Jury Trials

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

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

I am glad that the Minister has heard the opposition from right hon. and hon. Members from across the House. I have great news for her—she is going to hear it again.

An opinion that many of us across the House and the political divide share is that our criminal justice system is in complete disarray, with nothing epitomising this more than the backlog in our criminal courts. In our Crown courts, the backlog stands at almost 80,000 cases, with trial dates now stretching late into this decade. The delayed justice, harm to victims, and impacts on rehabilitation are a shameful legacy of over a decade of complacent Conservative Governments. The Conservatives’ inability to recognise the crisis and steer a new course to fix the system is completely unforgivable; instead, their Prime Minister ran away from full prisons and a court system in disarray and called a general election in 2024. As such, although we will be supporting the Conservatives’ motion today, I look forward to hearing many contributions from their Back Benchers apologising not only for causing this crisis, but for their abject failure to fix it when they had the power to do so.

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. Does she agree that jury trials are not responsible for the backlog in Crown court cases piling up to nearly 80,000, and that the real causes are staff shortages, a broken estate, and 10 years of Conservative complacency that hollowed out the justice system and left victims waiting years for their day in court?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We in the Liberal Democrats have sympathy for the scale of the task that this Labour Government have inherited, and we are glad that they recognise the real losers here—the victims. It is an utter failure of the justice system that victims and defendants are being given court dates for the end of the decade, facing years of delay and re-traumatisation, when so many just want justice and then to move on with their lives.

Here’s the rub, though: we fundamentally disagree with the Government’s approach to tackling this crisis. They are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, ignoring the actual issues and targeting a key and celebrated success. Trial by jury is deeply enshrined in our conscience and constitution, and is respected all over the world. The possibility of being tried by one’s peers—not an elite, unrepresentative group of individuals—is fundamental to a fair trial in this country. That point was recognised by the Deputy Prime Minister himself in the Lammy review. It concluded that unlike other stages of the criminal justice system, jury trials do not show statistical bias against ethnic minorities. The Deputy Prime Minister set out in extreme detail that, compared with magistrates courts, Crown courts provide an effective check on prejudice and avoid discriminatory verdicts. Twelve heads are better than one—a point proven by the increased public trust in jury trials.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I would like to say, in support of what the hon. Lady has been saying, that surely a distinction of which we need to be aware is that, whereas the judge is a specialist in deciding what the law says and how it should be applied, he or she is not a specialist in deciding whether someone is telling the truth or not; and in that sense, we are far more likely to get the right answer from a group of people considering it together, as a collectivity, than from an individual, no matter how eminent in the intricacies of the law.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a valid and worthwhile point, and I thank him for raising it. It is highly irresponsible and dangerous for this Government to pursue efforts to remove the right to trial by jury in most Crown court cases as a means of fixing the backlog—although we have just heard from the Minister that that is not actually the intention at all; the intention is that she would do it anyway—especially given that the evidence behind the provisions’ effectiveness is flimsy.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

I have been contacted by so many KCs and criminal barristers in Winchester, one of whom is Rosemary Burns. The collective confusion is about why we are removing such a fundamental, entrenched constitutional principle, rather than focusing on crumbling courtrooms and courtrooms sitting empty due to the cap on the number of days the court can sit and the failure of prisoner transport to bring defendants to court in time. Why are these logistical and infrastructure issues not being given a laser focus before this measure is even considered?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I will come later in my contribution to the inefficiencies within the system.

[Dr Murrison]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I will make some progress, if the right hon. Gentleman does not mind.

The Government claim that this decision has stemmed from the review undertaken by Sir Brian Leveson, the first part of which was published last year. The objective behind the review commissioned by this Government was rightly to find solutions to the overwhelming backlog, and Leveson’s original suggestion was the creation of a Crown court bench division, including a judge and two magistrates, which was modelled to reduce trial length by 20%. The Government, however, have gone further than Leveson recommended, meaning that those accused of crimes with likely sentences of less than three years will, for the most part, not be heard by a jury. New so-called swift courts will be created where just one judge hears cases. The efficiency savings quoted by the Government are the same figures suggested by Leveson under his Crown court bench division model, but the modelling has, like this entire proposal, been widely criticised for lacking transparent data behind the calculations.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a slight confusion? The Minister consistently referenced the importance of this review and how independent and important it was, but then has thrown out the central tenet of it, which was to introduce a court that has a judge and two magistrates. That would provide three heads rather than one, some local influence and some laypeople. Does my hon. Friend have any views as to why the Minister is so insistent on throwing out that central tenet, given how important she says the review is?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is also a member of the Justice Committee, for her important point that Leveson did not make this proposal at all. He was talking about a separate division, which the Deputy Prime Minister has announced as a swift court. He has ignored the impact of having two laypeople as magistrates as part of that. It does not make any sense to me, and it does not make sense to many people in this Chamber.

