Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fifth sitting)

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Mullan]

In all the other regions and overall, the backlogs are going up. That is why we have to understand what is happening regionally and why I asked the Minister about that. Throughout this Committee, one of the main arguments from Opposition Members, the Criminal Bar Association and other opponents of the Bill has been that if we are able to replicate what is happening in the best parts of the system, we should be prioritising that.

For example, Liverpool Crown court does not have what might be called unacceptable levels of backlog. As Sir Brian and others have pointed out, every Crown court has a backlog in the sense of a trail of cases that are due to be heard. That is a normal and needed part of the process of case management, and no one argues that there is an unsustainable and unacceptable backlog in Liverpool Crown court. If Liverpool and whole regions can get it right, surely we should be prioritising trying to replicate that.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

The shadow Minister is talking about the north-west, and I am an MP for that region. The numbers are going down in Preston, Liverpool and even Bolton Crown courts, and one reason for that is that they have taken a proactive approach to case management. They are regularly monitoring cases, and going into courts to judge whether cases are trial ready. That is unlike in some parts of the country, where a case is set for trial in two or three years’ time and nobody looks at it or tries to sort out problems until literally two days beforehand, which then leads to a delay.

[Dr Mullan]

The hon. Member has articulated extremely well that these things can be done differently and have a different outcome. I heard about case management directly from Liverpool Crown court. It has an aggressive approach to case management: it swept the cases and was clear whether it needed to be hearing a case or whether it could do any work to get a plea. It does a lot of work, and if every court was doing that, it would deliver different outcomes. The Minister might rightly point out that different courts have different circumstances, but surely the goal should be to correct those circumstances so that the positive things enabling some courts to bring the backlogs down can be done everywhere.

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[Sarah Sackman]

The point that I was making is that it should be the seriousness of the case that is the sole dictator of the mode of trial, and that likely sentence is the best and most objective test that we have. We must also be mindful of how we administer a system. Sometimes, adding lots of tests not only leads to complexity and introduce uncertainty, but introduces one of the things that we are trying to eliminate—delay. If we have a straightforward, well-understood test that is consistent with the sorts of allocation decisions that magistrates routinely make, we can apply that test consistently.

Returning to another point that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle made in relation to necessity, we maintain that we have a serious, nationwide problem. We maintain that that the national overall backlog of 80,203 outstanding cases in the Crown court, as it stood in December 2025, is an emergency. The central projection for the number of sitting days we are likely to need in very short order is 139,000. If I took an optimistic view that the central projection was too high, even in a low scenario we would need 130,000 sitting days. That is not to say that there are not, on a short snapshot basis, parts of the country that are doing better. I have given evidence to the Justice Committee where we have looked at that. Historically, there are parts of the country—Liverpool and Wales are often cited—that have lower backlogs. But there is no doubt that as a national picture—we do not want a postcode lottery in our justice system—the situation needs tackling.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I think I am possibly the oldest person in this room. As somebody who was prosecuting, defending and dealing with criminal cases back in the late ’80s, ’90s, 2000s and so on, I saw the criminal justice system at first hand. When I started practising at the Bar, we had full legal aid at all levels, so whenever defendants appeared in the magistrates court they had proper advice. We had section 6(1) type of committals, where we could test the prosecution evidence and therefore get rid of a number of cases. We had full courtroom sittings; if Snaresbrook Crown court had 15 courtrooms, 14 or 15 of them were running. We had a full capacity of judges running and we did not have a backlog of jury cases. Will the Minister please rethink? The reason we have delays in our court system is not because of the juries.

[Sarah Sackman]

If I may say so, and as long as it is not indiscreet, my hon. Friend seems far younger and more energetic than she claims to be. She makes an important point because she does have long-standing experience in this area; before she came to this place she practised for a long time. I do not know when my hon. Friend finished practising, but we know that—it is one of the central insights of the independent review—the average jury Crown court trial is taking twice as long as it did in 2000.

That increase is driven by a greater complexity in cases and the changing profile of crime. As I have said before, we now have forensic and CCTV evidence, and also—this is something to commend people from previous Parliaments for—procedural safeguards put in place over time that rightly create a fairer system, such as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. All that is adding to the length of jury trials.

As Sir Brian Leveson himself said, juries are not the driver of the problem, but it is true that jury trials and Crown court trials are taking longer and longer. That is not about to change, and it will not be changed by whatever measures one may bring forward in relation to speeding up prisoner transfer or case progression. The fact that jury trials take up 60% of the hearing time within the Crown court is exactly why the independent review asked us to look at it. I understand the picture my hon. Friend paints of the world we want to live in, but the world we live in now has been transformed and it is the job, particularly of progressives, to move with the times and to build a system that is fit for the profile and technology that we now encounter.

