Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Jess Brown-Fuller

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I will speak to amendments 64 to 66, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central.

We have had a discussion about this provision. The amendments seek to give a right to renew an application for permission to appeal orally, and to allow grounds for appeal to raise issues of procedure and fact arising in the trial, as well as issues of law. Clause 7 currently suggests that a person can only appeal in writing on matters of law, which means that a person is going to have to construct a proper legal argument. The problem with that is that the majority of people in the magistrates court are unrepresented.

It is wrong to say that this is comparable with Crown court cases going to the Court of Appeal, or the higher courts having to deal with the issue of leave to appeal—for example, as in judicial review. Magistrates courts tend to have some very “minor” offences leading to some quite serious repercussions. When I say “minor”, I am talking only in terms of sentencing, because we must remember that offences that we call minor can have a significant impact on a defendant’s life—for example, even drink driving, which does normally not carry a custodial sentence, certainly carries a disqualification.

That is also often a mandatory disqualification so that no discretion is given to the magistrates as to whether they should disqualify somebody. If someone is the sole breadwinner, or has care of a disabled person, and they feel that this conviction was wrong, they will not have the right to appeal—because very rarely will somebody charged with those matters will be getting legal aid.

However, in the Crown court, most people will have legal aid or be using legal advice at some point, because the trial will normally be conducted by solicitors or lawyers. Therefore, they are already being paid and if there is an appeal against either conviction or sentence, they already know what they are talking about and what they need to quote—the legal jurisprudence that they need to refer to, to prove their case—along with the issues with examining the witnesses or the evidence that has been given. They are then able to say, for example, that a particular witnesses’ evidence was not credible or that a witness said contradictory things or different things in their statement to the police compared with during the trial. They can do that because they have conducted the trial and they can forensically examine what happened—not only what legal direction the judge gave, but the factual evidence that came out during the trial. In the magistrates court, most people are not represented, so they cannot argue all those things.

To take away the automatic right to appeal is, therefore, a change to the fundamental basic rights of an individual. Let us remember that the state has all the might and all the resources, and that professionals will be prosecuting—whether they are lay prosecutors, Crown prosecutors or independent lawyers. On the one side, there will be the state represented by legal professionals; on the other, there will be the lone individual coming up by themselves to be subject to trial. If they are then not satisfied with the conviction or the sentence, they must then think how to legally write an appeal. That is putting a lot of pressure on them.

As Members of Parliament, many of us will have met many constituents who are quite reluctant to even write to us. I often say to constituents, “Please can you drop us an email?” and they say, “Well, I don’t know how to use a computer, and I don’t have the internet at home.” We then make a face-to-face appointment so that they can explain themselves. That is not unusual because a lot of people are not able to write very well and would not be in a position to construct a coherent legal argument as to why they should have their appeal in the Crown court.

Sometimes, when we are talking about possible efficiencies and saving money, we forget about individuals. People who come before the criminal justice system tend to be from poorer backgrounds and are often less well educated. Some of them may well be unemployed. A lot of them have other issues going on in their lives. Therefore, the fact that they can appeal to the Crown court automatically in the current system is an immense safeguard for them.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

The hon. Member is making an important point that we have not really discussed on the Committee. It is estimated that half the prison population have a reading age of less than 11; that is to say, they are counted as functionally illiterate. We have seen a decline in prison education. How does she expect all these prison inmates to be able to negotiate or navigate an appeals process?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

That is exactly the point I am trying to make. I think we sometimes forget, sitting in our rarefied environment, that a lot of the people out there—our citizens—are not well educated or able to write a proper paragraph or construct an argument. Sometimes they can just about get two or three simple sentences together. As they often do not have legal representation, allowing them to automatically appeal against a sentence or conviction is a really important safeguard for them. The Crown court and Court of Appeal criminal division is not the right comparison, because in most Crown court cases people have full legal representation who will be able to advise on this.

The other thing we found is that apparently 40% of appeals are successful. Think about that: four out of 10 appeals are successful. If people do not have a right to appeal, they have to find a way to make a legal argument on matters of law, which they know very little about. Asking them to do that is basically letting four out of 10 people be convicted or receive a sentence that could have an impact on their lives.