[Dr Murrison]

Does the hon. Lady share my dismay that not only did the Minister admit in her closing remarks that her plans are ideological, not practical or expedient, but also that she spent 30 minutes without talking about the central issue, which is that the majority of cases listed in our courts crack on day one, meaning that the courts are there, but nobody is working within them? That is what needs to be sorted out, rather than this maladroit plan to reduce liberties that we have enjoyed for 800 years.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

The right hon. Gentleman pre-empts what I will go on to say in my speech. We are yet to see an impact assessment. That was spoken about by the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). It is also mentioned in the amendment tabled by the Government. We need to see the modelling and the impact assessment, and understand where these savings are coming from. Even if the figures are accurate, they avoid the glaringly obvious fact that they are measured against a completely inefficient system. The system is fundamentally not undermined by jury trials, but instead plagued by years of under-investment, creating an ever-growing list of unaddressed issues across the system. The Government seem willing to ignore that fact, despite it being present in every piece of discourse surrounding their proposals. They have bought a car that will not run, and they have decided to spend all their time and money on a new paint job before opening the bonnet.

This proposal is utterly shameful, fundamentally because there are alternatives, despite the narrative that the Government are advancing. They do not have to attack jury trials, especially when their own Ministers and their own Prime Minister have been fierce advocates of jury trials in the past. Instead, they should be looking at the real issues within the system that have led us to this point. Chief among them is the productivity decline that our criminal courts have experienced since 2016. Wasted time in and around courts is caused by a wide range of issues, all of which are being ignored by the Ministry of Justice. It means that the Government’s increased investment is being used inefficiently. It also means that many of these issues will persist, even if their attack on jury trials leads to reductions in trial length.

The solutions are out there, and the majority of legal professionals opposing the Government’s reforms are overflowing with practical suggestions, but the Government are not listening, so today I will lay some of them out. First, there must be investment in the courts estate, not only to reopen the hundreds of courts closed under the Conservatives—including my court in Chichester—but to properly maintain those that remain open. Evidence of leaking roofs, foul smells and flooded rooms across the estate is hardly indicative of a properly functioning justice system, and that must be addressed. Trials being abandoned because the heating is not working or there is no running water is unacceptable for those victims.

Even at the roughest of estimates, the restriction of jury trials will at best save 9,000 sitting days in court a year. That is based on not being able to see an impact assessment. The Government could increase the number of sitting days up to the possible 130,000, which would far exceed the apparent savings they would gain from the removal of trials. The concept of a restriction on sitting days is artificial. If there is a case, a courtroom, a defendant on remand and court staff ready to go, the case should be heard.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

I gently point out to the hon. Lady that it is not just about a courtroom being available, but the resources that have to go into that. It is about not just whether we have the space, but whether we have the barristers and the solicitors, and whether we have enough CPS lawyers, court clerks and ushers. There is a bigger picture, and that is why the whole package that the Government are putting forward is incredibly important. Just tinkering around the edges has been done for years, and we are in this crisis now.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I do not disagree with the hon. Lady when she points out that it has to be a full package of support, but that is not what we are debating today. I am laying out all the things that she rightly points out, such as the total inefficiencies within our court system, but until we see those situations addressed and those things fixed, how do we know that that would not save the court sitting days that we would apparently see by eroding the right to jury trial?

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Isleworth Crown court, which is one of the closest courts to my constituency, closed down five of its 14 courtrooms last year because of maintenance issues and because of the cap on sitting days put in place by the previous Conservative Government and only partially lifted by this Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that as well as addressing all the maintenance issues and the system inefficiency, we could, if we increased the number of court sitting days and addressed the workforce issues, preserve this fundamental right to a jury trial for all?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

That is an excellent point.

The Government have rightly returned the number of days to 2016 levels, but with a rising backlog they need to go further and increase capacity. As pointed out by the Secret Barrister, we also have huge delays in the NHS, but we do not hear the Government proposing a cap on A&E sitting days to save the cost of having the lights on. In addition, the hours lost to unenforceable contracts have left many trials without a defendant while everyone waits for them to be delivered from prison. Given that one of the Government’s key arguments for reducing jury trials is the increasing length of trials, explicitly linked to complexity, I urge them to address the impact of those failing contracts. There are also key efficiencies to be gained from investment in the IT systems, given the widespread complaints about the functioning of wi-fi and about disrupted systems. The common platform system advertised to solve these issues is over budget and delayed.

There are serious solutions to issues such as this, but rather than being addressed they are seemingly being ignored. Of course there are associated costs, but there are clearly major costs associated with not addressing the problems in the system. For example, it costs £55,000 a year to keep someone in prison, and the number of prisoners on remand has doubled in the last seven years. The savings are there as well; they just need to be realised. It is also clear from courts such as Liverpool Crown court—which I think was mentioned earlier—that efficiencies can be achieved, without spending, through a proactive and realistic approach. Jaime Hamilton KC has set out steps such as prioritising cases in which late guilty pleas are likely, which would lead to improved outcomes in case clearance. It is unfathomable to me that the Government have tasked Brian Leveson with producing two reports, the second of which is to focus on efficiency improvements and better use of technology in the court system, when surely it would be logical to produce that report first, in order to introduce those efficiencies and bring the backlog down.

