Courts and Tribunals Bill

Debate between Warinder Juss and Gideon Amos

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos]

Of course I accept that the legal system has evolved and changed, and that the right to trial by jury has changed, but my concern is that in serious cases, where someone could be imprisoned for up to two years and their reputation destroyed, people would want to be tried by jury. Our legal system currently protects that right, but that would be swept away by this Bill.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

We already have judges who make decisions on cases where children are taken away from parents, so does the hon. Gentleman not consider those to be serious cases? Some 90% of cases are dealt with by magistrates, so does he say that justice is not achieved in those cases?

[Gideon Amos]

Of course magistrates do a vital job, but when I visited magistrates in my constituency, they explained that they seriously doubt that it will be possible to recruit sufficient people to meet Ministry of Justice estimates about cost saving and time saving.

To conclude, for me cases that will result in imprisonment of up to three years—or up to two years if they come before a magistrate—are serious enough to warrant the right of defendants to request a trial by jury. Those are the protections currently in place in law. We should hold on to those protections and defend them as a guarantee of our liberty in this House and in the country.