Jury Trials

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

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

The right to trial by jury is not some procedural convenience capable of being abridged when the administrative weather turns foul; it is one of the great constitutional expressions of liberty under the law. It is overwhelmingly legitimate, because it places the citizen, and not the state, at the heart of criminal judgment. When the state proposes to narrow the circumstances in which it must persuade 12 of a defendant’s peers, it is not merely managing a backlog; it is fundamentally recalibrating the balance between the individual and the Crown.

There is no doubt that the criminal justice system is under acute strain. Victims and defendants wait too long. Justice is stretched thin. However, the issue before us is not whether reform is necessary, but whether this reform is justified, proportionate and supported by evidence.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

I hear everything my hon. Friend says. In his opening speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) laid out a number of matters that could be acted on immediately to improve efficiency and ensure that we maintain the pillar of society that is our jury trials. Do you agree that we should be focusing immediately on that, rather than demolishing—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. No “yous”—it is not me responding.

[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I will touch on some of those points in a moment.

There has quite rightly been much reliance on Sir Brian Leveson’s report; he is a jurist of great distinction, and his work deserves careful reading, rather than convenient citation. Notwithstanding his analysis, this is a fundamental change to our legal system, and what is conspicuously absent from the Government’s argument is compelling evidence that jury trials are the principal driver of delay. If we are serious about confronting the backlog, we must look unflinchingly at the real causes: the prosaic but decisive failures of capacity, of which the jury trial is merely the most visible casualty.

The first issue is judicial sitting days. Courts cannot hear cases without judges. For too long, we have rationed judicial time as though it were a luxury, rather than the lifeblood of the system. Courtrooms stand idle not because juries cannot be summoned, but because there are no judges available to sit.

The second issue is the court estate. In too many parts of the country, criminal courts are dilapidated, unreliable and, frankly, unfit for purpose. Trials are delayed because of leaking roofs, broken technology and inadequate facilities.

[Catherine Atkinson]

Is there a part of the hon. Gentleman’s speech where he says that the reason that so many of our courts are dilapidated and falling down is because we did not see investment in 14 years of Conservative Government?

[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

The hon. Lady is right to a degree: there has been failure by successive Governments to invest in the criminal justice system. If we were serious about this issue in this place, we would look at cutting welfare, which spends the entirety of the Ministry of Justice’s annual budget in just two weeks. We need to prioritise spending, and the criminal justice system has been left high and dry for far too long by Governments of all colours.

It is now routine for trials to be adjourned because defendants either arrive late or do not arrive at all, with juries discharged, witnesses turned away and days of court time lost as a consequence. These delays have nothing whatsoever to do with the presence of a jury, and everything to do with operational failure in the system.

The next point I wish to make, and possibly the most grave, is about the erosion of the criminal Bar. We face a serious shortage of suitably qualified advocates both to prosecute and to defend. Cases are delayed because no one of appropriate experience is available or willing to take them on. That is not inefficiency, but attrition. Curtailing jury trial risks mistaking the symptom for the disease. Worse, it risks creating a system that is perhaps faster, but thinner, and ostensibly more efficient, but unquestionably less legitimate.

I think of the words of Lord Hailsham, a former Lord Chancellor and one of the greatest legal minds of the previous century, who warned this very House of the dangers of an “elective dictatorship”, and the slow accretion of power to the state at the expense of the citizen. The jury trial is one of the great counterweights to that tendency, ensuring that the coercive power of criminal law is exercised only with the consent of the community. Juries do much more than merely find facts; they embody public confidence, guard against institutional complacency and remind us that justice is not something merely administered to the people, but done with them. If the Government believe that it is right to curtail that right, they must show clear evidence that jury trials cause the delay, that alternative modes of trial would be demonstrably faster, and that fairness, legitimacy and public confidence would not be diminished.

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Ind)]

There was no mention of reforming the jury trial system in the Labour manifesto. Given that this is a fundamental, very serious change to the operation of our legal system, which has served us well for centuries, does the hon. Gentleman agree that this change should never be allowed to go ahead without some form of electoral mandate?

[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right: there is no mandate for this decision. It represents such a significant constitutional change to our legal system, and it is being made without reference to the will of the people.

