Courts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)

Rebecca Paul Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Mullan]

As I said, it is actually the position of the Justice Secretary, in his own report, where he said that the fairest and most balanced element of the justice system is jury trials. If the hon. Member thinks it is odd for me to hold that view, perhaps she should have a conversation with the Justice Secretary.

[Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the question the hon. Member for Gloucester asked shows the crux of one of the issues? He used the term “offender” to describe someone where a verdict has not yet been reached, but they are the defendant. Is the assumption of innocence before guilt is proven not a key principle we should be fighting for?

[Dr Mullan]

Absolutely. I have been very careful in writing my speech to not say that and to be clear about that. Again, when we have had debates about people causing the backlog and holding up justice for other victims, there is an inherent assumption that everybody who has been accused is guilty. Of course, we know that is not the case.

As I said, Members should think about the two cases I cited and decide whether it would be fair and just for the individual who has so much more to lose to lose their ability to seek the mode of trial that we have articulated—the mode that Members of the Government are articulating is the fairest way of deciding things—when the person with the repeat record, who does not have a reputation or job to lose, gets to continue doing all the things that the Government have said are wrong, such as holding up trials in other, more serious cases.

Members who have read ahead may think that there is some overlap between our amendment and the way in which I have articulated it and amendment 24, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden, and they would be right. Our thinking is the same. Our intention and the issues we are trying to elucidate are the same. Of course, we know that we are joined politically in our views on this issue, not by the Ministers in their former articulation of what is important to them, but by 37 Labour MPs who signed a letter in opposition to the erosion of our jury trial rights by clause 1 and other similar clauses. I will name just a few of them: the Mother of the House and the hon. Members for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson), for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) and for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald). They are very far away from me on the political spectrum—some of them could not be further away—but, along with their other colleagues, they are clear that the proposals are wrong, and I wholeheartedly agree with them on that.

Those Members—Labour Members—rightly say that these proposals are “madness” and will cause more problems than they solve and that the public will not stand for this erosion of a fundamental right, particularly given that there are numerous other things that the Government can do more effectively to reduce the backlog. I guess that where there are 37 Labour MPs willing to put their name to a letter, there are many more concerned in private, and I am sure that various Members were allowed to be absent from the estate for some of our earlier votes.

I ask Government Members to think about their colleagues and the difficult position that they will put them in if clause 1 and associated clauses are passed. The Government have quite simply failed to articulate why these proposals are the only way forward. The Government might have received a more sympathetic reception had they truly exhausted all the other options—if they had stretched every sinew since their election to tackle this issue.

[Rebecca Paul]

The removal of the cap on sitting days appears to be bringing the backlog down, which I think everyone in the Chamber can agree is a good thing. Why are the Government not looking at that, projecting it forward and taking that into account before making radical changes that remove rights of citizens?

[Dr Mullan]

It seems that my hon. Friend has been reading the same reports from the Criminal Bar Association as I have. They were reported in the press last weekend or the weekend before, I think, and identified a number of regions, according to their analysis, where the backlogs were coming down as a result of the changes that were already being made.

Let us be clear, we are sympathetic to every single victim who is waiting longer than they should for a jury trial. As the Minister kindly accepted in the evidence sessions, it would be totally wrong to say that those of us across all the elements of the political spectrum who oppose the changes do so with any kind of disregard or lack of sympathy or care for victims and what they are going through. Some of the ways in which those long waits have been articulated and framed as caused by jury trials is not helpful, because less than 10% of drop-outs occur post charge. That figure is coming down this year, so the number of people who are dropping out post charge is reducing.

[Rebecca Paul]

Would the shadow Minister also be interested to understand the impact of the three-year suspension on sentences that went live just a few weeks ago on the projections going forward and on the impact on the Crown court backlog?

