Jury Trials

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

I will complete this point and then I will take an intervention.

Investment is what is needed, and investment can get us out of the crisis we are in. Let me be absolutely clear: this Government are making an investment, turning round an oil tanker that had been run into the ground for years when we inherited it. This year alone, we allocated more than 11,000 sitting days to the Crown court. That is the highest ever number of sitting days, and 5,000 more than His Majesty’s Opposition allocated when they were in government. The concordat is taking its course, and there will be more to come.

We have also invested in the professions, with an uplift for criminal legal aid solicitors of £92 million. That is part of this package. We have £34 million for criminal defence barristers, and, crucially, match funding for pupillages to increase the talent pipeline, so that we can have the sustainability in legal practitioners to both prosecute and defend cases in the system.

We are making that investment, and we will ensure that that record-breaking investment continues so that people are not waiting longer and longer, but let me be absolutely clear that funding alone will not solve the problem. The Government cannot simply sit their way out and write a blank cheque. Do not take my word for it; that is the central conclusion of the independent review of the criminal courts. We need more investment, but investment alone will not resolve the crisis and decline in our criminal justice system.

We need three things. We need investment, which is starting to be made and to percolate into the system. We need reform, which is what the independent review of the criminal courts tells us; the Opposition say, “Ignore it,” but I am not prepared to do so. We also need modernisation. How can we harness the technology at our disposal, whether it is AI transcription or case summarisation, to ensure that we get swift justice? It is those three pillars that will transform and bring our criminal justice system into the 21st century.

There are those who tell us that simply spending our way out or tweaking a lever here and there will solve the problem, but it will not. I agree with those who say that we should bring prisoners to court more efficiently to avoid delays. Do we need to do that? Yes, we do. I eagerly await part 2 of Sir Brian’s report, but we are working on those things straight away. Do we need more efficient listing? I agree that we do, so let us get those efficiencies—there is consensus on that. Do the Government and I think that that alone will salvage the system where there is such an acute degree of crisis? No. We need the reform and the modernisation together with the investment.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

We have already recognised that there is a regional aspect to this issue. Wales’s Crown courts generally outperform those in England. They are not perfect—we have a backlog of maintenance issues and other problems—but I can only reiterate the opposition of past and present Labour Welsh Government Counsels General, who say that scrapping jury trials is both extreme and unnecessary. Why not take this as an opportunity to keep jury trials in Wales so that we can get a real-time impact assessment that we could compare with what is happening in England if we have to have changes?

[Sarah Sackman]

The right hon. Lady is right that there are regional difficulties—the situation for those in the south-east, London and parts of the north-east and the north-west is utterly dire—but let me be absolutely clear and clarify something. She says that we are scrapping jury trials, but we are not. Let us get the facts straight about the way in which the system works now and the way in which things will work once these proposals are implemented.

People talk about a right to a jury trial, and the public could be forgiven for thinking that everybody who graces a criminal court gets a jury trial, but that is not how things work. Some 90% of cases in this country are heard without a jury trial; they are heard robustly and rigorously in our magistrates court, which retains that lay element. I pay tribute to the work of our magistrates, who are drawn from our communities, provide local justice and represent the communities that they serve. The remainder of cases are currently heard by jury trial, and all the most serious crimes, such as homicide, kidnapping, robbery, serious drug offences and possession of a weapon, will continue to be heard by juries under our proposals.

What we are making is in line with expert recommendations, as occurs in other jurisdictions such as Canada and New South Wales, which are comparable with ours. This is a fairly modest reform removing the right to elect so that those cases that can be heard by the magistrates court are retained in the magistrates court and a modest number of cases are heard through a swifter court—the Crown court bench division. In addition, complex fraud and economic crime currently heard with a jury will appropriately be heard by an expert judge. That is a sensible, pragmatic package of reforms informed by an independent review.

I am afraid that asking us simply to ignore the work of the review is not sensible. If we were to leave that review on the shelf gathering dust, people would say, “The Government are failing to pull every lever.” I am not prepared to do that. We have asked people to have a long, hard look at it—not just Sir Brian Leveson, but David Ormerod, a distinguished criminal law academic, and other members of the panel. We will take that and implement it as our blueprint.