Victims and Courts Bill

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Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 25th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I welcome that question from my hon. Friend, and he is right. We need incremental progress on our shared ambition to go further on court transcripts. I am clear that this is not the end point, but part of the broader effort to improve access, transparency and support for victims.

I have been working with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who is a tireless campaigner on this issue, as are many other campaign groups, such as Open Justice. I pay tribute to them for all the work that they have done on getting free sentencing transcripts for everyone in the Crown court. We want to go further, with the experiences of victims at the heart of what we do. It is important that we consult with others in this place and outside it on what would be the most beneficial next step, particularly for court transcripts and cases that end in acquittal.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I was slightly concerned when I heard the Minister say that she was “working at pace”—that is the phrase that Ministers in the Ministry of Defence have used about the defence investment plan, which has been repeatedly postponed and still is not with us—so can she give a more precise timescale? Does that mean sometime in the next 12 months?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I cannot speak for the Ministry of Defence, but I can speak for my own record here as the Minister and my own actions in government when it comes to delivering for victims. I am happy to put on record that we are working at pace to deliver this. The hon. Gentleman will see what measures come back in the Lords and what commitments we can make once we look at what is possible, practical, workable and effective.

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Thirdly, we will consider how to embed these improvements through the statutory victims code, and the forthcoming duty on agencies to promote awareness of the code. We are currently consulting on a new victims code to ensure that we get the foundations for victims right. I encourage all Members to respond to the consultation to represent the views of victims they are hearing from in their constituencies. We will continue to test whether we are getting this right, as any change in the ULS scheme must be right for victims first and foremost.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The Minister will forgive me if I describe what she has announced as a whole load of waffle. The problem is that the 28-day period is too short, and she should consider some mechanism to allow it to be extended. Providing for training, notices and stuff on websites will not help many victims, who just need more time to consider their legal position. At this late stage, will she consider extending the 28-day period?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I am afraid that the hon. Member must not have heard what I said before I came to non-legislative changes. The Government are committed to bringing forward legislative changes on that time limit and to consider out-of-time applications by families. We have listened directly to the families about what they want. We could have brought forward an amendment that simply extended the time limit, but the families told us directly that that was not what they wanted. I listened to victims, the Government listened to victims, and in this victims Bill we will do as the victims have asked.

We will continue to test on getting this right, because it is important that we get it right first time. We are confident that we will soon be able to update the House on a workable legislative solution. For those reasons, the Government cannot accept Lords amendments 5 and 6.

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[Nick Timothy]

I think the Minister has been taking lessons from the Prime Minister. She may as well have been reading the phonebook in answering the question. [Interruption.] Well, the answer that she just gave was completely unsatisfactory. There was an attempt to delete the archive.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

If there was no intention to delete the data, why did the Chair of the Justice Committee write to the Lord Chancellor asking him to stop the deletion of that data?

[Nick Timothy]

That is a good point. The Minister has her side of the argument, but on the other side is the Justice Committee, pretty much every journalist involved in crime and court reporting, the company involved and Opposition parties of all colours. I think we know what is going on. I was relieved that, after the Conservative campaign to save Courtsdesk, the Justice Secretary bottled it and backed down. He should do the same today by backing Lords amendments 1 and 3.

The lack of transparency in our criminal justice system explains some of the darkest moments in our history. The crimes of the rape gangs were despicable. They were racially and religiously aggravated, and victims were targeted because of their vulnerability. The criminals were not just the rapists but all those who colluded and were complicit in those depraved, sustained attacks: police officers, social workers, local officials and councillors. Some were guilty because they abused those poor girls themselves, some because they helped others to abuse them, and some because they had the chance to stop it but refused to do so. Some were motivated by malice, and some chose to tolerate evil because they did not want to challenge the official narrative about diversity and multiculturalism.

With the rape gangs, and with other acts of corruption and criminality, we know that the politics of communalism is so often lurking. In parts of our country, clan culture is corrupting our public institutions and the rule of law itself. As we saw in the west midlands recently, the authorities chose not only to turn a blind eye, but to make themselves the willing tools of those they should confront. If we want to confront all these things, and if we want to save our country from corruption and ruin, we need victims of crime, journalists, campaigners and the general public to be given the information that they need to expose the truth. We need the Government not to hinder this noble cause, but to use their power to ensure that justice is done. That is why we need far more transparency in the justice system, and why today we will vote in favour of Lords amendments 1 and 3.

