their case, and recognise that a guilty verdict is probably going to be arrived at, to put in a guilty plea. Does clause 2 not risk having the reverse effect? People will see that if they put in a guilty plea, the one opportunity they have to argue whether the case should be heard in a magistrates court or a Crown court—although I imagine the majority of them would argue that it should be heard in the magistrates court in this specific example—is taken away from them. Are we not then disincentivising people to put in a guilty plea at an early stage, when we want to see the Crown court backlog come down?
Courts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)
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Yasmin Qureshi
The restriction on some cases not being tried in jury trials is because the Government feel that that will help to bring down the delay in court listing. I say to the Government that the problem is not the jury system, but the fact that other provisions need to be made sufficient. I am afraid that the problem was 14 years of Conservative cuts—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was a Member then. The Conservative Government did not take the Ministry of Justice seriously. There was a Lord Chancellor virtually every year—in 14 years, I think we had 10 Lord Chancellors, which tells us how important the criminal justice system was to the now Opposition.
To go back to my point about clause 1, and all the other clauses that follow, I urge my colleagues and the Minister to please rethink this whole thing. Juries are not the cause of the delay in our system.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I will speak about the Liberal Democrats’ opposition to clause 1. The main reason why clause 1 should not be included in the Bill is that it fundamentally transforms the relationships that defendants have with the justice system. It is really important to make it clear that we are talking about defendants who have entered a not guilty plea, rather than the language that has been used this morning.
In particular, clause 1 removes the defendant’s ability to object to summary trial in the magistrates court—a process that is streamlined for swift justice and should be reserved for less serious cases. In his independent review of the criminal courts, Sir Brian Leveson recommended removing the right to elect a Crown court trial for certain low-level either-way offences that carry a maximum sentence length of two years or less. The Bill would remove the right to elect Crown court trial for all either-way offences. Concerns have been raised publicly about that, including the quality of justice, the capacity of the magistrates court and the fairness of applying this retrospectively.
Magistrates courts also face an increasing backlog, which is currently at 379,000 cases. That is a 17% increase on the previous year, alongside a huge drop in the number of magistrates over the past 20 years—from 28,300 to now 14,600. I am very aware that the Government are embarking on a journey to try to bring more magistrates into the system, but as they increase the number of magistrates, there are also magistrates leaving the system, so it is a real struggle to increase the number.
Removing the power of defendants to elect will increase the workload of the magistrates court, and the system will struggle to absorb that. Many in the legal profession have made that point. It would also be unfair to apply this change retrospectively. Consent is the appropriate basis for the most serious cases to be tried within a summary process. Changing the provision for more serious offences—to be clear, we are talking about things like possession with intent to supply, unlawful wounding and sexual assault—risks miscarriages of justice, as more serious cases would face summary trials in higher volumes, with reduced rights of appeal.
Rebecca Paul
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. It is a pleasure once again to be locked up in a Bill Committee with the Minister. It has been a while, and I am feeling nostalgic; it is wonderful to be here with her again. Maybe one day we will be on the same side—that would be nice, wouldn’t it?
I will speak against the clause in its entirety and in support of the amendment. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden for her powerful contribution. What she is doing is incredibly brave. It is not an easy thing to be sat on the Government Benches with a different view. I really hope that everyone will listen to what she had to say, because I think she was balanced in her approach: she was critical of the previous Government, and did not pull her punches on where she thinks the issues arose, but she suggested some good measures and made good points that we could adopt to address the backlog. That is the one thing that we all agree on in this room: we all want to address the backlog. We can rake over the past all we like, or we can look forward and do the right thing for the British people.
Clause 1 is an egregious clause that seeks to remove one of our fundamental rights. It seeks to remove the right of an adult defendant charged with a triable either-way offence to elect for Crown court trial instead. Instead, the mode of trial will be determined solely by the magistrates courts. In practice, that means that defendants who currently have a right to trial by jury—the right to be judged by their peers—will no longer have it.
The Government have suggested that this unprecedented change to our justice system will impact only those accused of shoplifting and other petty crimes, but that is not the case. It impacts those accused of an either-way offence where the sentence would be for up to three years in prison—three years. It will impact people charged with causing death by careless driving, committing fraud, sexual assault or actual bodily harm, and many other serious offences. Those are not minor or petty by any stretch and can be life changing for everyone involved. Removing the right to jury trial for such crimes is not a minor tweak to our justice system; it takes a sledgehammer to it.
