Courts and Tribunals Bill

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the further consideration of the Courts and Tribunals Bill as we reach Report stage. Not for the first time with this ministerial team, this Justice Secretary and this Prime Minister, what we were told was necessary has turned out to be unnecessary, what we were told was impossible is now possible, and what we were told was unavoidable was avoidable after all. This Minister told us again and again on Second Reading and throughout the Committee that each and every one of the measures in this Bill—each and every part of their proposals—was the only way to get on top of the court backlogs. But apparently not, because only days ago the Justice Secretary appeared on national television to announce a significant U-turn: the Government are dropping clause 3. We were told that their new division of judge-only trials was the only way the Crown court backlog could be brought down—that it could not be brought down without it. Yet now Ministers inform us that removing this very provision will actually allow the work to proceed faster.

The Opposition welcome this decision. I welcome the fact that the Justice Secretary put his name to our amendment removing clause 3, but how we got here matters. It is not the first time that this ministerial team and this Justice Secretary have let their Back Benchers defend the indefensible and then drop them in it. This same ministerial team and this same Justice Secretary told us that the release of various serious sexual and violent offenders was an absolute necessity, that they had no choice other than to put victims through the distress and upset over the summer. And then they did have a choice.

Why does this matter? Most of the time in politics in this place we are debating choices—which choice we should make as MPs and as different parties, weighing up the pros and cons of the options—but sometimes Ministers attempt to cut through that to secure the support of MPs by saying that they have no choice. When MPs resist and tell them their concerns over what the Government are proposing, Ministers have a fundamental duty to this House and to their own Back-Bench colleagues in particular. That duty is to test to destruction the proposition that there is no choice.

Only the Ministers have the army of civil servants, the data, the costings and the honest advice. When a Minister tells their own MPs that they have no choice, surely it must mean exactly that. That is how they secure the support of their Back-Bench colleagues. These Ministers have failed in that duty and have failed their colleagues. Ministerial credibility is a precious resource and this Minister has exhausted hers. If clause 3 was never truly required to tackle court delays, we must ask: what other assertions made by this Front-Bench team are equally unfounded? How can they expect their propositions of “no choice” to be accepted in future, and not just in future but on this very Bill before us today?

We must also be clear that, despite the headlines surrounding this partial retreat, the core damaging framework of the Bill remains almost entirely intact. The Government continue to press ahead with clause 1, which completely strips adult defendants charged with triable either way offences of their historic right to elect for a jury trial. At the same time, clause 6 doubles magistrates’ maximum sentencing powers up to 24 months. That means complex, high-stake cases—including sexual assault, actual bodily harm and burglary—will be retained in summary courts, exposing defendants to two-year prison sentences without ever having access to a jury.

Clause 7 and schedule 2 dismantle the automatic right of appeal from the magistrates court to the Crown court. Instead of a full rehearing before a judge and lay magistrates, wrongly convicted individuals will face a restrictive permission barrier on written papers alone.

It should be clear that, taken together, we are still facing a fundamental attack on the existing rights to a jury trial. The provisions still represent a sweeping contraction of access to jury trial and summary justice safeguards. The opposition from legal professions, victims groups and civil liberties organisations remains as firm today as it was on Second Reading.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham Yardley) (Lab)]

As somebody who has had someone elect to have a jury and now awaits a trial in 2029 on a simple order breach, I ask the hon. Gentleman: does he think, in his defence of jury trials, that a victim should be able to say whether they want the case to be tried by a jury, or should it just be the defendant? That is the system we have today. In the light of his desire to see jury trials, does he think that the system should be changed so that anyone can say, “No, I want it to be heard in front of a jury”?