Courts and Tribunals Bill

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2nd reading
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I support the reasoned amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, which declines to give this Bill a Second Reading. I do so because while there are some useful measures in the Bill, at its heart is an unjust proposal. The Government’s plan to curtail jury trials is wrong.

[Sarah Russell]

I respect the hon. Gentleman and understand that his concerns about the Bill are genuinely rooted. None the less, the presumption of parental involvement being revoked in this Bill is absolutely critical, and I do not understand how he can proceed with a reasoned amendment that would kill the entire Bill on that basis.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The right to a trial by jury is central to the English legal system. It has its roots in Magna Carta. It ensures that the public participate in the administration of criminal justice and gives protection to citizens from politically inspired trials. It is regrettable that some parts of the Labour party seem to take delight in tearing up long-held principles that underpin our constitution simply because it is politically expedient to do so. They are shredding our constitution without much thought as to the consequences.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

Removing jury trials is surely an erosion of the criminal justice system. As the hon. Gentleman has alluded to, one judge cannot provide the same scrutiny as 12 random jurors. If the need is to reduce the backlog, maybe we should consider using courtrooms 100% of the time to actually reduce the backlog in the first place.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

I agree with the hon. Lady’s point. The Government are changing the balance of power between the citizen and the state, then pleading delays in Crown court trials as justification.

This policy of curtailing the right to jury trials is ideological. In January, the Courts Minister was asked about the plans to overhaul jury trials. She admitted that she would be scrapping jury trials even if there was no courts backlog. I wonder how many Labour colleagues agree with her. I think that is disgraceful, and I suspect that there are more than 80 Labour MPs who agree with me.

There is no doubt that the Crown court backlog is a serious issue. The Leveson report contains many useful proposals to improve the criminal justice system, and I will support them, but the backlog was not caused by the right to trial by jury, and it will not be alleviated by curtailing that right.

In my view, the solution is to increase the capacity of the Crown court, and in fairness, parts of the Bill aim to do that. However, why does the Lord Chancellor think that abolishing jury trials for those likely to receive a sentence of three years or less is the right thing to do? Senior judges, legal professionals, and even learned Labour MPs have all warned that removing juries will make only a marginal difference—if any—and as a former solicitor, I agree. Judges themselves have said that the supposed time savings are inherently uncertain. Single-judge trials still require full evidence, witnesses, legal argument and detailed, reasoned judgments. That takes time; in fact, the Bill risks leaving courtrooms empty while judges write up their decisions instead of hearing other cases.

There are other reforms that we should make before sacrificing the right to trial by jury. To take one example, the Lord Chancellor should look at the wider efficiency of the Ministry of Justice. For the past two years, the MOJ—which includes the courts service—lost the highest number of days to sickness and absence per member of staff in the whole of Whitehall. Each employee took an average of 10.7 days of sickness, which equates to over two working weeks a year for every member of staff. Not only is that 30% higher than the civil service average, but it is double the average of the private sector. I have always thought that sickness is a fairly good indication of how well a company, charity or Department is run, and perhaps if the Lord Chancellor focused his efforts on improving the efficiency of his own Department, he might start to see the whole system improve.

The Lord Chancellor should also look at the listing practices of different court circuits in England. The western circuit, which covers Somerset, has a much lower backlog than London does, and the Liverpool circuit is probably the most efficient in the country. Why does the Lord Chancellor not try to replicate the listing practices of the Liverpool circuit before taking this disastrous step? He has previously said that cutting jury trials would be a mistake—in the past, he thought that was wrong. I believe that his first judgment, according to his conscience, was the right one, and I urge him to reconsider his plans.

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[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

I am delighted to speak as an enthusiastic supporter of the Courts and Tribunals Bill. I wish to put on record my thanks to both the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Courts and Legal Services for their excellent work before the Bill came to this place, which included consulting with Back Benchers at every opportunity.

