"I think the public will be disappointed by this behaviour. The Justice Secretary cannot get his story straight. Like the Prime Minister, he once said:
“Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea”.
Now he says they are a good idea, with his justification for this change changing by the …..." Nick Timothy - View Speech
"The Prime Minister, we learned this weekend, once said that trials without juries mean evidence is not properly tested and can lead to wrongful convictions. Was he wrong?..." Nick Timothy - View Speech
"I join the Justice Secretary in sending condolences to the family of Jeff Blair. I also pay tribute to the shadow Solicitor General, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant), for her successful campaign for a child cruelty register, and I look forward to meeting the …..." Nick Timothy - View Speech
"I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Courts and Tribunals Bill because trial by jury is a fundamental part of the United Kingdom’s constitution and democracy; it is …..." Nick Timothy - View Speech
"Crown court waiting times were actually lower under the Conservatives until the pandemic. It is true that the backlog grew during the pandemic, but the pandemic came before the general election, so why, if it was so necessary, was this measure not in the Labour party manifesto?
"I do not accept that characterisation of magistrates courts. If that were a true cause for concern for the hon. Lady, this Bill would perhaps try to address what she says, yet it does not.
The Government’s claims about what the Bill will achieve are hopelessly confused. The Justice Secretary …..." Nick Timothy - View Speech
"The Institute for Government has made it absolutely clear that the figures that the Government have produced are based on assumptions that are not necessarily shared by anybody who knows what we are talking about...." Nick Timothy - View Speech
"Magistrates have their place in the system, but jury trials are fundamental to our inheritance, and to public confidence in the criminal justice system.
If the reason is not efficiency, why are the Government doing this? There are only two plausible explanations. The first is that this left-wing Government—determined to …..." Nick Timothy - View Speech
Of course, when the Justice Secretary’s predecessor, the Home Secretary, commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to conduct a review of the criminal courts, she knew what she was doing, because in an earlier review Sir Brian had already said that jury trials should be restricted, with …..." Nick Timothy - View Speech