Courts and Tribunals Bill (Sixth sitting)

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

To the extent that it is necessary, I declare an interest in that I used to be a solicitor regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and registered with the Law Society. I, too, support amendments 25, 12 and 43. They are not technical or political amendments, but constitutional amendments, and I hope that the Committee will consider them in that spirit.

Let me begin with some facts that I think we can all agree on. There are thousands of defendants who are currently part-way through the criminal justice process having made a formal, consequential and, they thought, irreversible election to be tried by jury in the Crown court. They made that election under the law as it existed when they made it—indeed, as it exists today. If the Bill passes unamended, that election, that choice, that right, which they have already exercised, will be taken away from them before they ever reach trial. It is a bitter irony that they have not yet reached trial because of the situation that the country is in. I accept that it is not this Government’s fault that we are where we are, but the state is the state, and the Government are responsible for it. For those people to be awaiting trial because of the state and then have their rights taken away from them by the state because of this Government’s actions goes far beyond disagreement on the Bill and on the principle of jury trial, no matter how important that is.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

I am sure that we are all looking forward to a rather long afternoon listening to the hon. Member’s speech. Does he agree that this is also about the victims, some of whom the Committee heard evidence from, who did not have a right not to have their freedoms taken away, did not have a right not to be attacked, do not have a right to elect, do not have a right to speed up the process, and do not have a right to an earlier trial, before it collapses when other people pull out of the process? While he is making a very important point about ensuring that we have a just system for defendants, does he agree that we must also ensure that victims are centred in this?

[Joe Robertson]

I look forward to spending the afternoon exchanging ideas with the hon. Member. Let me begin by expanding a little on what I had intended to say. I do not agree with the narrative that it is either the defendant or the victim who wins out, not least because not every defendant is a guilty person. I would also say that victims of the worst crimes, when they are waiting for a guilty person to be found as such, already face the backlog. They will not have a choice to go to the magistrates court, because those are not either-way offences.

The jury system will always take longer, and the people who have suffered the worst will always be subject to the longer jury trial. There is a reason why that is right: a jury is asked to take a decision on whether something happened, and its decision could mean that someone loses their liberty for a very long time. The criminal system in this country is tilted in favour of the defendant, so I am afraid that it is tilted in favour of people who commit heinous crimes. However, in our system we must believe that those who commit heinous crimes will be found out, convicted and serve the very toughest sentences.

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Article 7 is one of the convention’s non-derogable rights; it cannot be suspended even in time of war or public emergency. The 2025 edition of the ECHR guide on article 7 confirms that the guarantee applies not only to the definition of the offence, but to provisions setting the penalties incurred.

[Alex McIntyre]

It is refreshing to hear a Conservative Member defending the European convention on human rights. Can he confirm whether it is now the Conservative party’s position to support the ECHR, or is it for withdrawing from it, as it was last year?

[Joe Robertson]

I continue to be grateful to the hon. Member for hanging on my every word, and I am grateful for the opportunity to expand on that. As I said, it is a basic tenet of English common law, and the ECHR effectively replicates what is already in our legal system. I am very happy to engage in a wide-ranging debate on the ECHR, but I fear that you, Ms Jardine, are also hanging on my every word and may stop me.

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[Joe Robertson]

I will go on to my next bit, which is even more relevant than my previous bit.

The Police (Detention and Bail) Act 2011 is Parliament’s most recent example of retrospective criminal legislation. It reversed the effect of the High Court’s decision in R (on the application of Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police) v. Salford Magistrates’ Court and Hookway on the calculation of detention time under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and did so by deeming the amendments always to have had effect. They had not.

The then Policing Minister described the matter as too urgent to await a Supreme Court appeal. This Government have made no case that the current backlog is so urgent that it must be all shifted to the magistrates court. It wants to tackle the backlog, yes, by changing the right to elect, but removing people who have made that election into a different court is something quite different. The Government have not argued that it is too urgent. That is unsurprising, because it is plainly not. Even in the emergency context of the Police (Detention and Bail) Act, when the Government faced systemic liability for unlawful detentions, the retrospective approach attracted intense criticism, just as I am criticising this Government. It was acknowledged in the explanatory notes that it was deliberately retrospective and it remains subject to potential ECHR challenge.

It is interesting to note that this legislation may also be subject to challenge, even if it leaves this place and passes into law. No equivalent emergency exists here; there is no systemic liability to reverse. The War Crimes Act 1991 is cited as a paradigm case of retrospective criminal legislation, allowing proceedings for war crimes committed in German-occupied territory in the second world war, notwithstanding that the defendants were not British at the time. Parliament considered that the exception was justified by the gravity of the crimes involved—they were heinous crimes—but even then the Act was controversial.

[Alex McIntyre]

I thank the hon. Member for giving possibly the longest wind-up in the history of wind-ups. I have two questions for him. First, does he recognise that both examples of retrospective legislation that he mentions were made by a Conservative Government? Secondly, what number does the backlog need to hit before he deems it urgent that the Government tackle it?

[Joe Robertson]

I think it is for the Government to set out the state of emergency. I do not accept that there is one; in fact, I do not think the Government are saying that there is one, when it comes to taking away a right that someone has already elected. We are not talking about getting rid of jury trials for a trial for either-way offences. I disagree with that; we have dealt with that, and we will go back to it. In this clause, we are talking about applying that to a number of people who have already made an election. It is for the Government to set out the emergency. I do not believe that there is one, and I think that they have not set it out because they do not believe that there is one.

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[Alex McIntyre]

The Minister has been really clear in her response. This morning, the shadow Minister was extolling some intellectually coherent arguments that the Conservative party has now discovered. I wonder whether he might return to them for this afternoon’s session.

[Dr Mullan]

I think that wanting defendants to have the ability to challenge allocation decisions as they stand under a new court is pretty intellectually coherent. I am arguing that these are potentially significant, consequential decisions for defendants, and at the moment, as the Minister has explained, we all agree that there is a high bar for judicial review. I am not confident, and the Minister has not given me confidence, that the judicial review element absolutely exists.

The Minister has talked about appeal; she is right that there is no right of appeal for the allocation decision at the magistrates court, but there is a right to judicial review and I am not sure that there is in this clause. It is unsatisfactory that we may have to vote on it.