This is a critical piece of legislation that will rebuild our buckling criminal justice system after years and years of neglect. I will keep my remarks focused on the important context within which this Bill should be considered. We must, in this place, be absolutely clear that the previous Government left the criminal justice system on the brink of collapse. It is important to acknowledge this challenging landscape, so that victims, those who work within the criminal justice system and the wider public can all appreciate exactly why this Government are taking forward the bold measures in the Bill.

Whichever part of the criminal justice system we inspect, we see the devastating impact of the swingeing cutbacks and gross mismanagement of the previous Government—cuts to prisons, cuts to the Probation Service, cuts to legal aid, cuts to the Crown courts, cuts to policing and cuts to the Crown Prosecution Service.

What I find most frustrating is that we too often forget our inheritance, and we must not do so when we go into the Lobbies this evening. We cannot forget the chronic backlog of cases in the Crown courts that we inherited. We must always understand that this is not a static problem, but a compounding one. If we do not proceed with the measures in the Bill, we will not be able to improve the situation in the Crown courts. Instead, it will deteriorate further and the backlog will spiral out of control. The situation is simply inexcusable. We must understand that it is impossible to defend the status quo. Without structural reform, the criminal justice system will continue to buckle, which is why I am such a keen advocate of it.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The hon. Member seems entirely ignorant of the success in Liverpool Crown court, where from 23 June, Operation Expedite reduced court delays by one third. Does he not think that it is worth replicating that experiment, which has been so successful in Liverpool, before curtailing the right to trial by jury?

[Lloyd Hatton]

I completely accept that there have been successes in some parts of the country, including in Liverpool, but that is not the case elsewhere, which is why a much wider package of structural reforms is essential. I firmly believe, in response to that point, that we must pull every lever at our disposal to stabilise the system and begin to turn the corner on the rising backlog in the Crown court. We need transformative change, backed up by investment and modernisation, to fix the problem. That is not optional; it is essential. That is why, in my view, the reforms in the Bill form a coherent package designed to deliver system-wide change. We cannot indulge in a game of pick and mix and simply implement the measures that we prefer. We must understand that, to relieve the scale of pressure currently facing the Crown courts and the wider criminal justice system, this Bill must make its way through this place.

Oral Answers to Questions

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Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jake Richards]

It was fantastic to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency with her just last week to visit a facility in the youth custody service, and I look forward to visiting Rochester prison with her in the future. She is right to raise this issue. There are real fiscal pressures when the two twin strategic objectives for this Department are dealing with a prison capacity crisis inherited from the previous Government and pressures in our courts, but that does not mean that we are going to overlook the importance of educational work in the prison system. We are looking at working with the third sector and the private sector to ensure that we can provide adequate provision while maintaining our two strategic aims of stabilising the prison system and solving the backlog.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Next year, the Government will spend more money on education in prisons, yet they will actually commission 25% less education by way of quantity of service. Why are they doing such a poor job of commissioning education on behalf of the taxpayer?

[Jake Richards]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who asked this question last week as well. We are raising the quality of the provision of education, but he is right to identify some issues with the contracts that the last Conservative Government entered into, which we are having to look at and deal with. As I said to him last week, it is important that we look at alternatives to those contracts. As I have just said, that includes working with the third sector and looking at how we can get more private sector provision. It also includes, as he said last week, working with governors individually to ensure that they have more autonomy and power to bring in educational facilities from local colleges and universities where it is possible and safe. I am getting to work to do that this week.

Prison Capacity: Annual Statement

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Thursday 29th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jake Richards]

My hon. Friend has been a champion on this issue for a long time. I am very happy to meet with her and the group to discuss the complexities of the issue, because it is very complex. I will get my office to arrange that in due course.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. He said that the release of prisoners will depend on their behaviour while inside. Can he confirm that his definition of good behaviour will include mandatory attendance at education and training, which should result in reduced reoffending, and can he advise the House how he will achieve that, given that the Government will commission 25% less education in the coming year? He says the reason for that is that the price has increased. Well, that is because the Government only contract very large quantity contracts. Were he to delegate those budgets to prison governors and give them the freedom to use local suppliers, rather than relying on two or three enormous providers that have the Government over a barrel, the price would fall.