Justice delayed is indeed justice denied, but justice expedited at the cost of constitutional principle may prove a far greater denial still.

HMP Leyhill: Offender Abscondments

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call Justice Committee member, Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst.

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

Since October of last year, five people have absconded from Leyhill, which suggests that there are systemic issues around both security and licensing arrangements. I suspect that those are not bespoke to Leyhill, but are used across the wider open prison estate. With that in mind, what has the Minister’s Department done to tighten those arrangements to ensure that this does not happen again, not just at Leyhill, but at any other open prison?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. As he will be aware from my previous answers, absconds have actually decreased across our open prison estate: they have come down by 2% on the previous year. However, whenever an abscond happens, a rapid review will take place. A rapid review is taking place into the absconds at HMP Leyhill. It will be done within 20 days and I will ensure that it is brought forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

My hon. Friend raises a number of incredibly important points. Behind each and every one of those 80,000 cases in the backlog is a victim, as well as someone who is accused who may be trying to clear their name. As the backlog heads in the wrong direction, with agonising delays for all participants, we will not sit idly by. That is why we have adopted the recommendations of the independent review of criminal courts. It makes the important observation that 90% of cases in this country are currently dealt with robustly, properly and in a timely fashion without a jury in our magistrates courts. The whole package of reforms that we are bringing forward, which is not a pick-and-mix, is designed to deliver swifter justice for victims.

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

One of the contributing factors to the court backlog is the state of disrepair of our court infrastructure. Will the Minister set out how many of the more than 500 Crown court rooms are currently unusable because of their state of disrepair?

[Sarah Sackman]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the crumbling and decaying state of our court estate has become a metaphor for the justice system that we inherited from the previous Government. It is why we are opening new courts in Blackpool and putting shovels in the ground in inner London, and why we have increased the court estate budget by £28 million, so that we can improve maintenance and keep as many court rooms running as possible. In the end, as Sir Brian Leveson tells us, money alone will not be enough. We need reforms so that we can run the system at capacity and deliver swifter justice for victims.

Criminal Court Reform

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

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

Nobody would disagree with the Lord Chancellor’s diagnosis—the criminal courts are in crisis. It is the treatment that is in dispute. The question is whether the watering down of jury trials will be the solution, when in fact the problem is a lack of judges, court space and infrastructure, and inefficiencies in the system. Crucially, it is about a lack of appropriately trained defence and prosecution counsel who can deal with the complexities of these cases. Is this not a case of the Government choosing to prioritise other areas of spending, such as welfare, over our courts system?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman’s party did not come up with any solutions, and the backlog continued to rise. We commissioned an independent review, led by one of the country’s most eminent judges. Having reflected on that review, we are getting on with the business of recognising what he said: there is not a silver bullet, we have to do it all, and we are building on the reform that he asked us to do.

Right to Trial by Jury

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

My hon. Friend is right. We inherited record and rising backlogs. Covid was a contributing factor, but it was not the only factor. Years of under-investment and years of neglect have contributed to the delay, as well as the demand in the system, which, by the way, continues to increase partly because our police are making more arrests and there are more charging decisions. That is not a bad thing, but the system is simply buckling under the weight of that demand. Unlike the Conservatives, I am not prepared to sit idly by. As I said, behind each and every one of those roughly 80,000 cases sitting in our backlog is a victim, or somebody accused who is trying to clear their name, living under a cloud with their lives on hold—psychological torture. Ultimately, justice is not being served, so we must do whatever it takes to get the backlog down.

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

The crisis in our criminal justice system is not caused by jury trials but by inefficiencies in the system and a lack of advocates able to prosecute and defend trials, according to the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association. When will the Government engage with them, rather than relying solely on Sir Brian’s report, in order to maintain the cornerstone of our justice system—the jury trial—while improving inefficiencies in the criminal justice system?