Trial by jury is an English institution, which has served for centuries to ensure that justice is done. No justice system works if it is not accepted and respected by its people. It is vital that we remember that before making changes. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater on an ideological whim is an irresponsible act. Dispensing justice is not just another process with checkboxes; it impacts people’s lives irrevocably. Decisions about how our system operates should be taken carefully and responsibly in recognition of that, and should allow an element of flexibility in the approach to get the right outcomes. That is what the amendment seeks to add.
I urge the Government to tread carefully before throwing away something that has worked for hundreds of years, and that the British people value and respect. The common-sense determination of 12 citizens is often exactly what is needed to ensure fair justice. They are not jaded or desensitised to crime, because they have not had to sit through it day in, day out for years on end. They have not seen over their whole career the worst of humanity. They are from all walks of life, bringing diversity, and often compassion and understanding to the process. The Government can of course force the change through with the numbers they have, if they so wish, but I urge them to reflect on whether that is truly the legacy that they want.
The planned limitation of the right to trial in the clause is justified by the Government as a necessary measure to get the Crown court backlog down. They defend this extraordinary restriction of our rights by arguing that the changes put victims first and at the heart of the justice system, but I remind the Government that before any verdict, there are no victims and offenders, only defendants and complainants. In this country, we are innocent until proven guilty. Justice is not just about victims; it is also about fairness for the accused, too.
Courts and Tribunals Bill (First sitting)
Jess Brown-Fuller ExcerptsWednesday 25th March 2026
(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Courts and Tribunals Bill 2024-26 View all Courts and Tribunals Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 25 March 2026 - (25 Mar 2026)
Sarah Sackman
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: The reason why I started to think about that was that I have long been of the view that it would be valuable, as technology has improved, to record magistrates court proceedings—in other words, to have a record of what is said in the magistrates courts. Once one is doing that, there is no reason why one should not introduce the same sort of approach to appeals as the one used in the Crown court and the Court of Appeal criminal division.
I was particularly impressed—I use the word impressed, but I was concerned—by an argument that I heard that many minor sexual assaults that were dealt with in the magistrates courts or the youth courts, which could include rape, almost automatically went to appeal to the Crown court, on the basis that the victim would not turn up the second time and be prepared to go through the whole process again. That is a serious problem. To require victims to go through the experience of giving evidence and being cross-examined twice is unfair on them. Everybody needs to be able to move on with their lives, and that is victims and defendants as well.
Although I have talked about defendants gaming the system, I do not ignore defendants who are determined to pursue a not guilty plea because they do not feel they have done anything wrong, but whose lives are on hold for years until their trials happen. I had an example of a young man who was at university and charged with rape. His university career is long since gone, and he could not get a job because he had to tell potential employers, “I’m due to be tried for rape.” The system has to change. That is what I believe, but of course it is for you to decide whether it does.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: That is easily answered: there are just too many of them. My view is that nobody should be a circuit judge unless they are capable of trying serious sexual crime—nobody. The empathy required to deal with victims is not just restricted to rape and serious sexual crimes. The make-up of cases going to the Crown court has changed over the last 10 years, so what might have been a good idea 10 or 15 years ago when there were fewer such cases does not cut it now. There are just too many cases, and that is why I did not recommend a specialist rape court.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
Sir Brian Leveson: That is an interesting question. I have long since believed that there needed to be radical change. The fact is that the backlog went up in the 12 months since I was appointed in December 2024—sorry, this will be a longish answer. You would have thought that everybody would be working like mad to demonstrate that efficiency could bring the backlog down over the year following my appointment. Not only did the backlog not go down, but it went up higher than the highest projection that the Ministry had.
I have always been of the view that efficiency alone would not do it, and you were going to have to look at legislative change. If you were going to look at legislative change, it was important that you all had the chance to consider that as soon as possible, so I was perfectly content to deal with policy first and efficiency afterwards, on the basis that by the time you got around to dealing with it, you would have both reports anyway and you could look at everything together; I hope you have.
The Chair
I want to get three more people in, so pithy questions and pithy answers, please.
Sir Brian Leveson: I am sorry.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
“also stress important safeguards: tackling the lack of diversity on the bench, and ensuring judges are robustly trained in the dynamics of abuse and trauma.”