[Jake Richards]

I am sympathetic to the argument that the hon. Member makes. We need to look at how we involve third sector and private sector organisations wherever possible, and we are looking at that. Clearly the adjudication process will be developed and implemented over the coming months, now that the Sentencing Act 2026 has received Royal Assent, but to my mind it is a welcome reform, based on the Texas model, which showed that it was possible to close prisons, reduce crime and save the taxpayer billions of dollars. We hope to achieve a similar outcome.

Public Office (Accountability) Bill

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Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her questions, and I make that commitment to her. The Prime Minister was clear on Second Reading that the Bill as introduced was agreed with Hillsborough Law Now and the families, and would not be watered down. We will do all that we can to strengthen the Bill. We will continue to work with the families. I, too, pay tribute to Elkan Abrahamson and Pete Weatherby, whom the Government met this morning to discuss next steps. We met the families again today to discuss ongoing collaboration, which will continue. The families will be at the forefront of this, because this is their Bill. This is a legacy, and we want to ensure that we do right by them and bring forward the Hillsborough law.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her statement, and ask her for two points of clarification. Does she believe that it is appropriate for the heads of the intelligence services to determine what information is provided to an investigation, or should that be determined by someone else, and does she accept that in the early stages of the Bill, the Government were clear that it would not be possible to make the Bill applicable to individual agents? How can the House have confidence that we can now do that without creating unacceptable risks to national security?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

The primary objective of this Government, and I hope of every Government, is to protect national security and to keep our citizens safe. That is, and will continue to be, of utmost importance to this Government and to this Prime Minister. We will continue to work with the intelligence services. We have had a very collaborative working relationship with them during the development of this Bill. That relationship will continue. We would never do anything that would jeopardise or undermine national security; we have been very clear about that. The families have also been very clear that that is not their intention, and they totally understand this. We think there is a way forward. The Government introduced amendments to ensure that the Bill applied to individual agents, and we did that by working with the heads of the intelligence services directly and with the security services. We will continue to work collaboratively with them and with the families on finding a way forward.

Jury Trials

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Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

I do not agree that the Government should curtail our rights to trial by jury. Trial by jury is an ancient right in England and the very essence of our criminal justice system. Combined with the Government proposals for digital ID, it reveals a very authoritarian attitude. It marks a significant shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the state, and I shall vote against it.

There is a crisis within the criminal justice system and specifically with the Crown court backlog, but that backlog was not caused by trial by jury and will not be cured by its removal. Why does the Lord Chancellor believe that abolishing the right to jury trials for those likely to receive a sentence of three years or less is the right thing to do to bring down the backlog? If it is based on evidence, as he says, will he publish that as soon as possible?

In the last two years, Government figures show that the Ministry of Justice, which includes the court service, lost the highest number of days per member of staff in sickness and absence in the whole of Whitehall, at an average of 10.7 days of sickness—more than two working weeks for every member of staff. That is more than 30% higher than the civil service average and over twice the UK average if the private sector is included. Were the Lord Chancellor to focus his efforts on improving the efficiency of his own Department, he might start to see the system as a whole improve.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

I was not going to intervene, but I think it is important to because I have just visited Bournemouth Crown court and magistrates court, and the people there talked about that question of sickness. They talked about the fact that their staff have been carrying the load for so many members of a team who were not in place because they had seen austerity. Many staff in the Crown court system may be going on to sickness leave because they are burned out. They are burned out from years of cuts. Does the hon. Member not recognise that we need to invest in our Crown court system so that they can get back on their feet and our criminal justice can also get back on its feet?

[Sir Ashley Fox]

In my experience, staff absence is normally the result of poor management. I suspect that the Ministry of Justice is managing its staff significantly worse than the rest of the civil service if staff sickness is 30% above the public sector average, which is not great to begin with. With approximately 16,400 staff in the court service, simply reducing the rate of absences to the civil service average would free up nearly 50,000 working days. That would help cut the backlog without undermining the principle of a fair trial.

