King’s Speech

Baroness Mattinson Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mattinson (Lab)]

My Lords, it is both an honour and a little intimidating to follow some of the brilliant speeches we have heard this afternoon, in particular the valedictory speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. He will be very much missed.

I will talk briefly about the proposed reforms to jury service, which is a subject very dear to my heart. As an undergraduate law student back in the day, I wrote my final-year dissertation on the value of jury service to the English legal system. Back then, I was passionate about how the principle of jury service, the right to be judged by our fellow citizens, was justifiably a cornerstone of British justice and a powerful protection against state overreach. I am still passionate about those things. More recently, working in politics, I have also argued that the principle of legal juries could usefully be extended to wider policy-making through the introduction of citizens’ juries where fellow citizens deliberate, debate and judge policy. I think that would also be very useful.

Frankly, you would go a long way to find somebody who was more of a champion of jury service—its principles and process—than I am, so it is strange to find myself here supporting proposals in this King’s Speech to reduce access to jury service. But support them I do, because our justice system today—unlike the justice system when I wrote my undergraduate thesis all those years ago—is in crisis. This Government have inherited a situation, after years of underfunding and neglect, in which some 80,000 cases are awaiting trial, bringing untold anguish to the victims of those crimes, who are often unable to move on with their lives. Many victims wait for years for justice, with 21,000 cases waiting more than a year.

My noble friend the Minister has eloquently set out a series of measures designed at last to tackle this head-on and to address the backlog. I strongly support these proposals and believe that they are, as my noble friend the Minister has said, proportionate and sensible. They are a price worth paying to end the agonising and unacceptable weight that victims and their families—and those seeking to clear their names—have been forced to endure in recent years. They know better than most that justice delayed is justice denied.

At a time when trust in politicians and politics is at an all-time low, we hear a lot about how Governments fail to tackle or take on the tough decisions, too often choosing instead the easy route, which is to kick the challenge into the long grass and, in doing so, prop up the failing status quo while the vulnerable live with the consequences of that broken system. I am proud and relieved that this Government are prepared to be bold—to grasp the nettle and put victims of crime first.

Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill

Baroness Mattinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 7th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mattinson (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend Lady Nichols on her absolutely brilliant and very moving maiden speech. It is great to be sitting here with her today.

I thank my noble friend the Minister for his excellent work on this very difficult issue. I believe he was absolutely right to respond as he has. I think this is a question of how we preserve the public’s trust in our legal system. As we all know, unfortunately, we generally trust institutions much less nowadays, especially government and politics. That said, the British legal system enjoys a relatively high rating with the public, at 62%, versus the OECD average of 54%. This is something we must work hard to preserve and should feel very proud of.

There is, rightly, some concern that ethnic minorities are overrepresented in the prison system, as the Lammy review, for instance, found recently. However, the majority of the public does not see the sort of sentencing guidelines that are being discussed today—taking into account religious or ethnic background—as the solution. The polling on this is pretty clear: 72% of the public oppose these moves and 52% strongly oppose them. This clarity extends across the whole population. There are some differences between gender, age and so on, but, basically, that majority view—and particularly that strength of feeling—is held across all groups.

Essentially, it seems that the public believe that sentencing guidelines of this type risk being unfair and disregarding the complexity of causes that need to be taken into account. It might be that the public could, and perhaps should, know more about how sentences are set, but it certainly seems to me that simply saying that they are wrong is not the answer.

I therefore agree that introducing such sentencing guidelines is more likely to create resentment, and risks causing more problems than it solves and breaking that vital bond of trust between the public and the legal system that matters so much. I support the Bill very strongly.