[Dr Mullan]

Indeed. I hope that the Minister can start to address the figures from the Criminal Bar Association, in particular, and to articulate whether she agrees or disagrees with them. If she disagrees, why? As the Criminal Bar Association makes clear, if the Government had sight of that data—they would have known ahead of the Committee’s evidence sessions, and potentially some of the earlier stages of the Bill, that those figures were coming down—why did they choose not to make such potentially important information available to those of us considering the Bill? It is not helpful for Members to quote waits of four or five years for people to get to trial when, in fact, those figures can relate to the delay between the alleged offence and sentencing. Yes, waits for trial from the point of charge are too long, but that is just part of the picture.

Of course, the obvious weakness in the Government’s arguments that this is a measure to tackle what we should all consider to be a temporary problem—getting back to our historical court waiting times—is that these measures are permanent, without any plan to reverse them when the backlog is down to pre-pandemic levels. As I have said, we have precedent for that. During world war two, when we made changes to the number of people sitting on juries, we reversed those changes when the crisis was resolved.

The Government have announced an intention to recruit and train a further 2,000 magistrates in the next financial year. That is welcome, but recruiting and training magistrates takes time, and, in fact, the delays in the magistrates courts themselves loom over us. On the other hand, the Bar Council rightly points out how many barristers have left the profession. Those are trained, ready-to-go professionals, choosing not to practise criminal law, who could quite easily return to criminal practice, compared with having to train a magistrate from scratch.

What is missing from the Government’s approach is any serious attempt to make the most of the capacity that we already have. Court sitting days are still being wasted. Yesterday alone, 58 out of 515 Crown courtrooms sat empty—that is 11%. I am sure that, as we go through the day and proceedings move forward, we will get the figures for today. I imagine that those will be in line with every other day that the Idle Courts X account, which I think those of us following this debate have become great admirers of, shows day in, day out: Crown courtrooms sitting empty.

Trials also still collapse due to basic administrative failures. None of the problems are solved by curtailing the right to elect. As I have said, only a few years ago the Justice Secretary described jury trials as fundamental to our democracy—a sentiment that every Member of this House must share—yet now, in office, he appears willing to curtail them in the name of expediency.

This proposal also was not in the Labour manifesto at the election. A change of this nature—an unprecedented erosion of a fundamental right that we have all enjoyed for hundreds and hundreds of years—was not in that manifesto. I think that makes it extremely difficult for the Government to insist, particularly in the Lords, where I am sure very many Members will have serious concerns, that they have any kind of democratic mandate to push through these reforms.

Of course, we have been here before. In what will come as little surprise to many Members, just as with Labour’s current proposals to fatally weaken the punitive elements of our justice system by letting serious violent and sexual offenders out of prison earlier, Jack Straw, the then Justice Secretary, also proposed removing the right to a jury trial in either-way offences when Labour was last in office. As is the case today, Members across the House and stakeholders fought against, and successfully defeated, those proposals.

We can therefore do away with the pretence that this is entirely the workings of an independent figure in Sir Brian Leveson. Although I have no doubt that he came to his conclusions independently, I imagine that those old proposals had been sat in the Ministry of Justice, waiting for the right Minister for civil servants to press this idea on, and they found that in our Justice Secretary and our Prime Minister.

We would be right to fear that it is the thin end of the wedge. Often such arguments are hypothetical: we say, “Well, we think this is the thin end of the wedge; some future Government or future Minister will want to go further.” Thanks to the plans being leaked, we know what the current Justice Secretary wanted to do. He wanted to go much further than even the proposals we see before us by removing jury trials for offences carrying sentences of up to five years—five years! Where will the Government go next if they succeed with these proposals?

Sir Brian Leveson’s review made clear that the estimate of a 20% reduction in trial times is subject to what he described as “very high levels of uncertainty”. That uncertainty reads across to the other measures, including clause 1, which we are considering today. He said that it was very important that the Government undertook further detailed analysis before moving ahead with those proposals. When I put that to him during evidence, he simply said—I am paraphrasing but I think it is a fair and accurate description—that that is now a matter for the Government, and he was not willing to be drawn on whether they had actually done that further detailed analysis.