The Government have identified the problem that they inherited, but have arrived at entirely the wrong solutions. They are searching for an easy way out, a quick fix, but reducing access to jury trials is not that fix. It is unscrutinised, it is unfair, and it continues the trend of declining public trust in our justice system. The Government are right to say that victims are among those being let down, waiting years for justice and unable to move on with their lives, but we need solutions that work—solutions that address the causes of the crisis, reverse the systematic underfunding that has plagued the system, and genuinely improve efficiency.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

HMP Leyhill: Offender Abscondments

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

The news that offenders absconded from HMP Leyhill on new year’s day is yet another example of the glaring incompetence of the MOJ when it comes to maintaining control of the prison population. This situation has yet again placed the public at risk and lets down victims. It also raises serious questions about why some of these prisoners were placed in a category D prison. Matthew Armstrong, a convicted murderer, has a history of violent incidents in custody, including leading a riot and attacking prison guards. Given that record, why did the MOJ feel able to approve his transfer to an open prison? What steps are the Government taking to review the criteria for violent offenders being assessed for transfer to category D prisons when they could pose a risk to the public again? What additional resources are being provided to the victims of these individuals, including the prison officer assaulted by Armstrong who is no longer serving? I hope that lessons are being learned from the case of Lenny Scott.

Does the Minister believe that poor transfer decisions are being made based on a lack of capacity in our closed prisons, or is she satisfied that the processes of the Parole Board and the Department are strong enough? Can she reassure the House now that we will not be coming back to have this same conversation again in 2027?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I welcome the questions from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. To reassure the House, offenders who are serving a life sentence or an IPP sentence for public protection will be approved for a transfer to open conditions only in response to a recommendation by the Parole Board. Before making that recommendation, the Parole Board conducts a thorough risk assessment of the offender’s risk of harm and risk of absconding, taking into account all those assessments provided by qualified HM Prison and Probation Service staff and other agencies. The Secretary of State does have the ability to reject a recommendation from the Parole Board, but to do so they would need evidence to dispute the board’s assessment of risk. Officials, on behalf of the Secretary of State, concluded that there were no grounds under the published policy to reject the board’s recommendations for any of these three individuals.

On absconding more generally, it is important that I state categorically to the House that there were 57 absconds in the year ending March 2025, which is a 2% decrease from 58 the previous year. The number of absconds is falling year on year, and has fallen from 143 in the 12 months to March 2020. It is coming down substantially due to a sustained focus on this area. Open prisons work; they are a key part of the programme of rehabilitation and of reintegrating offenders into society. However, sometimes prisoners abscond and it is important that all steps are taken to bring them back into custody when that occurs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

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

My question follows on from that of the Chair of the Select Committee. In 2024, 39% of family court proceedings involved neither party being legally represented; in cases of domestic abuse, this forces victims to relive their experiences and confront their trauma repeatedly. The provision of legal aid in such cases is wholly inadequate, which presents an unacceptable barrier to many victims accessing fair and effective legal representation. Does the Secretary of State agree with me and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner that legal aid should be provided in all domestic abuse cases to end self-representation and protect victims from retraumatisation?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Lady is right that legal aid is important, but, in some cases, so is mediation. I would refer her to the pathfinder pilot, which is hugely important in relation to private family law. We are looking closely at provision, but we are also looking closely at the workforce, because as with criminal legal aid, we have seen lawyers—particularly younger lawyers—leaving that area of practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

Andrew Turner has been fighting on behalf of parents of disabled children across the country who cannot access their children’s trust fund when their child turns 18, even though that money could provide support for the additional cost of living that comes from being a profoundly disabled young adult. Andrew has seen 10 Justice Ministers come and go since he started his campaign. Will the Minister assure me that the current Minister will be the last one Andrew has to meet before the situation is remedied?

[Sarah Sackman]

I met Andrew Turner, who is a tireless campaigner; we were embarking on the work that is necessary to support families like his, and those that he represents. I have personally undertaken to ensure that this work continues, irrespective of which person is sitting in the chair. I will follow up not just with Andrew, but with his very dedicated MP, the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne).

Restriction of Jury Trials

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

The Liberal Democrats agree that under the current system victims and survivors of rape are being failed and far too few see justice served. However, for those victims who do decide to proceed through the justice system, fewer than 10% withdraw after a charge has been made, so the Deputy Prime Minister’s standing in the Chamber and using an assessment of the data to justify his reasoning for removing jury trials does not hold up to scrutiny.

It seems that a number of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Back Benchers, including the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), agree with the Liberal Democrats that the delays that plague our system will not be addressed by reducing jury trials, with the Government neither diagnosing the cause of the crisis nor providing the solutions to the record backlog. How do the Government justify restricting jury trials when backlog issues are caused by court mismanagement and broken private contracts rather than the jury system, as identified and confirmed by those working in the system from all sides? Will the Minister confirm which stakeholders, including victim support organisations and legal professionals, have been consulted on the reforms? What feedback has she received?

[Sarah Sackman]

I will answer the hon. Member’s last question first. All the bodies that she referred to—victim support, victims’ organisations, the legal community, the Bar Council and the Law Society—have engaged over many months, first with the independent review of criminal courts led by Sir Brian Leveson, and indeed now with the Ministry of Justice. That engagement is happening all the time.

On those who represent victims, the incoming Victims’ Commissioner has said that the system is broken and there is need for bold reform. The bold reform recommended by Sir Brian Leveson’s review is precisely the proportionate reform—radical, yes; and necessary, yes—that we are going to pursue.