We know that this Government have a habit of making bad decisions, getting ambitious Back Benchers to defend them for a few months and sending a hapless junior Minister out to face the media while the Secretary of State hides in his office, only at the last minute to realise what a disaster the plans are before executing a U-turn that comes far too late for them to gain any credit. We have seen that on winter fuel, welfare reform, the grooming gangs inquiry, the two-child benefit cap and, most recently, the family farm and family business tax, so I urge Labour Back Benchers to be very cautious about supporting the Government this evening. They risk voting for something that their constituents do not want and that in their hearts, they know is wrong. Ultimately, they know that late in the day, the Government will back down, leaving their credibility in shreds.

Oral Answers to Questions

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Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

8. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the proposed ending of jury trials for certain offences on the right to a fair trial.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

23. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the proposal to restrict the right to a jury trial for certain offences on the rule of law.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lammy)]

Everyone has a right to a fair trial, and the essence of a fair trial is a timely trial. Only 3% of all criminal cases are heard by a judge and jury under the current regime. Jury trials will remain a cornerstone of the British justice system. Delayed justice is justice denied.

[Mr Lammy]

I completely reject what the hon. Gentleman said. It is an absolute essential foundation of our democracy that all of us in this House and in government respect the independence of the judiciary. I remind him that it is precisely because of the judiciary’s independence that it is not able to answer for itself. The Lord Chancellor has that responsibility, and I will do it robustly.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

When the Lord Chancellor made his statement on jury trials last week, he said that an impact assessment would be published with the legislation. Given how powerful a defender of jury trials he has been in the past, will he publish the evidence and the modelling that he has seen since coming to office that caused him to change his mind?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Whenever a Government propose legislation, there must be an impact assessment—both an economic impact assessment and an equality impact assessment—and of course we will publish it in the usual way.

Criminal Court Reform

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Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who puts her remarks so well. Let us be clear that there are defendants playing the system, and if we continue to allow them to do so, vulnerable victims of the most serious offences in our country will pay the price. That is why this is not just about financial investment; it has to be about reform, and I am determined to see this through.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

In his report, Sir Brian Leveson made a number of recommendations to reduce the Crown court backlog. Many of those recommendations are welcome, but curtailing the right to a jury trial is not one of them. Will the Secretary of State instruct his Department to publish the modelling it will have undertaken, so that we can see how much of an effect on the backlog each individual recommendation will have, and this House can take a view on the efficacy of his legislation before we vote on it?

[Mr Lammy]

I undertake that there will be an impact assessment at the point of legislation.

Prisoner Releases in Error

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Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I can give my hon. and learned Friend that undertaking. That is why we have brought forward the sentencing review and increased the removal of foreign national offenders to 5,000. All of that has been done in the last 16 months, when the Conservatives never did it once.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Two days before Kaddour-Cherif was released, the Justice Secretary said he had

“introduced the strictest checks ever seen in our prison system to stop similar unacceptable errors in future.”

Were they not implemented, or are they not strict enough?

[Mr Lammy]

Was the hon. Gentleman not listening? I discussed the cases just a few moments ago, and I discussed how those cases emanated prior to those checks—many of them—and that one of the errors in those cases started in the court system. It is also the case, and I have been crystal clear about this with the House, that in a paper-based system in which it is often the most junior people in our OMUs who are dealing with this, we cannot eradicate all human error. Any Secretary of State who stood at this Dispatch Box and said that we could would be telling a mistruth.

Prisoner Release Checks

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Monday 27th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

It is outrageous that Kebatu was not deported at the end of his sentence. What is worse is that the number of prisoners released by mistake has more than doubled under this Government. If the Justice Secretary is determined to release thousands more prisoners early, how confident is he that this mistake will not be repeated again and again on his watch?

[Mr Lammy]

There is actually a point of agreement between the two main parties: that foreign national offenders who commit crimes should be deported as quickly as possible. We are attempting to do that with the Sentencing Bill. The shadow Justice Secretary has raised that matter, and it is one point, at least, of agreement. I am serious about getting to grips with the early release issue and am serious when I say, and the hon. Member knows this, that this story began before we came to office. It is why one of our most senior police officers will be looking at this issue and, of course, we will take all her recommendations seriously. It is hugely important that the public sees the system working and that they feel safe.