[Sarah Sackman]

The hon. Member will know that I regularly engage with the Bar Council, the Criminal Bar Association and a range of other stakeholders. In fact, they agree with me that the system is broken. Indeed, whether they prosecute or defend, hard-working criminal barristers are experiencing a sapping of morale as they go into the crumbling buildings—presided over by the Conservatives—inefficient trials that crack, and trials that come three or four years after they were reported, with witnesses pulling out on the day. All that is deeply demoralising. Indeed, there is a huge degree of consensus between the Government and the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association on the direction of travel. We must of course address inefficiencies; that is why Sir Brian Leveson and his independent reviewers are considering inefficiencies and productivity in the system. When part two of the review comes, we will take its recommendations equally seriously and look to implement them.

Prisoner Releases in Error

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think the public recognise that. They might not have visited our prisons, but they know that cuts in our public services are real. They see it in their local authorities. They see it in their local hospitals. They see it in their local schools. They know that things like Sure Start were decimated. I am afraid that our Prison Service, which the public do not see, was one of the worst-hit public services.

It is my job to minimise that risk to the public, which is why I am introducing new measures and have asked Dame Lynne Owens to look at this issue very carefully. She is a former head of the National Crime Agency, and I know she will do a forensic examination. I will implement her recommendations so that we can bear down on this problem, but it is a paper-based system. Coming into this job, I did not realise that it was a paper-based system. I am not sure that the shadow Justice Secretary has realised that since he has been doing his job, but former Conservative Justice Secretaries know that it is a paper-based system, and they know that that is why errors happen.

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

Mistaken releases of prisoners do not just undermine public trust and confidence in the system; they cost money, because the police have to go and find them and return them to prison. Can the Secretary of State set out how much it has cost the police to return prisoners to prison since this Government came to power?

[Mr Lammy]

Previous Governments did not have that data, and I am pretty confident that I do not have that data. If it exists, it exists in the individual police forces that deal with these issues operationally. However, the hon. Member is absolutely right that every prisoner released in error has to be found by the police. I thank the police for all they have done, and I particularly thank Haringey police for finding the two high-profile cases.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones]

May I put on the record my sincere gratitude to the WomenCentre for doing all it can to support the victims of these crimes? Support services are a vital element of ensuring that victims and witnesses engage with the criminal justice system, and are kept informed about the uptake of their trial. We have ringfenced funding to protect these special support services. We are currently going through the allocations process to ensure that we have support services at the front of our minds, and I will be happy to keep my hon. Friend updated as that comes forward.

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

In July this year, alongside a cross-party group of parliamentarians and others, I wrote to the then Lord Chancellor seeking a meeting regarding improving gatekeeping and alternative dispute resolution in family court matters. I have not received a response. Can the Lord Chancellor give me the reassurance that such a meeting will take place?

[Mr Lammy]

Yes, I can.

Trial by Jury: Proposed Restrictions

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Sackman]

As ever, my hon. Friend the Chair of the Justice Committee, gives a considered response and he is absolutely right. There needs to be a recognition of the scale of the problem and two things are required: investment and reform. When hon. Members read the report, they will see that Sir Brian is very clear that we need investment. This Government are already beginning to make that investment, through the additional Crown court sitting days that we have laid on this year; running the system at system max; additional funding for legal aid lawyers and criminal legal aid; and £92 million to keep the sector going, on both the defence and the prosecutorial sides. We are making that investment but, critically, as Sir Brian makes absolutely clear, that alone will not be enough. We need to consider once-in-a-generation structural reforms that will run a sustainable, proportionate system that will allow us to deliver swifter justice for victims. Investment and reform: that is what we will be getting on with and that is what we will report on in the autumn.

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

The Minister will know the high regard in which I hold her. With that in mind, does she, in her own heart, believe that intermediate courts will fix the criminal court backlog, or does she agree with the legal profession that that risks being a costly distraction from investing in the existing system? Does she agree with me that chipping away jury trials in the name of speed risks undermining the cornerstone of British justice?

[Sarah Sackman]

As I said in my opening response, jury trials will remain a cornerstone for British justice for the most serious cases but, as Sir Brian Levenson evidences in his careful report, juryless trials can be swifter trials. To put that into context, 90% of criminal trials in this country are currently heard without a jury—that is how our criminal justice system currently functions. Of course it is right that we listen to those who participate in the system, whether they are prosecuting or defending those in the system, but it is also right that we listen to the voices who have welcomed today’s report: the head of the Met police, former Lord Chancellors, a former Lord Chief Justice and the Victims’ Commissioner. Their voices matter too. Just as Sir Brian has done, we need to consider a package of measures capable of alleviating the acute crisis in which we find ourselves.