On the hon. Member’s comment about victims and the significant figure of 60% of rape victims pulling out of cases, there are many reasons that victims pull out. It is difficult to know exactly what is going on in a victim’s head at any one time, but we all know how lengthy the delays are in our courts, and everyone is aware how retraumatising the court process can be. We know from Rape Crisis, for example, that one in three sexual offence trials is the subject of adjournment, so there is not just delay but victims thinking they have a trial date only for that to be put off. No one can say that that is defensible. For many, the fact that their case might not come to court for years is key to their withdrawing from the process, at whatever stage, so it is material to the context. That is why action needs to be taken.

As the Crown Prosecution Service data discussed at the Justice Committee has brought forward, one striking statistic shows the need for action: there were more than 4,000 cases that could have been heard in the magistrates court, but our current system privileges the defendant’s right to insist on a jury trial with the greater length of time that that takes. As a result, the person who has stolen a bottle of whisky or a bunch of flowers—a low-value item—has every right to insist on a jury trial, and is then stuck in the same queue as serious crimes such as rape, murder and kidnapping. That is exactly how this works. And that is exactly why, on Sir Brian’s expert recommendation, we are seeking to remove such cases from the queue and reassign them to where they can be better and more swiftly dealt with in the system, so that we can come to the most serious cases more swiftly.

Criminal Court Reform

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

The Government’s plan, announced today, to reduce the use of trial by jury would be an historic upheaval of our court system, with profound consequences. The Justice Secretary has not argued in favour of judge-only trials on their own terms; instead, he has argued that there is no alternative, which is simply not true. Many within the legal profession have argued that removing trial by jury is a misdirection from the multitude of problems that underlie the backlog.

Those problems, caused by years of Conservative mismanagement, have resulted in countless wasted hours of sitting time and in victims failed time and again. Perhaps the defendant does not arrive in court because of the broken private contract, there is no interpreter, the witness care unit forgets to tell witnesses to attend, key evidence is not served until the day of trial so the defence has no time to consider it, or there are not enough court staff to manage security on the door, so the trial runs late. Maybe our crumbling court infrastructure means there is no running water, a broken lift or even a flooded courtroom. We need a real solution to tackle these issues that plague our justice system, but instead the Justice Secretary intends to remove a huge number of jury trials, despite his previous opposition to that, all while the Ministry of Justice capital budget is being cut by 3% in real terms every year.

While I welcome the £500 million investment in victims and witness support over three years, the total courts maintenance backlog is estimated at £1.3 billion. Where is the investment to fix the collapsing infrastructure in the justice system? Will the Justice Secretary consider reopening many of the Crown courts closed under the Conservatives, including mine in Chichester? As he confirmed to the media today, an entire jury’s worth of prisoners have been released in error in recent weeks. Does the Secretary of State have confidence in his Department to oversee such an extreme and radical reform when it is not even getting the basics right?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Lady mentions a range of issues that are important in ensuring that our 80 or so courts and 500 courtrooms are working effectively. That is why we have asked Sir Brian Leveson to look at efficiency as part 2 of his review. We need not just our courts but the Crown Prosecution Service and our police to work together at a reasonable level to deliver that improvement.

When we think about either-way cases, I think that it is legitimate for the Government to take a view on whether, for example, a driving licence fraud, fly-tipping or the theft of a bike requires a jury trial that will last for about two days, or whether those cases can be dealt with by a magistrate or a judge. I know that the hon. Lady is committed, like us, to bearing down on violence against women and girls. It cannot be right that if someone is charged with an offence such as theft of a bicycle, theft from a vehicle or employee theft, they can opt for a trial that, by necessity, goes into the system and will delay a rape trial, a murder trial or something like that. That is the balance of the decision that I have sought to make. I think that the Government have made the right decision in implementing Sir Brian’s review.

Domestic Abuse: Children

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) for securing this timely and poignant debate, highlighting that children in their own right are victims of domestic abuse, and sharing some powerful words from his constituents. That is never easy to do, and I commend him for that. Children should be growing up in a safe and loving home, free from violence and fear, and that is not the case for so many. The hon. Member shared a really powerful phrase—domestic abuse does not affect one generation; it echoes through the next. By the end of my speech today, the police will have recorded 11 more instances of domestic abuse. Every 40 seconds, a call is made to the authorities reporting a domestic abuse incident, but analysis shows that only one in five victims of domestic abuse will actually make a report.

The Office for National Statistics estimates that there were nearly 4 million victims in the year ending March 2025; 800,000 cases were recorded in that year. Of those 800,000 cases, only 41,000 offenders were actually convicted. Behind those shocking statistics are women and men who are living in fear, and children, scared for their parent and often for themselves and their siblings. As the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) said, these are often our nation’s hidden children.

Failure to protect children should be at the forefront of our minds as policymakers. That is why I absolutely share the Government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls throughout the duration of this Parliament, thus protecting more children from harm.