I brought up the main additional piece of analysis that the Ministry undertook, which was a stakeholder engagement exercise—not a typical one that seeks to measure and come up with firm outcomes. It found that the time saving was between 10% and 30%, so there is a huge variation in what the Government may or may not achieve, and, fundamentally, it is potentially very different from what even Sir Brian recommended.

Jury trials are not an obstacle to justice; they are a safeguard against its abuse. They ensure that the most serious power that the state holds—the power to convict and imprison—is exercised, where possible, with the consent and involvement of the public. If we allow that safeguard to be weakened, we should not be surprised when public trust in the justice system continues to erode. The answer to a justice system in crisis is not to strip away centuries-old protections; it is to make the system work as it should. That is why the proposals are wrong and should be opposed.

If the Government are serious about reducing backlogs, there are obvious steps they could take that do not involve weakening constitutional safeguards. I will come back to those at further stages, but I draw Members’ attention to the evidence given by the operations director in His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service—the civil servant in charge of making our courts run more smoothly, efficiently and productively. I asked him what he thought were the priorities for bringing down the Crown court backlog. He mentioned lifting the cap on sitting days. He welcomed that and said it made a big difference. The other examples he gave were improvements to prison transport and to listing. None of those priorities had anything to do with jury trials. The man charged with making our system run more efficiently, when asked to list his key priorities, did not say anything to do with jury trials in his first four points. As I have said, a second report from Sir Brian goes through a whole range of measures that will improve the efficiency and productivity of our courts. We have some further amendments for later stages to tease out some of those, and I look forward to considering them.

Let us be clear. The burden on this Government is extremely high, as it should be, to make the case for unprecedented changes to halve the number of individuals able to have a jury trial. The Government could have spent time—two or three years—hammering the uncontroversial things that have political consensus and are able to make a difference. They could have looked at Liverpool Crown court, which does not have a historical backlog. As Sir Brian said in his evidence, to some extent, every court has a backlog of cases waiting to be heard, which is helpful for managing those cases, but there are normal levels of waiting time that are accepted without people having to go back to the judge and ask for more time.

As I understand it, the Minister has not visited Liverpool Crown court in the last 12 to 18 months. She can correct me if I am wrong. I do not think the Deputy Prime Minister has visited Liverpool Crown court either.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Rebecca Paul]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. It is a pleasure once again to be locked up in a Bill Committee with the Minister. It has been a while, and I am feeling nostalgic; it is wonderful to be here with her again. Maybe one day we will be on the same side—that would be nice, wouldn’t it?

I will speak against the clause in its entirety and in support of the amendment. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden for her powerful contribution. What she is doing is incredibly brave. It is not an easy thing to be sat on the Government Benches with a different view. I really hope that everyone will listen to what she had to say, because I think she was balanced in her approach: she was critical of the previous Government, and did not pull her punches on where she thinks the issues arose, but she suggested some good measures and made good points that we could adopt to address the backlog. That is the one thing that we all agree on in this room: we all want to address the backlog. We can rake over the past all we like, or we can look forward and do the right thing for the British people.

Clause 1 is an egregious clause that seeks to remove one of our fundamental rights. It seeks to remove the right of an adult defendant charged with a triable either-way offence to elect for Crown court trial instead. Instead, the mode of trial will be determined solely by the magistrates courts. In practice, that means that defendants who currently have a right to trial by jury—the right to be judged by their peers—will no longer have it.

The Government have suggested that this unprecedented change to our justice system will impact only those accused of shoplifting and other petty crimes, but that is not the case. It impacts those accused of an either-way offence where the sentence would be for up to three years in prison—three years. It will impact people charged with causing death by careless driving, committing fraud, sexual assault or actual bodily harm, and many other serious offences. Those are not minor or petty by any stretch and can be life changing for everyone involved. Removing the right to jury trial for such crimes is not a minor tweak to our justice system; it takes a sledgehammer to it.