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[Sarah Sackman]

The circumstances of the Post Office Horizon scandal are incredibly serious. Part of the reason why they came about is because people were essentially fabricating evidence and using computer evidence in a way that was fundamentally dishonest. However, I do not think that the reform that we are talking about in this context, which is the allocation test, or mode of trial, and allocation to a Crown Court bench division should of itself reduce the confidence that the public can have in the integrity of our justice system. For all those reasons, and the way in which clause 3 is drafted with a focus on delivering swifter justice for victims, witnesses and defendants alike, I urge the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle not to press amendment 39.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

There has been a lot of discussion about the amendments. As I said on Tuesday, I will not be pushing my amendments to a vote. They are meant to be probing amendments, and I hope the Government will still look at them and consider what has been said.

I wish to talk about a few issues that have been raised. We have heard it mentioned that Scotland does not have a jury system, but it has never had a jury system, so we are measuring different things. Scotland also has its own unique system. For example, it has an in-between verdict: there is not guilty, guilty and something in between. Scotland has its own legal system, but our system has been the jury system for hundreds and hundreds of years. We either think the jury system is good and we keep it for either-way or indictable offences, or we think the jury system is so cumbersome and so bad that we should abolish it altogether. Then we can have a different argument, and we do not have to have it even for indictable offences. What we cannot have is indictable offences and either-way offences being dealt with differently. I respectfully disagree with the Minister.

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[Dr Mullan]

The hon. Member is doing a good job of highlighting the whole additional set of complexities of the new system. We cannot predict how those are going to pan out. She referenced the separation of what a judge will hear and what a jury will hear, to preserve the fairness of the jury’s sentiment. We are now going to be in a position to a much greater extent—it might happen in other courts and other circumstances—where the judge has to hear material that is not going to be deemed relevant to the finding, and then make a finding. I am sure that there is going to be a whole new set of case law, with challenges where defendants and potentially prosecutors will say, “That clouded the judgment. That made the judgment unsound.” There is unpredictability and greater complexity in using this system.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Yes, absolutely. At the moment, one of the beautiful things we have is that the judge determines sentence and directs on law, and the jury decides on the innocence or guilt of a defendant. It is fantastic, because that also protects the judges.

In a system where judges are going to be dealing with Crown court cases—we will come on later to complex cases and fraud cases, where they are going to be spending months and months on cases—the judges are going to have to write very long decisions. This is not similar to a district judge in a magistrates court, where the average trial takes maybe half a day or a day, two or three at the most. That is normally the limit.

In the Crown court, the average trial date is two to three days or five days to a week. The judge is going to be writing up all that evidence; because he or she will have to make the decision at the end on innocence or guilt, they have to pencil their decision in a very detailed way, covering not just the law, but an assessment of each witness who gave evidence—for example, “I accept the evidence of that witness because of this, this and this; I don’t accept the evidence of that witness because of this, this and this; this witness is unreliable because of this, this and this.”

All of that will have to be included; if it is not, the defendant who is found guilty will want to appeal, and so the judge is going to spend ages writing decisions.

[Sarah Sackman]

I appreciate that my hon. Friend was not present for all the evidence sessions, but I wonder whether she would reflect on the evidence we heard from Clement Goldstone, who was the recorder at Liverpool. He said:

“I also do not accept that there will be additional time spent in the writing of judgments. The vast majority of decisions will follow the conclusion of the defence speech”.––[Official Report, Courts and Tribunals Public Bill Committee, 25 March 2026; c. 76, Q161.]

Judges give a route to verdict in any event, so it is all part of the summing-up process.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I understand that in some of the more simple, routine cases of two or three days, but for trials lasting eight, nine or 10 weeks, I respectfully disagree that judges can come to that judgment in just a few days, because they have to go through a whole load of evidence, comment on it and come to a decision.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

The hon. Member speaks with eloquence and experience. I understand the Minister’s point: she has framed this as simply removing a choice from a defendant, as though this is a benefit that need not exist, but does the hon. Member agree with my analysis that this constitutes the removal of a right rather than a choice—the right to be tried in the Crown court, unless trial in a magistrates court is preferred?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I do agree. It is important to remember which offences are kept in the magistrates court. There was discussion on Tuesday about burglaries and other offences making it to a magistrates court. With respect, burglaries have never been reduced to being tried in a magistrates court.