The Liberal Democrat campaign, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), who grew up in a household experiencing domestic abuse, led to the Government introducing a domestic abuse identifier at sentencing. I thank the Government for working so constructively with my hon. Friend to see that realised in the Sentencing Bill. It will allow the Government to track the data more efficiently and to understand how many domestic abuse perpetrators are currently serving a custodial sentence. It will allow the Government to exclude those abusers from any future early release schemes, and it will show whether the Government’s reducing reoffending programmes are leading to a reduction in reoffending rates of domestic abuse.

We Liberal Democrats have also called for an expansion of the high-quality perpetrator programmes within prison settings to prevent repeated harm. That is not the end of our ambition to better protect victims of domestic abuse. I hope that the collaborative relationship to tackle the issue continues across the House, because there is so much more that can be done.

The system to protect victims and their children is currently disjointed. Often, the gaps in provision are filled by the incredible voluntary sector and charitable organisations. In my constituency of Chichester, organisations such as My Sisters’ House, Paragon and Safe in Sussex, as well as Lifecentre, provide exceptional support to those who have suffered at the hands of domestic abusers.

The reality of increased costs associated with running those organisations, alongside an increasing number of cases, means that those organisations recognise that they could be supporting so many more victims. As the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West alluded to, with more families coming forward and children being rightly identified as victims of domestic abuse, the numbers are rising.

We need sustainable funding for support services for survivors, including multi-year settlements, so that organisations can plan for longer term programmes, rather than waiting to find out if they can continue to support victims in their area every year.

[Mr Forster]

Surrey is further advanced than Sussex in local government reorganisation. Something I am experiencing in my constituency that I fear my hon. Friend will soon see in hers is that charities such as Woking’s Your Sanctuary women’s refuge are really nervous about LGR. We do not yet have multi-year settlements, and it is almost impossible to even get a one-year settlement out of an authority that does not yet exist or is about to wound up. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister needs to take that point away and ensure that LGR does not hurt the funding that supports women and girls?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point about local government reorganisation. Voluntary and charitable sector organisations rely on local authority funding and Government funding—they rely on multiple streams of income. I plead with the Minister to make sure that the Government funding, at least, is secured beyond one year, so that these organisations have the reassurance during LGR that they will be able to maintain their provision in some sense.

We also need a statutory definition of honour-based abuse, and better training for police, social care and education professionals. In every police force, we need specialist violence against women and girls taskforces, and every force should undergo training via Naturewatch on the links between domestic abuse and the abuse of animals. Perpetrators of domestic abuse identify the special bond people build with their pets and can use that to exert control over partners or children. Across the country, we have seen cases where warning signs were missed, reports were ignored and opportunities to intervene were tragically lost. The programme run by Naturewatch has been taken up by police forces across the country, including the Metropolitan police and Sussex police, but we should encourage every force to take it on, as there is a direct link between the treatment of animals and domestic abuse. We must set up support services so that they are in the ideal position to listen to a child crying out for help, no matter how hard it is to hear them.

We in the Liberal Democrats are also extremely concerned by the chronic underfunding of children’s social care. After a decade of cuts to local authority budgets under Conservative Governments, many councils have been forced to scale back their early intervention services. I have been told by those working in the sector that they feel like they are firefighting every day, rather than spending the time they so desperately want to spend with the families they could prevent from entering crisis. Instead, they are dealing with mounting caseloads, burnout and an inability to resource their departments properly. This is short-sighted and dangerous. Tragically, too often, the consequences are felt too late.

The report into the heartbreaking case of Sara Sharif is a damning indictment of Surrey county council’s failure to protect a young girl from her abusers. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) made a passionate plea for the recommendations of the safeguarding review to be explored by the Government so that lessons can be learned nationally. Early support does prevent crises from escalating, it protects children who witness domestic abuse in their household, and it identifies risks at the earliest opportunity.

The Liberal Democrats have long called for greater integration between health and social care, with far more involvement from local authorities in the planning, commissioning and delivery of services. This must include education settings, which play a vital role in identifying situations where abuse may be present. We need to ensure that training and support for teachers is readily available, so that they can spot the signs and call for help. Teachers have an increasingly challenging role in our complex environment: they are not only teachers but, quite often, caregivers and social workers. They may be the only lifeline that a child has, so they need to be able to spot the signs of domestic abuse, be they misbehaviour, withdrawal or a failure to engage in the classroom. In addition, as the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) mentioned, it is so important to have education campaigns so that children understand and can spot the signs of what is not a happy household, and understand what is normal and what is not, and what they should and should not put up with.

Another vital part of the picture is the family court system, which plays a key role in protecting children from situations where domestic abuse is present while also considering the importance of keeping families together. It is a desperately difficult job, yet there have been a number of situations where the system has failed and, frankly, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I thank the Government for their recent steps, including removing parental responsibility from those convicted of the most serious sexual offences, as was mentioned by the hon. Members for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) and for Dulwich and West Norwood. Campaigners fought hard for that change, and it is welcome. Could we also consider removing parental responsibility from those on bail, to ensure that individuals capable of committing horrendous abuse are kept away from their children as early as possible?

With that in mind, what are the Government doing to integrate health and social care services across the country to ensure that as much protection as possible is provided for vulnerable children and families? What are the Government doing to raise awareness of the warning signs of a child living in a household with domestic abuse? When will we see further legislation to deal with the rising issues in our family court system? Will the Government consider specific measures to keep those on bail on charges of offences against children away from their children? The Liberal Democrats stand ready to work with Members in all parts of the House to ensure that every child is protected, every survivor is heard and every perpetrator is held to account.