Trial by jury is an English institution, which has served for centuries to ensure that justice is done. No justice system works if it is not accepted and respected by its people. It is vital that we remember that before making changes. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater on an ideological whim is an irresponsible act. Dispensing justice is not just another process with checkboxes; it impacts people’s lives irrevocably. Decisions about how our system operates should be taken carefully and responsibly in recognition of that, and should allow an element of flexibility in the approach to get the right outcomes. That is what the amendment seeks to add.

I urge the Government to tread carefully before throwing away something that has worked for hundreds of years, and that the British people value and respect. The common-sense determination of 12 citizens is often exactly what is needed to ensure fair justice. They are not jaded or desensitised to crime, because they have not had to sit through it day in, day out for years on end. They have not seen over their whole career the worst of humanity. They are from all walks of life, bringing diversity, and often compassion and understanding to the process. The Government can of course force the change through with the numbers they have, if they so wish, but I urge them to reflect on whether that is truly the legacy that they want.

The planned limitation of the right to trial in the clause is justified by the Government as a necessary measure to get the Crown court backlog down. They defend this extraordinary restriction of our rights by arguing that the changes put victims first and at the heart of the justice system, but I remind the Government that before any verdict, there are no victims and offenders, only defendants and complainants. In this country, we are innocent until proven guilty. Justice is not just about victims; it is also about fairness for the accused, too.

[Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is presenting her case, her argument, very well and eloquently. To pick up on one point, she said that there were no victims before the verdict, but I would argue that there is always a victim when a case is in court. There is a victim—just because no one has been convicted, the victim is still a victim of a crime. Does she not agree?

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, but I do not agree, because sometimes a crime has not been committed. It is important that we use the right terms. The Government have a tendency to talk a lot about victims; they have effectively pitted victims against anyone who happens to stand up and say, “Actually, maybe we shouldn’t get rid of our right to a jury trial.” That is the wrong approach to take. It is important that we use the right terminology, and that we do not shame people into silence for daring to suggest that the removal of jury trials may be an issue in some cases. The language that we use is really important.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

It is right that we should talk about language. I refer the hon. Member to guidance on the CPS website in relation to the use of the term “victim”. In its guidance, the CPS says that it often uses the word “victim” when talking about general crime. When someone is making a speech in Parliament to say that there are victims waiting for justice, it is perfectly right and proper to do so, because they are not talking about an individual case. That is set out in the CPS guidance.

[Rebecca Paul]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, but we need to always be aware of the technical definition of the words that we are using. When the Government talk constantly about victims needing justice, and it all being about victims, I am not sure it is in the right spirit.

What all of us in this Committee Room agree on, however, is that the Crown court backlog is a critical problem that needs to be addressed. But limiting trial by jury is not the way to do it. We have heard that repeatedly from knowledgeable and experienced people working in the justice system—we have even heard it from one of the Government’s own Members, the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden. The Bar Council does not support it, the Criminal Bar Association is opposed, and the Law Society says the Government’s proposals go too far.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

We have heard a lot about the Bar Council and the Law Society. What we have not heard a lot about is the position of the Crown Prosecution Service on this point. If the Crown Prosecution Service was a legal firm, it would be the biggest in the country. It has thousands of lawyers working for it. Tom Guest, a member of the policy team at the Crown Prosecution Service gave evidence to the Justice Committee, in which he set out that the CPS is supportive of this legislation to look at structural reform. He said that it is not the only answer, but that it is necessary. The CPS considers us to be at a critical juncture, and that the backlog needs dealing with. Does the hon. Member agree that it is not universally the case that people working within the criminal justice system are against the legislation? Actually, the biggest law firm in the country is in favour of these structural reforms.

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point, and I of course agree. Clearly, there is not a consensus, which is why we are here today, but we can categorically state that most knowledgeable and experienced people working in the justice system are against what this Labour Government are trying to do.