On sentences, when a conviction happens, even if it is in the magistrates court, it fundamentally affects people’s lives. It could mean that they are not able to get a job again or are dismissed from the job they have. If someone’s job involves driving and they are disqualified because of drink driving, that will be an extra burden on them, but it is not just that. Even if someone gets a suspended sentence or community service order for what we call smaller offences, a lot of people are not able to do that. Taking away their right to appeal is, with respect, very harsh.

Legal aid has already been reduced considerably over the years. I have to put the blame for that on the Conservatives, because they massively cut legal aid while in government. They also massively restricted the rights of judicial review. In that respect, I have to hold the Conservatives a bit responsible for what they did in 14 years in power. I am very grateful that the Labour Government have put money into legal aid—that is great—but I ask them to please give that to the magistrates court as well.

I have travelled in different parts of the world where the justice system is perhaps a bit haphazard or where there is not much trust in the state’s justice system, for whatever reason. It does not necessarily have to do with the wealth of a country; there are very wealthy countries where the state is much more authoritarian and the institutions are almost stacked against the individual. The one thing that people really love about the UK, apart from our beautiful country and everything else, is our judicial system. I am not just saying that; it is the most respected system in the world, especially our criminal justice system, because people feel that they have protection at the point that their liberties are being taken away.

Think about a conviction for shoplifting: people say, “Oh, shoplifting,” but even if someone takes a bottle of milk out of a shop, they may get a conviction and there will be hundreds of jobs that they can never apply for. For a lot of people who rely on shop work or other manual jobs where they may come across money, it means that they are never going to get a job. If they get a conviction in the magistrates court for theft, that is devastating for them. The Theft Act refers to the “intention of permanently depriving”. That is quite important, because people make mistakes, but intention has to be proved, because the Theft Act requires it. It is not just taking the thing; it is the intention to permanently deprive. How do we define “permanently deprive”? A layperson would not know how to construct that argument, but a lawyer would.

Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Jess Brown-Fuller

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Amendment 29 would insert into subsection (3) an additional ground for a lengthy or complex case to be tried without a jury in England or Wales, to require agreement by the defence and the prosecution that the trial is likely to exceed five months. Amendment 30 is almost self-explanatory: it would provide a right of appeal against a judge’s decision to prevent a case from going to a jury trial. We seek to give a right of appeal to the defence—and the prosecution—if the judge decides that the case fits the category of a complex case such as a fraud case. Amendments 31 to 33 would add additional offences to the list of offences that will be excluded from the provisions of clause 4. Offences such as homicide, including under road traffic legislation, will be excluded, and amendments 31 to 33 would extend that list.

I want to speak both to clause 4 and to clause 5, which, as I understand it, will enable clause 4. Unlike the provisions in clauses 1 to 3, clauses 4 and 5 at least provide that the defence and the prosecution may make representations before a judge directs a trial without a jury. I acknowledge that that is a meaningful procedural difference, but the principle remains deeply troubling, and I want to explain why. It is a further restriction on the right to trial by jury; more cases could be caught by this provision, which means that people will not be able to have a trial by jury.

The central argument for clauses 4 and 5 is that certain cases—fraud cases, multi-handed cases or those involving extensive financial or digital evidence—are simply too complex or long for a jury to follow. I have to say directly that I find that argument unfair to ordinary members of the public. Trial by jury is not simply a procedural mechanism; it is a fundamental expression of the relationship between the citizen and the state. It says that, when the state seeks to deprive a person of their liberty, that judgment will not be made by the state alone but by 12 of that person’s fellow citizens. That is important, because it is embedded in our legal tradition.

Let me speak from direct experience: in my years of criminal practice, I never once saw a jury that looked confused, overwhelmed or unable to follow the case before them. One of the last cases I conducted at the Bar was a seven-handed trial at the central criminal court. It went on for a number of weeks and involved serious allegations, multiple defendants, CCTV evidence and complex factual issues. Some of the defendants were charged with murder and manslaughter, there were issues such as joinder—agreement by different groups of people about whether they were committing crimes or not—and all sorts of legal directives had to be given. As it happened, the jury followed the evidence, assessed it and reached its verdicts. That has been my experience across many cases, including complex fraud, multi-defendant drug conspiracies and cases involving technical or sensitive evidence.