Right to Trial by Jury

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

The leaked memo from the Ministry of Justice, which reveals plans to rip up our criminal justice system, is particularly surprising, given that the Deputy Prime Minister himself has stated that “Jury trials are fundamental”. In a report that he wrote, he called jury trials

“a success story of our justice system”.

Juries are not the cause of the court backlog; that was complacency from the former Government and a failure to grip the issue by this Government, totally failing the victims who are currently waiting. Will the Minister clarify whether this MOJ proposal is a suggested temporary emergency measure or a permanent erosion of our criminal justice system? Does she share my concern that the Office for Budget Responsibility is showing a real-terms cut of 3% a year to the MOJ’s capital budget after the Budget yesterday? Does she agree with the Deputy Prime Minister’s diagnosis from opposition that the Government should

“pull their finger out and acquire empty public buildings across the country”

in order to clear the backlog?

[Sarah Sackman]

As the hon. Member heard me say a moment ago, the constitutional right that we guarantee every citizen in this country who comes before our criminal courts is the right to a fair trial. When victims are waiting for years for their day in court, right now justice is not being served. When the Secretary of State made those comments, it was obviously in a very different context, not one where the Conservatives had allowed the backlogs to run out of control. As I said clearly earlier, the right to a jury trial and the jury trial will always be a cornerstone of the British justice system. That will not change. It does not change in Sir Brian’s report, in which he recommends the restriction of jury trials in certain cases, and it will not change in the plans that the Government are bringing out. She is right that we need a combination of structural reform and investment and, indeed, we are making that investment. We have increased capital investment in court maintenance and buildings to £148.5 million. We are opening new criminal courts, for example in central London, in Blackpool and in other parts of the country. We have to build system capacity, with more judges, more lawyers and more staff to man those cases, but ultimately we must be laser-focused on the need to deliver swifter justice for victims. In order to do that, we will, in due course, in response to Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations, bring forward very careful plans that protect people’s rights, including that right to a fair trial.

Prisoner Releases in Error

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

If the situation was not so serious, it would be laughable. It seems like people currently have tougher checks to speak to an adviser at His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or to get a GP appointment than offenders have to be released from prison.

Since the mistaken releases of recent weeks, I have heard horrendous reports from prison officers inside prisons of prisoners being identified by low-quality black-and-white photographs printed on paper and a few basic questions on personal information—information that could be readily shared between inmates—before being cleared for release. That is not good enough, especially when we now have biometric technology that is used for visitors to prisons but not for inmates. We cannot be reliant on an honour-based system that depends on the good will of convicts to hand themselves in, and police forces certainly do not have the spare capacity to conduct regular manhunts for people who should still be locked up.

After the release of Hadush Kebatu, the Deputy Prime Minister promised enhanced security checks, yet some of society’s most dangerous individuals have still ended up on our streets. Will he now spell out what those enhanced checks actually involve and whether biometric testing is used routinely to confirm a prisoner’s identity before release? Can he confirm what training prison officers receive before managing prisoner releases?

Like most of the justice system, our prison system was mismanaged and underfunded by the previous complacent Conservative Government, so we appreciate that the Labour Government inherited this mess. However, the number of mistaken prisoner releases has risen sharply on their watch and they cannot continue to risk public safety, particularly given that it took them a whole seven days to realise that a prisoner had been mistakenly released and that they are seemingly blaming an email being unread for the most recent error.

Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm how long the Ministry of Justice has known about the three prisoners at large and how long the police have been trying to find them? The Deputy Prime Minister has promised the public an investigation, but they cannot wait months for answers while their safety continues to be put at risk, so what immediate action can he take today to ensure that dangerous criminals stay behind bars and that these mistakes stop once and for all?

[Mr Lammy]

I say to the hon. Lady, who reflects on the releases in error, that 57,000 people are released from prison every year. I am sure that, like me, she will commend the good work of prison officers and those in offender management units across our prisons, who do a very difficult job in very difficult circumstances.

The hon. Lady refers to the complexity. The last Government kept expanding their emergency release scheme—from 18 days to 35 days, and then to 70 days. In 2021, a review found 503 pages of guidance that staff had to follow for early release. It is a paper-based system. I cannot stand here as Secretary of State and say that we can eradicate all human error in a paper-based system, because we cannot. The only way to deal with it is to use technology to bring those levels down to something that the House would think is acceptable. I want to see the figure come down to historic levels over the course of this Parliament. It will of course take further investment, but I hope that the £10 million investment in the new digital team, and indeed the support that we are now offering between courts and prisons, will make a substantial difference.

The hon. Lady asks me what I am doing. I am delivering a new justice performance board, Dame Lynne Owens’ review, the urgent query process that I have outlined, the digital rapid response system and, of course, a simplified release policy, which is effectively what will come out of the Sentencing Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

Like much of the justice system, the Probation Service is buckling under the strain after a decade of being undervalued by the previous Government. The injection of £700 million by 2028 was welcomed last year, but it has yet to be felt on the frontline of probation, which is estimated to be 10,000 staff members short. Given that the Sentencing Bill and a presumption against short sentences are bound to put additional pressure on the Probation Service, what is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that the service can work efficiently to properly manage offenders in the community?