[Dr Mullan]

The policy adviser of the CPS does not represent the individual views of all the different people who work for the CPS. The suggestion that, because the policy lead or the senior management team have a view, everyone who works for the CPS thinks that this is the right thing is obviously complete nonsense.

[Rebecca Paul]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. If I recall correctly, the hon. Member for Amber Valley has previously worked in the CPS—she might want to disclose her interest.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

Yes, that is correct; I was a Crown prosecutor for 21 years, and I worked all the way through the terrible, terrible years when the Conservative Government were absolutely ripping apart our criminal justice system, so I speak with experience on this matter. I speak with a lot of former colleagues who still work on the frontline, and every single one of them supports this proposal. The difficulty is that, as civil servants, they cannot speak out. That is why we do not hear from them as much as we do from barristers. I worked at the CPS until just before the general election, so my experience is very recent.

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point, and I hope that she is comfortable having put that on the record. It is good to hear her view.

[Dr Mullan]

People who work for the CPS have privately expressed to me that they are against these proposals but, as I have said, the idea that a chat with a few former colleagues is representative of the views of the thousands of people involved in different ways with what the CPS does is completely unsustainable.

[Rebecca Paul]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I completely agree with him, and I remind the Committee that most people in this country are against these changes. Most people who know about the justice system are against the changes—[Interruption.] I know it is really hard for Labour Members to hear that they are not on the side of the people on this one. How has it all gone wrong? They have forgotten who they are and who they represent. It is a sad day.

[Joe Robertson]

This is an extraordinary exchange. I accept that the hon. Member for Amber Valley is not the official voice of the CPS or of the Labour Government, but her sense of “officialdom knows best” will give ordinary men and women in this country great concerns about these changes. Of course, there are some cases in which there is no victim. There are some cases in which the victim is a person who has been falsely accused. That is why we have a legal system in which the ordinary men and women of this country are judged by their peers. That is the principle that is up for debate here—not some wider official view from a prosecuting organisation, rather than the courts.

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point; he makes it eloquently, as always.

I really enjoyed going through the groups that do not support these proposals. Obviously, the Government like to rely heavily on Sir Brian Leveson’s findings and recommendations, but when my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East questioned him in the oral evidence session, he did not blame jury trials.

Fundamentally, jury trials are not the problem. They are not creating the delays, so limiting them will not address the backlog. In fact, their curtailment will likely bring a whole host of other issues to the table that were not there before. The Bar Council believes that the changes

“will produce serious adverse consequences that have not properly been considered by the Government.”

In the light of such uncertain outcomes, I find it difficult to understand why the Government will not perform a pilot first to test the proposal or put in place a time limitation more generally. To plough ahead in this way, with no way back in the event of failure, is reckless by any measure. A more cautious approach might have been more positively received.

As we heard from Kirsty Brimelow KC, the chair of the Bar Council, it is vital that we approach the backlog problem logically, look at where the delays are occurring and target them. For rape cases, the majority of the delay is actually at the investigation and charge point, which takes an average of two years. Although the one-year delay at court stage is too long, the lion’s share of the problem is pre-court—perhaps the CPS can help with that one—so let us deal with that.

The Government should open all the courts so that they can hear cases every day. Yesterday, 11% of Crown courts were not sitting, and I am sure we will find out later what the percentage is today. Revising the contract with Prisoner Escort and Custody Services to ensure that defendants are delivered to the dock on time would also help. Giving proper consideration to specialist rape and serious sexual offences courts to deal with sexual offence cases and addressing the many inefficiencies and delays in the system through a better use of technology would no doubt greatly reduce the backlog.

It is also important that we give the steps that the Government have already taken to address the backlog an adequate chance to filter through. One example is increased sitting days: in February 2026, the Justice Secretary announced that there would be no cap on sitting days for ’26-27, which will undoubtedly help.