One of the jobs I had as a prosecutor was as a specialist casework lawyer for London CPS, which meant dealing with some of the most complex cases. When I was in the CPS, I also worked on proceeds of crime cases. In fact, I was what they call a POCA—Proceeds of Crime Act 2002—specialist for my branch. We were looking at financial auditing and asset recovery, deciding what kind of charges to go by, dealing with the issues of undercover operations, surveillance evidence, what we call the RIPA—Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 —rules, and cases involving public officials. Across all of that experience, the issue was never whether the jury could follow the evidence; the issue was whether the case was properly presented.

Given the way trials work, what a prosecutor presents to a jury is exactly what they would present to a judge. They explain the evidence, they connect the facts and the dots, and they build a case. The process does not change, but the audience does. If the evidence is presented clearly, a jury can follow it. If it is not, that is a failure of advocacy, not a failure of the jury, and the judge will get as confused as anybody else.

For example, if a prosecutor is trying to prove certain things, they will say, “If you look at exhibit 25 on page 1,000 of the jury bundle, you will see that this phone belongs to the defendant,” and create a link. Then they will say that another page shows the evidence extracted from the phone and explain how that is linked. They would do that for a judge as well, because judges want the prosecution to explain things to them, too. They must do that and follow the continuity of the evidence.

At the end of the day, whether the case involves insider dealing or financial accounting, people can see if the information is presented to them properly. The prosecutor might show them a document that says there was x amount of money in one account, but it went missing and has now been found in another person’s account. It is about making sure that all the dots are connected, and they would have to do that with a judge as well. The judge will not just flick through the papers and say, “Ms Prosecutor, you can just sit down and I’ll go through it.” The prosecutor, through their witnesses or their physical evidence or their section 9 statements or section 10 admissions, will have to prove each and every aspect of the case and the role each defendant played in it.

Although a number of people may be charged with one offence, we know that under our criminal law the sentence they can get if convicted varies depending on the role they played in the crime. Issues include who counselled it, procured it, aided and abetted it—who played what role—and people will be sentenced accordingly. Again, that is a matter on which a prosecutor or defence counsel would show everyone evidence and say, “This is what happened.” Therefore, it really makes no difference whether the case is being presented to jurors or a judge.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

Does the hon. Lady agree with His Honour Geoffrey Rivlin KC, who argued that jury trials could actually impose discipline in complex fraud cases, whereas in a judge-only trial there is no incentive to get on and hear all the evidence? He also said that in such cases, juries decide issues of dishonesty and facts that are not necessarily technical, meaning that 12 jurors are in a much better position to reach a decision based on dishonesty.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I could go on and on explaining how evidence is presented, but all I will say from my years of experience—not just in the CPS, but in the independent Bar as well—is that I have gone through thousands of pages of documents, and juries have reacted to that and been able to deal with the cases unfazed. The issue is how well the evidence is presented, and counsel would have the same duty to do that in front of a judge.

In some respects, a jury trial is better when legal issues or the admissibility of evidence have to be determined during a trial. In a jury trial, the judge can send the jury out and listen to everyone’s representations about whether something should be admitted or not, and then make a decision. That is helpful because juries then never know about all the debates that have taken place. Sometimes there is evidence that a party wants to be admitted that is inadmissible or would be prejudicial.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Amendments 34 and 71 are probing amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed). I will not be asking for them to be put to a vote.

Amendment 34 concerns magistrates’ sentencing powers. The amendment would remove the word “regulations” and insert

“made by the affirmative resolution procedure”

to prevent significant changes from being made to the sentencing powers of magistrates courts without a proper debate and vote in Parliament. If such changes are to be made, Parliament should fully discuss their impacts. Amendment 71 is consequential on amendment 34.