[Mr Lammy]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue. It was important that we exceeded our target of 1,000 officers last year, and we have to get those 1,300 officers in place. The £700 million must be spent by the end of the spending review. It is important that we bear down on getting AI across the service and that we introduce new technology, because it is only by doing so that probation officers can do what they want to do: get back to face-to-face and personalised care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

Reports by charities and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner show that the family court system, which is plagued by delays, continues to provide the perfect environment for perpetrators of domestic abuse to continue to coerce and control. Training in identifying the signs of domestic abuse is not currently mandatory, so when will the Government bring forward legislation to reform the family court system, and when will they make domestic abuse training mandatory for all in the family courts?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)]

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for that question. She will be aware that this Government have announced that we will repeal the presumption of parental contact when parliamentary time allows—that is a priority. It is also a priority for this Government that we do all we can to protect victims of domestic abuse in the family courts. That is why we have introduced our domestic abuse protection orders pilots. However, she will know that the judiciary are independent. Training for them is a matter for the Judicial College, but we are working closely with the judiciary to ensure that they can spot the signs of coercive and controlling behaviour, so that we can do all we can to protect victims of these crimes.

Sentencing Bill

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Commons Chamber

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

As the House has heard repeatedly in recent weeks, our justice system is crumbling under the strain in our courts, prisons and probation services, bulging at the seams, stretched to the limit and ultimately failing all who come into contact with it. It is not adequately punishing criminals, not rehabilitating them, and not protecting victims and survivors. Confidence has been slowly eroded and undermined. This has to end. The Bill provided ample opportunity for us to address these issues, with scope to consider how we tackle the looming projection of a prison population of over 100,000 in just three years’ time. I am disappointed that such a large Bill, which makes fundamental changes to sentencing, was not given the line-by-line scrutiny that a Bill Committee, rather than a Committee of the whole House, could have afforded it.

The Liberal Democrats are supportive of many of the steps taken in the Bill, and, in the spirit of working collaboratively on a crisis that affects us all, we have tabled a number of amendments that seek to improve and strengthen it. For example, we welcome clause 3, which would give courts the power to order offenders to make monthly payments from their income, and we have tabled new clause 3 to ask the Government to assess whether income reduction orders could be used to fund victim support. On the topic of financial penalties, new clause 33 would create a power for sentencing courts to require offenders to make periodic payments or other contributions towards the maintenance and welfare of their dependants, ensuring that their responsibility to provide support is not automatically void during a custodial sentence.

Creating a presumption of a suspended sentence for terms of under 12 months is a measure for which the Liberal Democrats have long campaigned. It is a necessary step to reduce prison overcrowding, but it also plays a vital role in reducing reoffending, with rehabilitation offered in the community. Sixty-two per cent of those serving custodial sentences of less than 12 months go on to reoffend, but only 24% reoffend if they are given a suspended sentence or a community order. We do not need to send offenders to prison to become better criminals; we need to support them to become better citizens. Creating a rehabilitative system will, in the long term, reduce costs, protect victims and ease the pressure on our public services. The work of our justice system should be centred on that goal, for the good of all.

To that end, new clause 12 would allow and facilitate access to rehabilitative programmes, education, therapy and other support for prisoners held on remand before their sentencing hearings. As of June this year, 20% of the prison population are on remand and yet to have their sentencing hearings. With court backlogs at an all-time high, we see offenders arriving at their sentencing hearings, receiving their sentences, and then heading straight home because of the length of time that they have served on remand. Remand prisons are often overcrowded, and typically suffer from understaffing and inadequate facilities. These prisoners should be offered the same level of support as sentenced prisoners if we are to reduce the levels of reoffending.

We are, of course, supportive of the identifier that was included in the Bill following the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), in collaboration with the Government. I commend his hard work and determination to make tangible changes for those who have experienced domestic abuse, providing greater confidence that their abusers will be dealt with suitably in the system, and I thank the Government for their constructive engagement with him on this issue. However, our campaign does not end there. New clause 8 would ensure that domestic abuse was treated as an aggravated offence, reflecting the severity and the long-term impact of such crimes on victims. New clause 9 asks the Government

“to carry out an assessment of the potential benefits of creating mandatory rehabilitative programmes”

to tackle violence against women and girls, for individuals sentenced to offences such as assault, battery and actual bodily harm when the victim was female.

We have also tabled a number of amendments relating to the Probation Service, because none of this means anything if probation is not properly resourced. I know that the Government will refer to the £700 million of additional funding, but it is not yet being felt on the frontline of probation, where the situation remains as described by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation earlier this year. According to the inspectorate, the service

“has too few staff, with too little experience and training, managing too many cases.”

Without maximum caseloads, we open ourselves up to a higher risk of human error and also a more cautious approach to recalling, because staff simply do not have the capacity to manage people in the community effectively.

Probation officers believe fundamentally in rehabilitation and in supporting offenders to reintegrate into society, but I must raise some serious concerns around the removal of the existing short-term and standard recalls in favour of a 56-day blanket recall for all offenders except those identified through a multi-agency public protection arrangement.