[Dr Mullan]

What we are talking about is where we draw the ledger. I do not think the hon. Member is suggesting that we should have everything done by magistrates. Why not have everything done by magistrates? If it is fundamentally unfair to allow people to have a jury trial, why not let everything be done by magistrates? Then the victims do not have a say on whether it is a jury trial. The point we are clear about is that this is an unprecedented erosion of that right. It was not in the Government’s manifesto, it was until recently largely opposed by very large numbers of their own MPs, and it is based on a premise of necessity that I am afraid is paper thin. Ministers turned around and said that these were things that they had to do to get the backlog down. It turns out that they did not have to do that.

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[Karl Turner]

I agree completely, and the hon. Gentleman makes the point very strongly indeed.

Clause 6 is on magistrates’ sentencing powers. I cannot support the idea of magistrates having powers to give sentences of between 18 and 24 months without a credible plan to address the dire, desperate need to recruit magistrates, legal advisers, court staff and lawyers. That risks just transferring the pressure rather than solving the backlog. That is the reality of what this Bill will do.

That brings me to the anomaly in the Bill. As currently drafted, it presents a fairly obvious problem: a defendant of good character, with no previous convictions and who has never been arrested, interviewed, charged, prosecuted or convicted of a criminal offence is likely, by virtue of the sentencing guidelines on an either-way offence, to be tried in front of a magistrates court, whereas a defendant with numerous previous convictions, by virtue of the fact that under the guidelines that offending behaviour exceeds the three-year threshold, gets the benefit of a Crown court trial.

Let us picture the scenario: a section 47 offence of actual bodily harm is triable either way. This is a serious assault in a domestic scenario. Defendant A has no previous convictions and has never been convicted by a criminal court—

[Jess Phillips]

Just because a domestic abuser has no prior convictions, it does not mean he does not have priors. It does not mean he has good character.

[Karl Turner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right, of course. In my experience, offenders who appear in incredibly serious cases of violence in domestic scenarios have often never had previous convictions.

Let us think about the fairness of this scenario. Defendant A, who has never been convicted of a criminal offence, is charged with a section 47 ABH and appears in a summary trial. It is a very serious assault, an ABH. Defendant B, who has had numerous convictions over his adult life—let us be honest, it is mainly men who commit domestic assaults; that is the truth of it—gets the benefit of a trial in front of a jury. How is that possibly—[Interruption.] Well, it is a benefit. I am hearing “Why is it a benefit?”

[Jess Phillips]

A longer sentence is the benefit.

[Karl Turner]

I am hearing comments from a sedentary position. I have an awful lot of time for my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), I truly have—she is a mate of mine, as it happens—but there is a benefit to a jury trial.

The reality is that when a defendant appears in a summary trial before a bench of lay magistrates or a district judge, it is swift, summary justice. The evidence is heard, but it is not heard and presented in the same way as it is in a Crown court. That is just the truth. A Crown court trial in that scenario would last four or five days, and potentially into a second week. There is an opportunity to call defence evidence. Legal aid is available for experts. There is the potential for reports by the defence and the prosecution. It is about equality before the law. That is the reality of the scenario, and I cannot believe that this consequence is intended by this Labour Government. That is why I say that I cannot possibly support clause 6.

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[Dr Mullan]

As I said in my opening speech, a number of women’s victims rights groups were the leading critics of getting rid of jury trials. We cannot make out that victims have a singular view on this and that they are happy with it. There are different opinions among victims groups, and many of them agree with the hon. Gentleman.

[Jess Phillips]

None of them agree with you about the presumption of contact.

[Karl Turner]

Well, I am not going to get into the whys and wherefores of this particular juncture of the debate.

There is an easy fix for the scenario that I have described. My amendment 47 states that where a defendant has no previous convictions and the court decides that the case is suitable for summary trial, that defendant should be entitled to elect to have their trial in the Crown court. I do not think that the numbers will be very big. It is probably impossible for the Ministry of Justice to do modelling. In the 16 years that I have been a Member of this House and have been involved in debating criminal justice issues, I have rarely seen MOJ modelling that has been anywhere near accurate. However, even if it could do the modelling—I suspect it cannot, because that data is not kept—the numbers would be tiny. Why? Because only 0.4% of all convictions in the magistrates court are appealed.