Clause 6 increases magistrates’ sentencing powers to 24 months. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many people, that represents a restriction on appeals. If sentencing powers are increased while access to appeals is reduced, which is what is being done in clause 7, the risks to fairness in the system are significantly heightened, particularly for those without legal representation, given that the rules for legal aid in the magistrates court are very different from those in the Crown court.

For those reasons, the Bill raises fundamental questions about fairness, trust and the proper functioning of the justice system. The solution to delay is not to remove our historical safeguards, but to fix the system. I ask the Minister to consider whether it is right to give the magistrates court the power to impose sentences of 24 months, which is a considerable period. If that is being contemplated, there should be a proper debate and a vote in Parliament; it should not be put through on the nod.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

Amendment 13, which was tabled in my name, provides that magistrates’ sentencing powers cannot be increased beyond 12 months, which would keep the Bill in line with Leveson’s suggestions. The Government have failed to take into account the impact that increasing magistrates’ sentencing powers will have. Magistrates’ backlogs are increasing, and magistrates courts are not set up to take on more complex cases.

The Government are also making some bold assumptions about the speed at which magistrates can clear these cases. They have their own backlog to face, which stands at 379,000 cases and increasing. That is a 17% increase on the previous year, which comes alongside a major cut to the number of magistrates over the past decade or so, from 28,000 to just over 14,000. Removing the power of defendants to elect, plus the changes in sentencing powers, will increase the workload of magistrates courts, and the system will struggle to absorb that. Magistrates will be required to deal with more complex cases despite the summary nature of their jurisdiction. Either they will be unable to handle those cases and will send them to the Crown court, or they will risk delivering poor-quality justice, which would let down victims and defendants alike.

The cohort affected by this change consists by definition of defendants expected to receive a prison sentence of between one and two years. The impact assessment shows that the Government assume that each of these trials in the magistrates courts will be completed within just four hours. The impact assessment also assumes that cases involving a guilty plea will take just 30 minutes. Either the impact assessment is incorrect or these cases will not receive the scrutiny they deserve.

Our other amendment, amendment 21, would make changing the general limit on custodial sentences for either-way offences in the magistrates court possible by affirmative resolution only. It is very similar to amendment 34, which the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden spoke to on behalf of her hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central. The amendment would ensure that any changes to magistrates’ sentencing powers—if amendment 13, to limit their powers, is not passed—is subject to the affirmative procedure. It would give greater parliamentary oversight, as all changes would have to pass through a Delegated Legislation Committee. Leaving that to the discretion of the Lord Chancellor is not a strong enough condition; it does not provide enough scrutiny or protection against rogue actors. The measure was also recommended by the Law Society of England and Wales. It would provide just that protection, and would ensure that Parliament would have and maintain its say in matters.

Courts and Tribunals Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Jess Brown-Fuller

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The Institute for Government also said that juries do not take up that much time—they save more time. The point is that, without too much difficulty, we could get the courts up and running and working for extra sitting days. Essentially, if we had more court sitting days, we would not have the backlog; it is not the juries that are causing the backlog.

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that the 2025 Criminal Bar Association study noted that one in five barristers are considering leaving the criminal Bar, not because of the ineffectiveness of jury trials but because they have to work in crumbling buildings, because there is a significant administrative burden associated with passing on information to the CPS and because of the number of ineffective cases that then do not go ahead? Does she agree that if we tackle the inefficiencies in courts, we are more likely to improve our retention of criminal barristers and encourage some of them to come back into the profession because the system will work better?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree. The state of some of the courts in this country is sad. They are completely neglected, which creates a lot of challenges.

Courts and Tribunals Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Jess Brown-Fuller

Thursday 16th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I will speak to amendment 18, tabled in my name, which seeks to ensure that a defendant has the right to appeal against a judge’s decision to allocate a case for trial by judge alone, whether because of the likely sentence length or because the case is assessed to be complex or lengthy. I will also be supporting amendment 40, tabled in the name of the shadow Minister, and amendment 28, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden.