You know that over many years many different parliamentarians have tried to legislate to ensure that everyone in the judiciary has mandatory training on those important safeguards. You also know that we are always told that, because the judiciary is independent, we cannot legislate to mandate that training. What would you like to see in the Bill to ensure the important safeguards that victims have reflected to you?
Claire Waxman: I have made that point for years, regardless of these reforms. We have to improve and get reassurance around judicial training, including training on cultural competency, on understanding bias and prejudice and on the dynamics of abuse. We still see issues around coercive control, post-separation abuse and stalking. I need to be reassured that judges are being trained to the level that will give assurances to victims and to myself that they understand what is coming in front of them. We need reassurance from Government on that. I would suggest more investment in judicial training. We saw, over years—Vera will remember more than me when it happened—that the training on rape went down from three days to two days for judges. That was meant to be a temporary measure; I do not think it has gone back up. We need to make sure that we have good, robust training for judiciary and magistrates.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
Claire Waxman: People in the criminal justice system need to move ahead with the efficiency measures. We need to move ahead with that so that we can start to see some of the adjournments not happening, better listing and so on. Of course, it is a desperate state. Just yesterday I spoke to a male victim of child sex abuse. He has been in the system since 2021 and in the court system for two years. He thought that he was giving evidence in the coming weeks. That has been adjourned and he has been asked his availability for 2027, 2028 and 2029. He is going to withdraw. I think Sir Brian said it—looking at structural reform came first because we know that the efficiency measures are not going to bring the backlog down quickly enough. We need to do everything together as a package of measures and we need to move ahead.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
Good morning, all. I welcome your work and the support that you offer victims—all of you, in what you have been doing. I am sure there is cross-party support for that in the room this morning. Do you think the changes in the Bill will improve the confidence of victims that, when they report crimes, they will receive justice more swiftly than they currently do and, more importantly, that the changes will also encourage more brave victims to come forward and report crimes?
Claire Waxman: There are a lot of good measures in the Bill that, if delivered and implemented well and with important safeguards, should have positive impacts for victims. We are removing appropriate cases from the Crown court, easing the burden there, and limiting the right to elect for a Crown court trial. By the way, victims view that right as an injustice. They feel that power and control is being given to the defendant, knowing full well that there is a chance they will come out of the process or that their evidence will be impacted over the years. That is something that victims regularly talk to me about. The measures around the automatic right to appeal and to make the magistrates a court of record will open up transparency in the courts and hopefully stop victims having to be called back in for a rehearing. That has devastating impacts; you cannot overestimate what it does to a victim when they think that they have gone through the process of giving evidence, and then they have to come in again.
If all those things ease the pressure and burden on the Crown court, that will give reassurance and confidence to victims who are thinking about whether to stay in the process currently. The measures Katrin talked about—putting in important safeguards around the cross-examination of rape victims—are so important. Vera and I have worked on this since 2019, because of section 41, past sexual history, and issues around cross-examination and compensation claims. That is a financial motive used to undermine the credibility of victims. Victims come out of the system and often say, “I will never report again,” but they tell their friends and families about their experiences, and that deters people and erodes public trust and confidence.
Dr Mullan
indicated dissent.
Dame Vera Baird: I see Kieran shaking his head, but there is no other way. There is a limited opportunity to give priority to cases. Obviously a very important point is whether the defendant is in custody. Most rape defendants are not in custody, because it is a “one word against the other” case, so they cannot be given any real priority for that reason. We end up very regularly with cases that took as long as Charlotte’s. That is really awful for a large number of victims. It also gives very little to the people who want this right: 64% of people who elect for trial plead guilty before they get to trial. You have to ask why they are electing for trial if they are going to plead guilty, but they have blocked up the jury list all of that time. This is about freeing up the jury list.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
The Chair
Can you respond briefly, please? I want to get Paulette in.
Claire Waxman: I can answer very quickly. It is a very good question, but unfortunately I think we have moved past the point at which we can pilot, because of where we are heading with the trajectory of the Crown court—the increase in the wait lists and how long victims are waiting. Modelling is very difficult, but we should not get stuck on percentages. The Government are saying around 20%, and the Institute for Government has now corrected its figures from 2% up to, I think, 9% or higher—to 15%. It is around the direction of travel and recognising that we have an overburdened Crown court. We need to move things out of the process.