In addition, last month, powers were granted to suspend custodial sentences of up to three years, a change from the previous two years. Putting aside whether that is a sensible measure, it will undoubtedly increase the number of guilty pleas. That means fewer trials and a decrease in the backlog. The Government should properly model the impact of those significant changes on the backlog before imposing such a draconian limitation on jury trials. I would be grateful if the Minister could share any projections of the impact of those two changes on the backlog and clarify whether they have been factored into the “do nothing” option of the impact assessment. It looks as though they might not have been included, because they are not referenced.

If clause 1 is accepted, there are several types of serious cases where the defendant might now lose their right to elect for trial by jury. It has been suggested by the Justice Secretary that only cases involving minor offences, such as stealing a bottle of whisky, will be impacted, but that is not the case. Let us start with causing death by careless driving. That is a serious offence—rightly so, given that a life has been lost—and it carries a maximum five-year sentence and driving disqualification. Currently, the defendant has the right to elect for trial by jury. That is especially important in such cases, where the difference between careless and unfortunate is not entirely clear.

It is exactly that type of case where we see the benefit of 12 individuals, all with different experiences, using their judgment to decide whether the defendant crossed the line into “careless”. Under clause 1, that right is no longer available; the judge will decide on their own. Imagine a defendant who is innocent. Their whole life, and that of their family, is to be decided by one person—their bad day can destroy the defendant’s entire life. Their case might not even make it to a judge; it could remain in the magistrates court. Surely the intention was never for our magistrates courts to hear cases involving the loss of a life.

Sexual assault is another serious offence. It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment and inclusion on the sex offenders register. It is also completely life-changing for everyone involved. Under clause 1, the defendant’s right to choose a jury trial will be removed. Many of those cases could end up in the magistrates courts, but they are nothing like the normal cases seen in magistrates courts day to day: they are highly sensitive and complex, involving third-party disclosure, and video recorded and forensic evidence. They are not simple add-ons to what those courts already do. With the best will in the world, they do not currently have the capability or skillset to handle such specialist cases involving traumatised victims.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

May I refer the hon. Member to the fact that the youth courts often deal with cases of this nature? They have sentencing powers of up to two years. Would the hon. Member suggest that youths are not getting a fair trial in those circumstances?

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but I will not comment on that specifically. I am talking about the magistrates courts, which generally deal with low-level motoring offences.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

But they are magistrates.

[Rebecca Paul]

I will look into the hon. Lady’s point, and I have no doubt that we will talk about that later on.

Can a Government who pride themselves on putting victims first truly be comfortable with what I have just laid out? Those are just two examples, but we see the same pattern for numerous other serious offences such as actual bodily harm, fraud and affray. In what world can those offences ever be considered minor enough to qualify only for summary justice? I do not believe that this is what victims want, either. For justice to be done, they need to have complete confidence that people will respect and accept the verdict given. That is a key part of the justice process.

Limiting jury trials for some of the most serious offences will mean that a verdict, whether innocent or guilty, will lose its current gospel status in the eyes of the populus. Clause 1 sows doubt into our justice system, and that doubt will eat away at it. At the opposite end of the spectrum less serious offences are impacted, but that will still have huge ramifications for the individual in the dock. We must always remember the human being at the centre of this. The offence with which someone is charged may be minor, but that does not stop it being the worst thing that has ever happened to them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Mullan]

The point I made in my remarks was that I imagine that is a very conservative estimate of the number of additional days. We know that, by definition, we are sending more complex and serious cases than have been traditionally and historically heard in magistrates courts.

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the shadow Minister for that point; I share his concerns. There is also a question regarding whether unpaid volunteers will even want to take on such a serious role that involves handing out two-year sentences—that is quite a responsibility.

The outstanding caseload in magistrates courts has been increasing in recent years. In September 2025, the outstanding caseload was around 373,000, which was a 74% increase compared with pre-pandemic levels in September 2019. The shift of cases from the Crown court back into the magistrates court is simply moving the issue to a less suitable court to deal with it. It is simply moving the problem around, rather than actually addressing it.