As stated, triable either-way offences, with potential sentences of up to three years, could be tried in the new Crown court bench division swift court. I argue that cases where a defendant may receive a sentence of up to three years are not minor offences; we are talking about life-changing sentences. Often in this category, we are talking about possession with intent to supply, actual bodily harm, death by careless driving, or section 20 unlawful wounding or grievous bodily harm, including where there is a grave injury. We must safeguard those sorts of cases against rough justice—an issue that much of the legal profession has warned could arise. It is vital that the Government provide an appeal system against decisions on whether to allocate a case for trial in front of a judge or jury.

I would like some clarification from the Minister: when we talk about summary offences, indictable offences and then triable either-way offences, are the measures being introduced in this Bill removing the concept of triable either-way offences? Are we then moving all those categories of offences into what are described as summary offences—these offences that carry long, life-changing sentences?

Briefly, amendment 28 would add a procedural requirement, but it is an important one because it would mean that the court could not simply decide, on the papers, to move a case to a judge-only trial; both parties would have to have first been given the opportunity to argue the point at a hearing, and only if both sides expressly gave up that right could the court proceed without one.

That goes back to the point that I raised earlier about the Canadian model, which I know the Government have been exploring and have spent time in Canada looking at. There, people have the right to elect a judge-only trial, so there is still an element of choosing what that looks like. That is not what this Government are proposing; they are proposing that there be no choice in the system, and that there be no legal precedent for it. I would appreciate the Minister’s answer to that.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I will speak to amendment 28, regarding page 9, line 20 of the Bill. Essentially, the amendment states that, if the prosecution and defence waive their right to a hearing, the court can then make a determination under proposed new section 74AB of the Senior Courts Act 1981. That proposed new section, which will be introduced by clause 3, contains provisions regarding what the court must look at when determining allocation, such as whether a jury trial is to be declined. It is a fairly self-explanatory amendment, but a vital safeguard.

Courts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Jess Brown-Fuller

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The restriction on some cases not being tried in jury trials is because the Government feel that that will help to bring down the delay in court listing. I say to the Government that the problem is not the jury system, but the fact that other provisions need to be made sufficient. I am afraid that the problem was 14 years of Conservative cuts—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was a Member then. The Conservative Government did not take the Ministry of Justice seriously. There was a Lord Chancellor virtually every year—in 14 years, I think we had 10 Lord Chancellors, which tells us how important the criminal justice system was to the now Opposition.

To go back to my point about clause 1, and all the other clauses that follow, I urge my colleagues and the Minister to please rethink this whole thing. Juries are not the cause of the delay in our system.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

I will speak about the Liberal Democrats’ opposition to clause 1. The main reason why clause 1 should not be included in the Bill is that it fundamentally transforms the relationships that defendants have with the justice system. It is really important to make it clear that we are talking about defendants who have entered a not guilty plea, rather than the language that has been used this morning.

In particular, clause 1 removes the defendant’s ability to object to summary trial in the magistrates court—a process that is streamlined for swift justice and should be reserved for less serious cases. In his independent review of the criminal courts, Sir Brian Leveson recommended removing the right to elect a Crown court trial for certain low-level either-way offences that carry a maximum sentence length of two years or less. The Bill would remove the right to elect Crown court trial for all either-way offences. Concerns have been raised publicly about that, including the quality of justice, the capacity of the magistrates court and the fairness of applying this retrospectively.

Magistrates courts also face an increasing backlog, which is currently at 379,000 cases. That is a 17% increase on the previous year, alongside a huge drop in the number of magistrates over the past 20 years—from 28,300 to now 14,600. I am very aware that the Government are embarking on a journey to try to bring more magistrates into the system, but as they increase the number of magistrates, there are also magistrates leaving the system, so it is a real struggle to increase the number.

Removing the power of defendants to elect will increase the workload of the magistrates court, and the system will struggle to absorb that. Many in the legal profession have made that point. It would also be unfair to apply this change retrospectively. Consent is the appropriate basis for the most serious cases to be tried within a summary process. Changing the provision for more serious offences—to be clear, we are talking about things like possession with intent to supply, unlawful wounding and sexual assault—risks miscarriages of justice, as more serious cases would face summary trials in higher volumes, with reduced rights of appeal.