Sarah Sackman
Q
As you have heard from previous witnesses, the primary thrust behind the Government’s measures in the Bill is to address the unacceptable delays that you have all described. However, we also have a responsibility to build back a better system. One choice that the Government made was to remove the right to elect, so that it is the court that allocates cases to the appropriate venue. We think that that makes things quicker and more efficient, but there is also a normative idea behind it that it is the court that should triage cases; you mentioned that in your remarks, Charlotte. What is your view on that reform? From a victim’s perspective, do you see sense in it, or not?
Charlotte Meijer: Definitely. Throughout the system, the victim is always on the back foot. You get told a day later—or, depending on the service that you receive, two days, three days, four days or a month later—what has gone on, but the perpetrator always knows exactly what goes on, because they have to be present and able to make decisions. Why is the perpetrator the one who can make these decisions? It makes it feel like they are in control, and that, as a victim, you are running behind to catch up.
That was exactly the case for me when I found out that he had selected a court. All of a sudden, I got a call to say, “Your perpetrator has picked a magistrates court, so that is now what will happen.” I had no choice in it. I had already had no choice for three years when he was controlling me; I had no choice for three years when he was raping me; and now I had no choice for two and a half or three years when I was in the system.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
Farah Nazeer: Thank you for the question. There are a few things around presumption that could make a big difference. One is training for the entirety of the court staff, because the stories that we hear and the experiences that we support women and children through are frankly appalling. The staff are not trauma-informed and there is no understanding of what a victim is going through. The courts are weaponised and survivors are brought back to the courts repeatedly. It is an appalling process. No policy area that you work on at Women’s Aid is a picnic, but this is the worst. People describe the trauma that they go through in the family courts as worse than the trauma that they endured through the abuse that they experienced.
One thing is for the court system to understand domestic abuse, understand sexual violence, understand coercive control and be trauma-informed. That means having processes in which a survivor knows what is happening, understands what the next steps are and is supported through the system, and having separate places where a survivor can be. Some of it is quite basic, but it is really important to improving the survivor experience.
Another thing is the regulation of experts. We often have unregulated experts coming into the family courts to provide expertise and advice to the judge on what is happening in a relationship. You would not have unregulated experts in any safeguarding context; it is absolutely wild that you would have that. One thing we really want to see is regulated experts: psychiatrists and psychologists who are regulated by the appropriate body, rather than, seemingly, people who are just not.
The last thing that I want to focus on is the concept of parental alienation, which is often invoked in family courts. It is a concept that is not evidenced and is not recognised in psychiatric or medical practice, but it is often invoked as a concept to defend against claims of domestic abuse. What needs to happen is a child’s safety being put at the heart of the decision by a regulated expert, by a trained judge. If you get that right, you immediately improve the experience for survivors and children, and you improve the safeguarding around survivors and children. Those three things are absolutely critical to changing the culture and the experience and to ensuring safety.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
Q
Morwenna Loughman: Absolutely. One thing that kept me going—I was so close to pulling out multiple times—was that I had this sense that he had done it before. In fact, what I was later told—it was not admissible, but under the Bill it would become admissible—was that he had broken his ex-partner’s leg repeatedly and raped her as well. His defence barrister stood in front of the judge, the jury and me, and said, “This man has never hurt a woman.” Given that this man was out on bail and repeatedly breaching his bail conditions, brutal is the word. I cannot overstate the impact that that has on victims. It was devastating. I did not look people in the eye for two years. I wore a hat everywhere I went so I could hide my face, because he could have been anywhere. I had to move out of my home. My home became a crime scene. I lost my job. It was daily torture. I echo what Natalie Fleet said the other week in the House of Commons: that the one thing worse than being raped is waiting four years or more to hear if people actually believe you.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
There is an amendment that is going to the House of Commons today that is specifically about bail decisions and the route to verdict that juries are presented with before they go away to deliberate. Do you agree that sentencing remarks are only part of the journey that we need to be on, and that we need to be quite ambitious in ensuring victims have all the evidence in their own case, so they can start to move on and process?
Charlotte Meijer: Yes, absolutely. My campaign for all transcripts to be made available very quickly was shut down, so I have gone for little bits at a time. Sentencing remarks are an amazing change. At first, that was just for rape victims; now it is for all victims, which is great. However, if we look at RASSO cases, only 2% get a guilty verdict, so only 2% will get the free sentencing remarks. There needs to be something for the 98%.
