Criminal Court Reform

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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

The Government’s plan, announced today, to reduce the use of trial by jury would be an historic upheaval of our court system, with profound consequences. The Justice Secretary has not argued in favour of judge-only trials on their own terms; instead, he has argued that there is no alternative, which is simply not true. Many within the legal profession have argued that removing trial by jury is a misdirection from the multitude of problems that underlie the backlog.

Those problems, caused by years of Conservative mismanagement, have resulted in countless wasted hours of sitting time and in victims failed time and again. Perhaps the defendant does not arrive in court because of the broken private contract, there is no interpreter, the witness care unit forgets to tell witnesses to attend, key evidence is not served until the day of trial so the defence has no time to consider it, or there are not enough court staff to manage security on the door, so the trial runs late. Maybe our crumbling court infrastructure means there is no running water, a broken lift or even a flooded courtroom. We need a real solution to tackle these issues that plague our justice system, but instead the Justice Secretary intends to remove a huge number of jury trials, despite his previous opposition to that, all while the Ministry of Justice capital budget is being cut by 3% in real terms every year.

While I welcome the £500 million investment in victims and witness support over three years, the total courts maintenance backlog is estimated at £1.3 billion. Where is the investment to fix the collapsing infrastructure in the justice system? Will the Justice Secretary consider reopening many of the Crown courts closed under the Conservatives, including mine in Chichester? As he confirmed to the media today, an entire jury’s worth of prisoners have been released in error in recent weeks. Does the Secretary of State have confidence in his Department to oversee such an extreme and radical reform when it is not even getting the basics right?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Lady mentions a range of issues that are important in ensuring that our 80 or so courts and 500 courtrooms are working effectively. That is why we have asked Sir Brian Leveson to look at efficiency as part 2 of his review. We need not just our courts but the Crown Prosecution Service and our police to work together at a reasonable level to deliver that improvement.

When we think about either-way cases, I think that it is legitimate for the Government to take a view on whether, for example, a driving licence fraud, fly-tipping or the theft of a bike requires a jury trial that will last for about two days, or whether those cases can be dealt with by a magistrate or a judge. I know that the hon. Lady is committed, like us, to bearing down on violence against women and girls. It cannot be right that if someone is charged with an offence such as theft of a bicycle, theft from a vehicle or employee theft, they can opt for a trial that, by necessity, goes into the system and will delay a rape trial, a murder trial or something like that. That is the balance of the decision that I have sought to make. I think that the Government have made the right decision in implementing Sir Brian’s review.