However, in 41% of that 0.4% of cases—it is a tiny number—the conviction is overturned in the Crown court, because there has been a wrong decision. The Bar Council has produced more up-to-date data, which suggests that that 41% has now gone up to 56%. More than half the cases that are appealed from the magistrates to the Crown court for a rehearing end up with a defendant who was convicted in the magistrates court being acquitted in the Crown court. Why do I say that there is a benefit to a Crown court hearing? It speaks for itself.

What could the Government do instead? There is plenty that they could do. They could implement the relevant recommendations of the Leveson review. They could improve co-ordination between the police, the CPS and the courts to progress and identify unnecessary prosecutions earlier. It happens to be a fact that prosecutions sometimes end because the CPS—the Crown—throws in the towel. There is lots to welcome in the Bill, and I do welcome it, but there is too much in it for me to support it at this time.

Finally, I want to say a few words of gratitude. I thank the Prime Minister, because from the very outset of my opposition to the worst excesses of the Bill, he was supporting me in the background. Similarly, Lord Sadiq Khan was there texting me, encouraging me and supporting me when it mattered. My biggest thank you of all is reserved for my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for her bravery in standing up, waiving her anonymity and explaining her personal situation in the criminal justice system, in the face of all the pressure that was being exerted on Members who had the audacity to say that these measures were not suitable for a Labour Government to be implementing. We suffered the pressure exerted on us, and my hon. Friend showed real bravery and determination. For that, I will forever respect her.

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[Ayoub Khan]

Is there not another problem? Even if we had capacity at the magistrates courts, where trials would be taken away from the Crown courts, is not the elephant in the room that we do not have enough lawyers?

[Jess Phillips]

There’s loads around here!

[Catherine Atkinson]

While there are some lawyers on the Benches of this House, there are also many coming through the ranks; we need to ensure that they are going into the criminal justice system, and I am concerned that we are not seeing enough taking that path.

Accelerating reforms means accelerating the strain on our magistrates court, so will the Minister bring forward target dates to match the accelerated timeline? Precisely what capacity will be added to the magistrates court before this wave of work arrives?

Removing the right to elect in either-way offences drives an even bigger wave of work into the magistrates court. I understand the Government’s concern that more and more defendants are electing a jury trial; many are exploiting the Crown court delays and betting that victims and witnesses will tire and pull out. I have spoken to lawyers and judges who share our frustration. However, if the right to elect is removed, the allocation guidelines that the magistrates apply in deciding whether defendants should face a magistrates court or a jury trial should be reviewed.

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[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

I draw your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

It has been a peculiar pleasure to listen to the two speeches made so far by Labour Back Benchers. Both the speech of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and that of the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), have been treats to listen to, and I feel I can do no better than to say, “Listen to both of them.” However, it would be wrong of me to say that I oppose the Bill in its entirety. The truth is that some of its provisions contain very useful and reasonable directions of travel. Personally, I do not have the profoundest objection to grounds needing to be given for an appeal to the Crown court. I think that would be a reasonable thing to require, provided that the Chairman of the Select Committee’s warnings are heeded and those who have to fill out that appeal are given the opportunity of advice. As has been said, I think by Opposition Members, the problem is that there is a lack of legal advisers in the magistrates court—what we used to call magistrates court clerks.

That brings me to another way in which I should commend the Minister and the Government. The initiative to enhance the resources of the magistrates court can only be a good thing, although I must warn the Minister that the recruitment of more magistrates is something that we looked at years ago, when I sat in the position that she now sits in. It is social and economic factors that are effecting the diminution in the number of those willing and able to put themselves forward for this onerous type of public service, so that diminution is not going to be remediable just by brave words and advertisements. It is going to have to be a sustained campaign, and it will not happen even in the term that she will serve as Minister—long may that continue. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] That was not a wish—it was an observation—but nevertheless, it was heartfelt.