The next thing that I have been campaigning for is the judge’s summing up, now the route to verdict, which is incredibly important. I am a not guilty verdict case, so I would not get my sentencing remarks either. It is about being able to understand. If we take that further, I believe the whole case should be available free, as it is in many other countries, or for a couple of pounds in administration costs. If we are taking it a bit at a time, the next bit would be, as you say, bail conditions and the route to verdict, to understand how someone got to that decision. That is all to aid people to understand what happened and process it a little better.
Amanda Hack
Q
Jade Blue McCrossen-Nethercott: I guess there is the hope of fewer adjournments and fewer last-minute changes, which we hear about quite a lot. Any measure that could increase capacity for these kinds of cases is a measure we could get behind. Just having that—being able to plan your life and have reassurances that it will be going ahead—is important.
In the past, one of us mentioned floating trials for rape cases, which is, quite frankly, just absurd. Being able to have dedicated time to ensure that these cases do not become floating trials and that there is capacity for them to be seen in a prompt and timely manner would be welcome.
Morwenna Loughman: The first time my trial was listed, unbeknown to me and the rest of my family, it was listed as a floating trial, which means that two or more cases—in this instance, rape cases—are scheduled for the same time, on the same date and in the same court, on the assumption that at least two of you will drop over the course because it is so harrowing and re-traumatising. That is why mine got delayed right at the last minute.
We have talked a lot about the education of judges, which is absolutely essential, but we must also consider the education of juries. As I have said, they are not bastions of infallibility. The man who raped me was convicted. He was found guilty, but not unanimously. He was sentenced to 15 years, which gives an indication as to the level of injury that I sustained.
Two members of the jury found him not guilty and acquitted him of all charges. It was a majority vote; there was no unanimity, and it took them three and a half days to deliberate, even though I had received 48 injuries and he was arrested on the scene. I could go on about the extenuating circumstances. In every sense, how did it take them three and a half days to not even conclusively decide that this man had raped me?
Charlotte Meijer: I will add to that. The removal in the Bill of the defendant’s right to elect will make the victim feel empowered, knowing that the perpetrator is not in control. As I have said, there is the recording of magistrates courts, and the Bill is our hope that the waiting time will go down. That is the core reason why we are doing this. The system cannot get any worse than it is, so the waiting going down will be a significant change.
Jess Brown-Fuller
Q
Morwenna Loughman: Yes.
Jess Brown-Fuller
You also spoke about the concept of floating cases. Were you told beforehand that your case had been listed as a floating case? The reason I ask is that the legislation does not address how many adjournments we have. There is no mechanism in the legislation—I am happy to be corrected by the Minister—to address how often cases are adjourned. Listing officers will continue to list floating cases because they know that so many victims drop out of the process, or the CPS comes back and says that it does not have enough evidence to convict, and so on.
Did you have an ISVA supporting you through the process? Were you communicated with well enough? Did you know that your case could fall at that final hurdle? The most important thing is what victims such as yourselves would like to see from that process to understand that your cases could get adjourned, were they listed as floating cases.
Morwenna Loughman: I was never told that that was a possibility. Again, that fundamental lack of understanding points to a system weighted against the victim and against the complainant. You are hermetically sealed off from a system that has been designed to dismiss and re-silence you because there is this sense that you need help, or might seek help, and to be told what to say on the stand. I would not have been there for any reason other than that I had been raped, but there was this sense that I needed to be kept at arm’s length from the system. If this Bill can change how the whole justice process is seen, that is absolutely what we should be fighting for.
Court and Tribunal Transcripts
Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank all hon. Members who have spoken so thoughtfully on this important topic. I especially thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for representing the Petitions Committee; he has certainly done his homework, and I thank him for highlighting how mystified people often feel when they go through a lengthy court process only to find out that their trial has been monetised—or privatised—and that they have to spend thousands of pounds to gain access to their case.
I pay tribute to all 200,000 people across the country who signed the petition; I believe the general public got behind it so strongly because they are surprised that people are not entitled to transcripts of their own case. Justice must be accessible and visible. Trust in our justice system is built upon transparency—upon seeing the work and the reasoning behind decisions that affect so many lives. That is vital for defendants and crucial for victims and bereaved families, a point the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) spoke passionately about. As the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) says, we have achieved a consensus: this is one way that we can break down barriers for our constituents—as the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) mentioned, that is surely the most important role that we can play in this place—and make a genuine difference to people across the country who are engaging with the justice system.
