Courts and Tribunals Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Jess Brown-Fuller and Yasmin Qureshi

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 (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Jess Brown-Fuller and Yasmin Qureshi

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 Jess Brown-Fuller and Yasmin Qureshi

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 Jess Brown-Fuller and Yasmin Qureshi

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.