With those cautious commendations given, though, I have to return to the very focus and centre of this Bill. It is a bit like asking us to be grateful to the crocodile who leaves us with our head after it has taken our legs. The reality is that the right of election of trial by jury is at the very heart of the right itself. Since the 17th century, Governments of all colours that have come and gone have continued to respect that as a right, not as a concession or a privilege afforded by the state to a defendant. It is perfectly true that in Scotland it is the court that decides whether or not the defendant should enjoy the right of trial by jury, but in England, it has always been a right—a right given, broadly speaking, to anybody accused of an offence serious enough to warrant more than 12 months’ imprisonment.

For the first time in English legal and political history, a Government have decided to breach that right, and to make the decision reside with the representatives of the state. That places the decision out of the hands of a powerless defendant—some of the most powerless in our society. Some of them may very well be guilty. Many of them may very well be guilty, but the system we have adopted over the centuries does not legislate so much for the guilty, but for the innocent caught up in the system. So many examples in history have shown how the innocent can be caught up in this system, and it is for the innocent that the criminal justice system is ultimately designed. It is designed for their vindication, requiring against them the level, burden and standard of proof that the criminal justice system enforces, with the presumption of innocence.

[Jess Phillips]

rose—

[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

Because time is short, I will give way to the hon. Lady, but only she.

[Jess Phillips]

What the right hon. and learned Member is saying about the system being designed for the innocent is compelling, but the system is absolutely not designed for the person who is absolutely innocent in the system, and that is the victim. No part of the system asks them to elect where the trial might go. No part of the system asks them if they think it should be appealed. The real innocent—the definitely innocent—gets no say.

[Sir Geoffrey Cox]

That invites a long answer, which I do not have time now to give, but any defendant who appears before a court enjoys the presumption of innocence, and it is upon that basis that any system has to proceed. In England, the right has been accorded to those who enjoy this presumption of innocence to decide where they should be tried. Any abrogation of that right, such as for an offence that carries a sentence of more than 12 months’ imprisonment, removes the power from the individual and hands it to the state. In England—peculiarly in England—it has always been regarded as the right of a defendant. Make no mistake, this is an historic Bill for that reason.

To remove and abrogate the right of a litigant to trial by a jury of their peers has exactly the effect that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East has said. A person of good character, a professional person or an employee in the workplace accused of theft from his employer—all of these would have had the right to say, “No, I wish to have the careful and meticulous process that the Crown court provides, not the swift and summary justice that the magistrates court provides.” That person may suffer for the remaining years of their life the most profound impact upon their history. A Member of this House accused could be tried before the magistrates court, despite the impact and consequences that that might produce. In the magistrates court, the only criteria will be whether it might receive more than two years’ imprisonment. Many such offences would not. That is broadly the criteria that is applied by the magistrates.

If this egregious act is to be taken by this House, I strongly support that the Chairman of the Select Committee’s recommendation be taken on board by the Minister, because unless the magistrates have the express ability to consider whether someone is of good character, whether they have a profession, whether it would mean that they would be disqualified forever from whatever profession they are in, or expelled from their employment—with massive implications for the rest of their life—how can it be fair or proper to impose upon that person a system of summary justice that cannot, at its heart, achieve the levels of fairness of a Crown court trial? That is not only because legal aid is available in the Crown court, but because of the forensic scrutiny that the allegation is placed under. The automatic right of appeal has always been provided in the magistrates court, even where the sentence would be less than 12 months, because it has always been acknowledged that the kind of justice distributed in the magistrates court is necessarily swift and necessarily summary.

There are not provisions for the disclosure of unused material in the magistrates court. What is to be done about those, if offences are now going to be tried that might carry a two-year imprisonment? None of these things have yet been thought through within this Bill. There has simply been a transference from the Crown court to the magistrates court, in breach of a provision and a right that has been respected in this country for 300 years.