The Liberal Democrats have long campaigned on this issue, particularly through the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). Her campaigning for her constituent Juliana—a victim of rape who was told she would be charged £7,500 for her transcript—has been inspiring and has truly shifted the dial. I thank my hon. Friend for her advocacy in this area. She also highlighted an important fact: her constituent was still battling with the harms of her trauma and did not hear the case that she was the victim of; in order to be able to move on, she needed to have that document.
What is clear—reflected in much of the testimony today as well as in the national support for the petition—is that, for many victims, court transcripts are a vital part of their recovery, either personally or via therapy. However, for too long and for too many those transcripts have been out of reach, reserved for those who can afford what can be incredibly large sums.
Providing free court transcripts for victims is about giving them the support and protection that they deserve. Many trials are lengthy, take place years after the event and can be retraumatising experiences, even when victims do not attend in person. Everyone will handle such situations differently but, given that victims are among the most vulnerable in our society, they should be afforded as much support as possible to overcome those challenges. That is why consistent free access to transcripts is vital. They must be available beyond the 28 days after a trial concludes to access the unduly lenient scheme. Such measures would markedly improve the experiences of both victims and survivors.
That is why we welcomed the cross-party work in the Sentencing Bill to introduce the provision of free sentencing remarks for all victims. I again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, as well as Baroness Brinton in the other place and the various Ministers in the MOJ, including the Minister who is answering today, worked to achieve this vital first step, which we believe is a stepping stone towards providing all transcripts free of charge.
The timing of this debate could not be more pertinent, with the return this week of the Victims and Courts Bill from the Lords, now with the Liberal Democrat amendment tabled by my noble Friend, Baroness Brinton. That amendment would give victims access, free of charge, to transcripts relating to the route to verdict, extending current provisions encompassing bail decisions and judicial summaries, voiding many of the extortionate costs that we have heard about and providing victims with clarity regarding their cases. I thank the Conservatives in the other place for their support on that amendment, and I urge the Government to get behind it on Wednesday.
Without those provisions, we will continue to fail victims. As is the case with much of the Government’s rhetoric around improving technology and the use of AI on the court estate, there is little excuse not to put them in place as quickly as possible.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
The family courts urgently need reforming so that victims, especially those of domestic violence, are not experiencing a system that is being used by perpetrators to continue to control and abuse. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner reported that 73% of hearings in the family courts involved evidence of domestic abuse, but it is frequently not recognised in determinations. In the Courts and Tribunals Bill, the Government have included a clause to remove the presumption of parental responsibility, so will the Secretary of State take the opportunity to increase the scope of the Bill by including the family courts as a whole within it, and restore some faith for victims in our family court system?
Alex Davies-Jones
I welcome that question. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson will know of my commitment to ensuring that the family court is safe for all involved, including children and domestic abuse victims. That is why we are repealing in the Courts and Tribunals Bill the presumption of parental involvement in contact in these cases. Just today, the Justice Secretary has announced a national roll-out of our child-focused model, formerly known as pathfinder, over the next three years. We are doing all we can to ensure that our family courts are safe and effective for all involved.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I associate the Liberal Democrats with the Secretary of State’s condolences to the family of Jeff Blair. Strategic lawsuits against public participation, known as SLAPPs, have been used by the rich and powerful to silence victims and undermine the free press in this country. Anyone engaging in public-interest activities can be a target of SLAPPs. Powerful individuals who are exploiting the justice system in this country should not be shielded from scrutiny, so when can we expect legislation from this Government to address this?
Sarah Sackman
I entirely agree that the profound financial and psychological impact of SLAPPs, and the chilling effect that they have on public-interest journalism, pose a threat to our democracy. The Government commenced the SLAPPs provisions in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 in June 2025, and we recently saw the first case that engaged those provisions. While this is a positive first step, I am keen to consider all options for how we might take this further, and I look forward to working with Members right across the House on how we do that.
Courts and Tribunals Bill
Jess Brown-Fuller ExcerptsTuesday 10th March 2026
(1 month, 1 week ago)
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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?
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.
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.
