Trial by Jury: Proposed Restrictions

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the creation of a Crown Court bench division, as recommended by Sir Brian Leveson, must be seen in light of his related recommendations. One of the most critical to arrest the growing crisis in our criminal justice system is to provide a further 20,000 Crown Court sitting days. Do His Majesty’s Government accept that clear recommendation? If not, why not? If they accept it, what immediate steps are they actively taking to implement it?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government already have more sitting days than any previous Government. The central observation of both Sir Brian Leveson’s review and the earlier view of David Gauke is that one cannot sit oneself out of this crisis or build oneself out of it by building more prison places. There needs to be a systemic review encompassing both Sir Brian’s recommendations and the Gauke recommendations to stop the ever-increasing amount of people being sent to our prisons. It is that in that spirit that we will review Sir Brian’s recommendations. We will publish our review some time in the autumn, with a view to legislating on the matter in due course later this year.