I therefore say that Members should listen to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East and to the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Derby North. They spoke the milk of human wisdom, and I suspect the fact that it came from them is not wholly unrelated to the fact that each of them have years of experience in professional practice in the courts. Heed them.

I urge the Minister—even if she is to take the step that I profoundly oppose and regard as an historic mistake: the abrogation and dilution of the right to trial by jury, making it, in fact, no longer a right but a concession made by the state to the individual—to listen, please, to the comments, the recommendations and the warnings given by those on her own side. For someone of good character to come before a court for the first time, facing a two-year sentence of imprisonment, and for the magistrate to be unable to consider such a factor would, in many cases, constitute the profoundest injustice. The risk is that over the coming years there will be all the appalling, wearisome, grievous experiences of realising that injustice has actually been done, although the whole system that we have devised over the centuries was designed to avoid that at all costs.

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[Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)]

I make my contribution as someone who served as a magistrate for 20 years. I am deeply concerned about increasing magistrates’ sentencing powers to two years of custody. That must be accompanied by rigorous training, because in reality we get good and bad, and experienced and inexperienced, magistrates on magistrates’ benches. For a lay person, removing the liberty of another is one of the biggest decisions that they can make.

I am also concerned about the presumption of suspension of all custodial sentences of up to 12 months. That is what is in the guidelines, but in training, magistrates are being told that there is a presumption of suspension of sentences of up to 18 months. Punishment should not be dumbed down because of insufficient prison places. Furthermore, the Government are leaving the supervision of the requirements of community orders in the hands of the Probation Service. How can those in the Probation Service be qualified to do that, when they are not trained to do that, unlike magistrates? Even more troubling is the fact those in the Probation Service are being given the power to cancel community orders, if they feel that the offender has been sufficiently rehabilitated. This comes at a time when the Probation Service has never been so overwhelmed and underfunded. The policy of the presumptive suspension of sentences, and the removal of magistrates’ powers to decide on community orders, betray justice for victims.

[Jess Phillips]

There are so many things in the Bill that I could talk about, but I shall start where my friend, the right hon. Member for the royal town of Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell), left off; I am from the royal town of Birmingham Yardley. I want to get Members to understand what we are seeking to change and clarify in law. When we are in this Chamber, we do not get sued for the things we say. I can be held accountable for anything I say—I would not say it on X, because I would not go on it—until I walk into this building. Civil action could be taken against me for work that I did leading up to that point. Let me set out what the judgment that the right hon. Gentleman talked about means. In cases in which the police or the Crown Prosecution Service make mistakes, they should of course have immunity covering all the time that leads up to them entering court, as any witness does; but that that immunity cannot cover them against civil action relating to anything that happened in the case. If I had a pound for every time I have seen terrible mistakes made by police officers or the CPS, I could get rid of your backlog—not your backlog, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the nation’s.

I want to be clear about how dangerous the overreach is that results from the Court’s decision to allow that immunity, and will refer to some cases that caused Front Benchers to change the law. These were legal cases taken by victims of rape, domestic abuse and other forms of sexual violence that have changed the law of our land. They were based on civil actions taken by those victims against the police and the CPS, including by Jade Blue, the survivor of rape who waived her anonymity and brought a claim against the CPS after it made an erroneous decision to discontinue the proceedings against her abuser. As a consequence of Jade’s civil action and campaign, and her successful claim against the CPS, the Government rolled out the early victims’ right to review scheme. That was done on the basis of civil action taken by a rape victim, but this could be threatened by this new overreach in the law, and I hope that the Minister will tell us how she intends to sort this out. If we do not allow victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence—or any victim, or anyone who is treated poorly by the police and the CPS—to take civil action, we in this place are missing an opportunity to make better laws. Frankly, if I can be held accountable, coppers and the CPS should be held accountable, too.