Summary trial through the magistrates court was always designed for the purpose of swift justice in low-level cases. By removing the right to elect for a jury trial, in combination with increasing magistrates’ sentencing powers to two years’ imprisonment and removing the automatic appeal against conviction, important protections are being removed, and the groups that will be impacted most detrimentally are ethnic minorities.

Magistrates are unpaid members of their local community who volunteer to act as magistrates. There is no requirement for them to be legally qualified. That may well be fine for summary-only offences, such as low-level motoring offences and minor criminal damage, but it is not appropriate for more serious offences. Many magistrates do an excellent job and give up their time selflessly for the benefit of their community. In spite of that, I do not believe that they should have the power to send someone to prison for two years. Let us all remember that magistrates can be as young as 18.

In closing, I want to make one last point. This change was not in the Labour manifesto; indeed, there is no mention of any changes to trial by jury at all. Only one such commitment was made, which Government Members appear to have forgotten. To quote from the Labour manifesto:

“Labour will fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.”

That is on page 67, if anyone needs to refresh their memory. That is what the British people voted for. The Bill could have been so different if clause 1 had started with that, instead of jeopardising fair justice for many defendants. It is such a shame that a Government with such a historic majority have so quickly forgotten the change they promised, and whom they fight for and represent.

[Sarah Sackman]

Let me begin by saying that the Bill has been prepared with precisely the people and communities who elected us and gave us our mandate in mind. The Labour party manifesto contained one word on the front cover: “Change”. It was not an acceptance of the status quo—a brittle criminal justice system with record and rising backlogs, which we inherited from the previous Government.

Rather than sit idly by, we are a Government who govern by choosing, and the choice we make is that, when we see a problem, we set about fixing it. We do so in a way that is informed by our values of equality, fairness and social justice. We also do so in an evidence-based way, which is why we commissioned an independent review of the criminal courts, led by Sir Brian Leveson and ably supported by Professor David Ormerod and others. They produced a detailed and comprehensive analysis that spoke to the depth of the crisis in our criminal justice system and the impact that the delays are having across the piece, not just on those impacted by crime but on those defendants on remand languishing in jail, whose lives have been put on hold, perhaps for crimes they did not commit. They spoke to the long-term challenges in our criminal justice system and the changing nature of evidence in our system, involving more digital and forensic evidence, all contributing to a picture in which trials are now more complex and take twice as long as they did in 2000.

In that time, there has been no reform of our criminal justice system; instead, as we have heard from a number of Members today, there has been a chipping away of the Department’s budget, underinvestment, the stripping back of not just legal aid but sitting days, the closure of more than 40% of our courts and people leaving the Bar in droves, all of which have driven the backlogs—and there is consensus that we need to do something about them.

I was interested in the remarks made by the hon. Members for Chichester, for Brighton Pavilion, for Bexhill and Battle and for Reigate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden, all of whom called on this Government to pull every lever at our disposal. Here is the thing: I agree. We should be doing all those things, and indeed we are. We are not waiting to begin on the efficiency drive so desperately needed and called for by Sir Brian’s report and by those across the criminal justice system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Sackman]

I will not take any more interventions; I want to make progress. The point is that we are already beginning to see the investment aspect of this.

The second pillar of how we address the backlog, which many have commented on, is efficiencies, and we have part 2 of Sir Brian’s report. In his speech on his vision for the justice system, the Deputy Prime Minister committed to a number of measures that are already under way. We will get blitz courts in London and the south-east under way this month, aggressively listing cases to get through them more efficiently. A pilot for AI-driven listing, working with the judiciary towards a national listing framework so that we end the postcode lottery on listing and list more efficiently, investment committed to case co-ordinators and driving case progression so that we are using the limited resources at our disposal most efficiently are all examples of taking forward greater efficiencies, which are desperately needed.