Court Reporting Data
Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I thank the Minister for setting out the data protection issues that have been identified with Courtsdesk, but can she explain why her Department ignored the 16 letters written by Courtsdesk asking for dialogue before deciding to do away with the system? As was pointed out by the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), it is the only centralised tool for justice reporting. Reporters have described the MOJ’s own data as fragmented, incomplete and impractical to navigate, and according to HM Courts & Tribunals Service, its own records on court listings were accurate just 4% of the time. It is those gaps that Courtsdesk was designed to fill by providing clear and accurate information for reporters.
Doing away with this platform will naturally add to the feeling that the MOJ is avoiding difficult questions and dodging accountability by undermining journalism. Will the Minister suspend the deletion of the archive until the Information Commissioner’s Office has looked into these issues and drawn its own conclusions? If she insists on going ahead with the deletion in the coming days, will she please give an indication of a timeline within which we can expect a platform that will serve the same purpose?
Sarah Sackman
I want to make it absolutely clear that accredited journalists continue—as they have throughout—to have access to court information that they need, directly from individual magistrates courts and tribunal services, via either the court and tribunal hearings service, which is a new digital system, or the gov.uk website. I do recognise the utility of what Courtsdesk provided, but the company was clearly not acting in a responsible way. When we approached its representatives about the breach of its agreement with HMCTS, they accepted that they had breached it and then threatened the MOJ with litigation, which is not an appropriate way to behave if one is trying to co-operate and get things on to a sound and steady footing.
Let me also be absolutely clear about the timeline. All magistrates and court lists, and the accompanying case summarisation data, will be available from the court and tribunal hearings service from the end of March 2026. I want to put this on a stable footing so that journalists have ready access, because I accept that the information must be made easily available to them, in a responsible but properly licensed fashion. As I have said, that work will be made public and the licences made available from March.
We have to do this in a responsible way. We have to balance the very real needs of open justice—which I readily accept, and to which the Government are committed—with data protection, particularly when it comes to the vulnerable victims who are at the heart of this.
Separation Centres Review
Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I want to begin by paying tribute to those officers who suffered an appalling assault simply for doing their job. They and their loved ones will continue to feel the effects of that day for years to come. They deserve not only our thanks, but the assurance that everything possible is being done to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.
That attack exposed serious weaknesses in how separation centres are run and made clear the need for urgent change. The Liberal Democrats therefore welcome the independent review conducted by Jonathan Hall KC and the work he has done to examine how these centres operate and what steps are needed to strengthen safety and security, so that something like this never happens again. Getting separation centres right is crucial for the integrity of our prison system and for the staff, who should never have to put their health or lives at risk simply to do their job. These facilities must be fit for purpose and capable of securely managing the most dangerous extremists and terrorists.
The Ministry of Justice has been left firefighting crisis after crisis. If we are serious about restoring confidence in the justice system, we cannot afford complacency, especially when dealing with the most dangerous offenders. It is right that the Government are taking action, and I ask the Secretary of State today to set out a clear timeline for the implementation of those 13 recommendations and when the House will receive an update on the progress. Will he commit to a follow-up report, to assess whether these changes have genuinely improved safety and effectiveness?
A recent report on separation centres by His Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons found that staff support and mandatory training were applied inconsistently across the prison estate. At one site, almost half of officers said that insufficient attention had been paid to their mental health, and at both centres, more than a third said they needed additional training to feel confident in their role. Will the Secretary of State update the House on whether conditions have improved since that report? If not, what concrete steps is he taking to address those gaps in training?
Mr Lammy
We will continue to place individuals in separation centres, and Mr Hall’s review confirmed that they remain a vital part of our strategy to manage the most significant terrorist risks in our prisons. I am pleased that there is cross-party support for that.
The hon. Lady asked whether I would update the House on progress as we move to implement Jonathan Hall’s recommendations. I will seek to find ways to update the House as we do that, but I have indicated that some of those recommendations will have some bearing on the next spending review and on legislative timeframes, so I suspect they will go beyond this Parliament.
The hon. Lady rightly mentioned the mental health of the officers involved. To be attacked in that way involves tremendous trauma for those officers, who are putting their lives at risk on a day-to-day basis, as well as for their families and the other officers in the building who remain to deal with the aftermath of those attacks. The training is vital, and she is right that it cannot be inconsistent. That is why the Government’s response today is underpinned by the need to ensure that the intelligence agencies and counter-terrorism are working hand in hand with our experts in prisons to get this right, and that we approach these offenders with a degree of cynicism and scepticism as to their ability to refrain from the ideological conviction that clearly persists.