I understand that we are awaiting a Supreme Court judgment, but I would be interested to hear what the Front Benchers can say to allay the fears of victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence all over the country. They fear that if, say, their address was wrongly given out, they would have no recourse to civil action, despite the danger they would be put in.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) gave a powerful speech. I worked with Claire Throssell for years. The shadow Minister said that victims groups do not all think the same about the jury part of the Bill; I can tell him that they all think the same thing about the presumption of contact. The fact that the shadow Minister did not even mention that he has tabled an amendment that would genuinely endanger victims of domestic abuse across the country is—I do not know what I am allowed to say—a bit cowardly. He should have stood by his words and argued the case.

As a victim who has been dragged back to court on a completely unmeritorious appeal case by people who stalk me, so that they can get me in another room, I am pleased about the changes in the Bill. In these debates, I often think that this place thinks that the very worst thing that could happen to a person is being accused of rape. I think the worst thing that can happen is to be raped and have no one believe you.

[Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to the fact that I am a member of the Bar of England and Wales, and my wife is an employment judge. Notwithstanding some noble and commendable elements, particularly in clauses 12 to 17, in totality, I am afraid that this is a bad Bill. It was a bad Bill when it came before the House on Second Reading; it was a bad Bill when it left Committee; and without significant refinement, it will be a bad piece of law, should it come on to the statute books.

This is not the Lord Chancellor’s legislation; he inherited it from his predecessor. It is right to welcome his efforts on the amendment that recognises that clause 3 is unsustainable; it would be churlish not to. He has listened to the legal profession, to this House, and most importantly, to the public, who have raised serious and significant concerns. But I am afraid that the measures do not go far enough. If this Bill is the answer, then the exam question is fundamentally wrong. Nowhere can that be seen more clearly than in clause 6. That is why I am very supportive of amendment 7 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), which seeks to remove clause 6.

The clause, as we have heard, merely moves the problem from one part of the system to another. It pushes, on a conservative basis, some 25,000 cases into the magistrates court. About 5,500 of those are likely to be trials—and not necessarily straightforward trials; they may take more than a day or two to be heard. We are asking an under-resourced and ill equipped magistrates court to deal with them. That is not the way to deal with the magistrates court backlog, which, in the last year, increased by more than 9.5%.

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[Jess Phillips]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rebecca Smith]

No, I have already given way twice. I will not get any more time. I am very sorry.

We must avoid a situation in which the law views children as the state’s ultimate responsibility while parents must justify their involvement on a case-by-case basis. We must also avoid anything that presumes that the state makes a better parent than the actual parents themselves. Of course, the state should intervene when a child is at risk, but our default position should be that, wherever it is safe and appropriate, children benefit from the love and guidance of both their parents. The state should step in only when there is clear evidence that it should do so, and we do not reject that point. If we remove this principle from the law, we take another step towards a system in which parental involvement becomes discretionary and the state’s role becomes paramount. That is not a healthy direction for family justice.

I recognise, of course, that this is a sensitive issue for survivors of domestic abuse. To be clear, there is no absolute right to contact under existing law. Courts already have the power to restrict unsafe contact. The presumption of parental involvement is already qualified by risk of harm to the child, so why do we need this clause at all? Surely we in this House should be ensuring that current safeguards work properly instead.

As I said in a recent debate on fathers and male role models,

“There is a widespread perception that family courts make it difficult for fathers to maintain a meaningful relationship with their children.”—[Official Report, 10 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 450WH.]

One possible solution is a child-centred parental relationship test. The test would direct courts to consider the quality and sustainability of the child’s relationship with each parent. It would help courts to distinguish between safe and harmful contact.

As things stand, there is a real risk that clause 17 will weaken, not strengthen, children’s relationships with safe parents without addressing the current failures that leave children exposed to their unsafe ones. Fundamentally, parental involvement is a relationship recognised by the state, not a privilege granted by the state. Both parents matter, and we should not be afraid to say so.