For example, under the current guidance, somebody who might be engaging with mental health services in the community but not attending their probation appointment—somebody who is therefore non-compliant with their agreement—would be recalled for 28 days under a fixed-term recall. That means that, if they are in temporary accommodation, as we know a lot of people coming out of prison are, the likelihood is that the accommodation will still be there when they have served their fixed term, and they can re-engage with the programmes in the community that they were already on.

Under the new arrangements, though, in the same circumstances, somebody recalled for 56 days would be coming out and, in effect, starting again, having lost their accommodation arrangements and their place on the community programme with which they were engaging, as places are typically only held for up to four weeks. The likelihood of them then going on to reoffend—in a cycle—will increase, and we will see the same people being recalled.

At the other end of the spectrum, if a serious offender breached their licence by intimidating, harassing or stalking their victim, instead of receiving a standard recall, which would last until the end of their sentence, they would be returned to serve just 56 days. Those who in probation are classified as medium-risk offenders—that covers the majority of offences related to violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse perpetrators and stalkers—would not come under the Government’s proposed exclusions relating to MAPPA levels 2 and 3.

On Monday in this Chamber, we spoke at length and there was consensus across the House that we needed to do more to support victims, but the recall measures in the Bill directly contradict that desire. There is a serious omission, which we are extremely concerned will lead to the release of dangerous criminals on to our streets, who will then continue to reoffend. New clause 31 would ensure that offenders who have committed certain serious offences would not be eligible for automatic release following a fixed-term recall, and I implore the Minister to go away and look at that proposal.

This Bill provided a great chance to address some key issues in our justice system, and it showed signs of life, taking an innovative approach to some issues, but it ultimately lacks vision and, expectedly, funding. I thank Members for their engagement, and encourage them to support new clause 12.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to support this vital Sentencing Bill, which represents a significant step towards protecting victims and delivering justice.

I would like to draw Members’ attention to new clauses 8 and 31 and amendment 1. The Conservatives claimed to be champions of law and order, yet their record was of lawless disorder. After 14 years in power, they increased sentence lengths without planning the prison places to uphold them, delivering just a few hundred spaces while violence, drugs and chaos spiralled across our prison estates. They left our justice system on the brink, and forced the early release of more than 10,000 offenders in secret, shattering public confidence.

This Government are taking a different path. We are delivering the largest prison expansion since Victorian times; 2,500 new places are already open and we are on track for 14,000 by 2031. We will ensure that we will never again run out of prison capacity. We must also make prisons work. That means punishment that cuts crime through earned release, tougher community sentences, intensive supervision and proper rehabilitation that turns offenders away from crime for good.

Central to making sentencing work is protecting victims, not just at the point of conviction but every day thereafter. I thank the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for highlighting the important issue of domestic abuse in new clauses 8 and 31. The Bill introduces a powerful new mechanism under clause 6, “Finding of domestic abuse”, by ensuring that, once the court is satisfied that an offence involves domestic abuse, it must declare that is the case in an open court, permanently recognising the heightened harm to victims. This activates stronger protections, which can include electronic tagging and exclusion zones, ensuring that offenders can be tracked in real time and kept away from victims’ homes and workplaces.

The “Loose Women” Facing It Together campaign has powerfully shown the real human impact of domestic abuse and the urgent need for continuous protection. The measures in the Bill meet that need, ensuring that abusers cannot return to intimidate or control and that victims are safeguarded, with the full force of the law behind them. These landmark reforms will end the crisis that we inherited, and restore faith in a justice system that protects the public and puts victims first.

Since my election, I have been campaigning tirelessly on the issue of tool theft, a crime that devastates the livelihoods of tradespeople across our country. There are too many to list in this House today, but I expect that we all know someone who has been a victim of this crime. The rate of suicide among construction workers is the highest of any profession—four times higher than that for any other occupation. In December 2024, I laid a ten-minute rule Bill before the House that called for tool theft to be recognised as a significant additional harm and for courts to consider the total financial loss to victims. That would mean considering not just the value of the tools themselves, but the cost of repairs and the loss of work, and the ripple effect on businesses and families.

Having worked closely with Justice Ministers over the past year, I am pleased to see that the Bill recognises the additional protections needed for victims, for which the sector has been calling. This Bill, with its provisions requiring courts to consider the full impact of theft on victims, its new restriction zones that can ban prolific thieves from construction sites and tool retailers, and its tougher community sentences, delivers transformative protections for tradespeople. Although the Government do not support amendment 1, tabled by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello), I thank him for enabling a discussion on the wider impact of crime.

I am pleased to note that the Bill requires courts to consider the full impact of crime, including psychological harm. It recognises what victims of tool theft and, indeed, all crimes have been telling us all along: harm does not stop when tools are stolen or a crime is committed. The psychological harm of losing one’s livelihood, the anxiety about future thefts and the mental health impact of not being able to work are real harms that must be considered when sentencing offenders, and the Bill delivers in this regard.

These reforms will protect the public through tougher sentencing and tighter monitoring, cut crime by stopping reoffending before it happens, support victims by recognising harm and preventing future abuse, and build a safer society with less crime and, ultimately, fewer victims.