Courts and Tribunals Bill

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is an assiduous member of the Committee. In the same week that the Committee published this report, we published our report on the pre-appointment hearing for the new Judicial Appointments Commission chair. We feel strongly that the Government need to look at judicial appointments and progression, because it is clearly not working at the moment. It undermines the credibility of a judiciary that we all take huge pride in if they are not reflective of the population at large. That was true before the Bill; it is even more true after it.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

I too voted for the minority report, mainly because I am particularly concerned that the Government are going much further than the Leveson report. On judge-only trials, if magistrates’ sentencing powers are increased to 24 months, it is not impossible that cases with sentences of up to two and a half years could be retained by the magistrates court, which might mean that there is little work for the Crown court bench division; it will only have a narrow tranche of cases. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that there is merit in looking at other jurisdictions, and seeing whether there are other mechanisms for allocating cases that might be fairer and more efficient?

[Andy Slaughter]

The hon. Lady is also an assiduous member of the Committee, and I appreciate what she said about important respects in which the Government, without evidencing the reasons, have departed from Leveson—for example, on whether magistrates should sit with judges in the bench division. She makes a good point: because the Government have deviated from what Leveson recommended, there is a narrow window between what can happen in the magistrates court and what is left for the Crown court bench division to do. The Government will have to look at that again. Some Members may think that that is a good thing, because they are not supportive of the Crown court bench division, but we have to have a system that has credibility and works seamlessly.