Criminal Justice

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend, who is knowledgeable on these issues, is absolutely right. We are relying on the implementation of the Gauke review’s recommendations to do two things: to ensure there is capacity in the prisons for the growing number of people being sentenced in our courts; and, in the longer term, to reduce prisoner numbers through effective rehabilitation. That can take place in prisons—not in overcrowded prisons on the whole —but it can take place more effectively in the community by way of getting people back into normal daily life, which prison certainly is not.

In that vein, let me turn to the Probation Service, which will receive an additional £700 million a year to support the reforms in the sentencing review. That is a substantial increase in funding, which is intended to enable probation to supervise more people in the community and expand electronic tagging.

The Probation Service currently manages 240,000 individuals on court order or licence. Worryingly, in last year’s annual report, HM inspectorate of probation labelled 10 local probation services as “requires improvement” and 14 as “inadequate”. It identified staffing challenges, unmanageable workloads, deficits in casework and insufficient management of risk, public protection and safeguarding. However, it also found outstanding statutory victim work, commitment and vision from staff and some good partnership working. The Committee has seen that itself on its visit to probation services.

I will however raise my concern about the ability of Serco, the current electronic tagging provider, to deal with the dramatic increase in demand on its services that will inevitably result from the sentencing Bill. The Committee has been in frequent correspondence with the Prisons Minister to raise our concerns regarding Serco’s poor performance, which has also been highlighted by Channel 4 and its “Dispatches” programme.

The Committee has identified several issues with management of the tagging contract, including substantial delays to the fitting of tags, even to serious offenders. We were shocked to learn that financial penalties have been levied on Serco every month since it took on the service in May 2024. It is unclear how Serco will be able to deal with increased demand given its unacceptable performance in managing the electronic tagging service at its current level.

I turn briefly to conditions in the prison estate. In 2023, HM chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said that one in 10 prisons should be closed down. He stated that about 14 Victorian jails were so poorly designed, overcrowded and ill-equipped that they could not provide proper accommodation for prisoners. Last year, 63% of prisoners reported overcrowding. That is often with two or more prisoners in a cell that was designed for one person, with no private toilet facilities.

Drugs are an increasing problem in prisons. The Committee has covered that extensively in its “Tackling drugs in prisons” inquiry, which is due to report shortly. Between April 2023 and April 2024, almost 50,000 adults aged 18 and over were in alcohol and drug treatment in prisons and secure settings, which was a 7% rise compared with the previous year. In the 12 months to December 2024, there were 10,600 assaults on prison staff—violence is also on the increase in prison, which is partly a result of the unpredictable environment created by the abundance of drugs available—which is equivalent to 122 assaults per 1,000 prisoners, an increase of 13% from the previous year and the highest number of assaults on prison staff recorded in one year. The use of force by prison officers and rates of self-harm among prisoners have also been increasing in recent years. Self-harm was 10% higher in 2024 than in 2023.

Overcrowding, increased drug use, violence and self-harm contribute towards a distressing environment in prisons such that the vital function of prisons to rehabilitate offenders can be almost impossible in some institutions. We are undertaking a major inquiry into rehabilitation and resettlement, which I hope will shed more light on these troubling pictures.

Beyond all that, we have the continuing scandal of IPP prisoners—those imprisoned for public protection. I recommend to the Minister the proposals published this week by the Howard League on a new approach to IPP prisoners, which would serve to reduce the numbers continuing in custody substantially.

Let me turn to His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, which is the second-largest body in the MOJ. In the Government’s main estimate for 2025-26, spending on HMCTS accounted for 21% of planned resource spending and 12% of capital spending. The current backlog of outstanding cases in the Crown court stands at about 4,000. That is a result of a number of factors, one of which is the shortage of criminal lawyers, driven by low legal aid pay rates and poor working conditions. The backlog in the courts is detrimental to the lives of thousands of people. Victims, witnesses and defendants alike are forced to wait in limbo for justice.