[Rebecca Paul]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Sackman]

I will just conclude this point. The central insight of the independent review of the criminal courts, in direct answer to the hon. Member for Reigate, borne out by the modelling, which has been externally verified and which we presented in the impact assessment, is that efficiency—however optimistic we are about it—and investment alone will not turn the tide on the rising backlog. That is because of the inheritance from the previous Government, coupled with the long-term challenges and changes in our justice system that the IRCC outlined. That is why we need all three things: efficiency, investment and reform.

[Rebecca Paul]

In my speech, I asked a specific question about the impact assessment. One of the options was to do nothing, and it would be helpful if the Minister could clearly articulate what was included in that option. Did it include the impact of uncapped sitting days, or of the three-year custodial sentence? Did it include all the other things that she was talking about, and that are being done anyway, or was the option literally to do nothing? If it was to do nothing, that is not a fair comparison.

[Sarah Sackman]

The hon. Lady will have seen that with the presentation of the Bill, as is right and appropriate, a suite of documents and material was made available to Members of this House and the wider public. The factsheet that accompanies the Bill includes a series of scenarios, one of which is literally to do nothing, and looks at the forecast of the projected caseload coming into the Crown court. There is another scenario, which asks what maximum investment would do to bring down the backlog—maximum investment being maximum, uncapped sitting days. The factsheet shows that that would mitigate the growth, but would not begin to bring down the backlog. We then project what maximum investment coupled with efficiencies would do. That would have a further dampening effect, but again, it would not even begin to get into the backlog, such is its scale—standing at 80,000 today. The factsheet supports the central insight of the IRCC: that it is only by pulling all three levers—investment, efficiencies and reform—that we begin to get down the backlog in this Parliament.

I have been pushed in the Chamber, by the Justice Committee and in the media by people saying, “Minister, you are saying that the backlog is only going to start to come down by the end of this Parliament,” as if to say, “Can’t you do more?” We are pulling every single lever even to get that effect, such is the growth of the backlog, which is due to the factors I have outlined.

[Rebecca Paul]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matt Bishop]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

What the CBA appears to have presented, all based off MOJ figures, is that there are green shoots of improvement in some parts of the country. It is a little early to say that the record investment we have made is working right across the piece, to the extent that it would need to work in order to bring these backlogs down. The overall backlog continues to rise. If you look at those parts of the country where it is worse—London and the south-east, Greater Manchester, the midlands—the situation is dire, and continues to get worse until we have the full suite of reforms and investment to trickle through that we need to see improvement. I am certainly not going to do anything other than welcome good news. If the CBA has evidence that in one or two courts we are seeing an improvement, that is great; I welcome that.

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the Minister for that point. This goes back and links to the question I raised on the impact assessment. It is really important that we get clarity from the Minister on the impact assessment. The interpretation I am taking from her answer to me on whether existing measures like the suspension of three-year sentences and the uncapped sitting days were taken into account, is that, no, those are not in the “do nothing” scenario. I am struggling with why that would be. Surely, in the impact assessment you need to be showing the reality in order to do a fair comparison? It is reassuring to hear her say that she has looked at these numbers, but why are they not included in the impact assessment so that we can all clearly see them and see why she is taking the decision she is around limiting jury trials?

[Sarah Sackman]

I refer the hon. Member to the summary factsheet that was produced, which shows all of what I have described very clearly. I will ensure that every Committee member has a link. There was also a helpfully produced website by the MOJ, which synthesises all of these facts, all of the modelling, which demonstrates all of these things. I understand that she is looking at the formal impact assessment, but if you go on the website and look at the factsheet—all of which has been shared with stakeholders and the media, and I will ensure that she has the model she seeks—I can assure her that on the MOJ’s forecast of the growth in the backlog, even with maximum investment and ambitious efficiency we do not begin to reduce the backlog. That is our analysis, and it is what supported the IRCC’s analysis. It is only when you do all three things—investment, efficiency and structural reform—that you bring down the backlog.