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

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about court backlogs. Another factor is having the appropriate magistrates, legal advisers and so on to hear these cases. The Magistrates’ Association has raised concerns that the spending review allocation is insufficient to tackle that. Does he share those concerns?

[Andy Slaughter]

I do share those concerns. I want to take only a few more minutes with my speech, so I do not have time to go into what is happening in the magistrates courts as well—that is a debate for another day—but the shortage of magistrates, the shortage of legal clerks and low pay rates across HMCTS are clearly some of the factors that prevent us from getting to grips with the backlog, even though I have no doubt the Government wish to do that.

I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s allocation of 110,000 sitting days in the Crown court for 2025-26: the highest sitting-day allocation made since HMCTS was created and the biggest financial settlement ever made for the Crown court. I hope that that is enough to bring about some reduction in the backlog. However, I note that the allocation is below the 113,000 days that the Lady Chief Justice told the Committee the Crown court could sit for in the last financial year, and there have been similar increases in sitting days for other courts, including the magistrates court, which will sit for up to 114,000 days a year.

The Government have acknowledged that the allocation of days is not enough on its own to severely reduce the backlog in the Crown courts and that more radical reform is required. I therefore welcome Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of criminal courts, which will propose options for both short and long-term reforms aimed at ensuring cases are dealt with proportionately in the light of current pressures on the Crown court and explore how the courts could operate as efficiently as possible. I look forward to the first report of the review, which is due to be published next month.

I will briefly touch on the role of the Legal Aid Agency. In terms of expenditure, the LAA is the third largest body within MOJ. Its day-to-day budget was around £0.9 billion, which comprised 8% of the MOJ’s total resource budget. Between 2009-10 and 2023-24, resource expenditure on legal aid decreased by 2% in cash terms and by 31% in real terms. I was surprised to see that the spending review did not include a specific funding allocation for the Legal Aid Agency; the only reference to it was in the context of potential efficiency savings that the MOJ will make in the review period.

Concerns have been raised about the sustainability of the criminal legal aid sector, given the number of legal aid firms and of solicitors and barristers practising in this area. In March 2025, the Law Society said that the number of criminal duty solicitors had fallen by 26% since 2017 and that that may, in future,

“leave many individuals unable to access their right to a solicitor and free advice.”

Even though I welcome the MOJ’s announcements in December 2024 of an additional £92 million per year for criminal aid solicitors, and I look forward to seeing the results of its consultation on that, it may well not be enough. Indeed, the 15% uplift in criminal barristers’ fees as a consequence of the Bellamy review took so long to come in and was so far overtaken by other increases in cost that that again needs to be looked at in the near future if we are to sustain the criminal Bar.

Independent Sentencing Review

Neil Shastri-Hurst Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am sorry to hear of the case of my hon. Friend’s constituent; those are truly horrible circumstances for any family to find themselves in. I can assure her that we will be rigorously pursuing the recommendations in the Gauke review relating to ancillary orders, which are other orders that we can make that curtail an offender’s liberty, including lengthier driving bans, which I am considering bringing forward.

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

Public confidence in the criminal justice system—and, importantly, the confidence of victims—is paramount. Since 2010, the use of community-based orders has decreased by 61%. That is in no small part because of concerns about offender engagement in the process. If the Government are going to pursue this route, what steps has the Lord Chancellor taken to model how many will reoffend and, more importantly, that they will be rigorously reinforced?

[Shabana Mahmood]

That issue is why already today I have announced measures to toughen up community punishment, and we will be going further in some areas than even the review recommends. I absolutely agree that community punishment has to maintain the confidence of the public. Like all other Members, I am a constituency Member of Parliament, and I want my constituents to be able to see community punishment as real punishment. It is on us to make sure that it is worthy of that name. That is why I am considering going further on unpaid work, working with businesses to see whether salaries could be paid into a victims fund. That might be one model. I want to see offenders filling potholes and cleaning our streets, and I will be working with local authorities to ensure that we go as far as we can, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that this Government are committed to toughening up community punishment and making sure that it maintains the confidence of the public.