What happened was the way that motor theft offences were tried was tweaked. What used to happen is that people, particularly youngsters, would take away a car and were charged with the theft of a car, but as everybody knows, the definition of theft includes intention to permanently deprive. Those people never had the intention to permanently deprive; they were just taking the car for joyriding, and they were then going to leave it somewhere else.

That is why a new offence was introduced: it was initially called TWOC—taking without owner’s consent—and then it became TDA, or taking and driving away a motor vehicle without the consent of the owner. That offence went down to the magistrates court, because it was seen as a misdemeanour—something that a young person might do—and was not the same as giving someone a theft conviction. We had to make some changes, which were very sensible changes. Look at all the cases being dealt with in magistrates courts at the moment: any charge that goes to the issue of honesty is still either-way or indictable.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

Common assault, for example—

[Yasmin Qureshi]

That does not concern honesty.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

No, but it could very well come down to credibility. My hon. Friend is suggesting that no offences in the magistrates court would come down to credibility, or am I misunderstanding her point?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I was giving the example of TDA and theft legislation. I was talking about offences involving dishonesty, such as theft and burglary or defrauding someone. Even producing a fraudulent insurance document is an either-way offence, because it involves dishonesty. Even now, producing a dodgy insurance certificate is not a magistrates court offence; it is still an either-way offence, because of the element of dishonesty—not in the sense of people saying different things but in terms of intent. That is what I am talking about—not what my hon. Friend was saying.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

I recently introduced the criminal offence of unauthorised entry of a football stadium. That is a summary-only offence. There are examples in the magistrates court where credibility and dishonesty are key points of summary-only offences.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

My hon. Friend is comparing apples and pears. Entry of a stadium that someone is not entitled to be in is not the same as being charged with stealing, even in minor instances, such as stealing a bottle of water. They are two different things. For example, entering enclosed premises is dealt with in a magistrates court. There are different elements involved. What is at stake if I steal a bottle of water? That is very different from entering a stadium that I am not meant to be in.

We have had a good discussion. I still ask the Government to look at my amendment. As I have said from the beginning, I will not put it to a vote, but I am asking them to consider it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 39, in clause 3, page 5, line 26, at end insert—

“or,

(c) the defendant demonstrates to the court that the circumstances of his case are such that to be tried without a jury would amount to a breach of the principles of natural justice.”—(Dr Mullan.)

This amendment would ensure that trials by jury continue for indictable offences carrying a sentence of less than three years in prison if the defendant can demonstrate that it would be in the interests of natural justice.

Courts and Tribunals Bill (Sixth sitting)

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We are now sitting in public and proceedings are being broadcast. I remind Members to switch electronic devices off or to silent, please, and that teas and coffees are not allowed during sittings.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 25, in clause 3, page 5, line 38, at end insert—

“(7) The preceding provisions on allocation for trial without a jury do not apply to cases where a defendant has already elected to be tried in the Crown Court prior to the commencement of this section.”

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 12, in clause 3, page 9, line 28, leave out subsections (2) to (4).

This amendment would prevent the provisions on trial on indictment without a jury applying retrospectively to cases where the defendant has elected trial by jury before these provisions become law.

Amendment 43, in clause 3, page 9, line 28, leave out

“trial on indictment of a person beginning on or”

and insert

“cases whose first hearing in the magistrates’ court takes place”.

This amendment would prevent the provisions on allowing judges to try all triable either-way offences with likely sentences of fewer than three years from applying retrospectively.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine.

Amendment 25 relates to the retrospective allocation of cases to the Crown court bench division. I am asking that provisions for the allocation for trial without jury do not apply when election has already happened. The point is that in all jurisprudence in the world, retrospective legislation is bad law and bad jurisprudence, going against the rules of natural justice. Why? Because there is a breach of legal certainty.

A core principle of the rule of law is that an individual should know the legal consequences of their actions. People also have a legitimate expectation of the procedural framework in place at the time of the commission of an offence. Retrospective allocation rules disrupt that expectation and weaken trust in our justice system. It is a selective tightening of procedures by the state, which risks an abuse of legislative power and an inconsistency.

Article 7 of the European convention on human rights argues against retrospective criminal law penalties. While it is correct that with this clause we are not talking about retrospective criminal penalty, I would say that article 7 is being breached, because even if penalties are not increased, legitimate expectations are being undermined. The defence and legal representatives prepare cases based on existing court structures, and on known procedures and practices. Suddenly to set new procedural rules and different evidential expectation is just not cricket.

The state is being given an advantage, because there should be an equality of arms. Administrative convenience should not override fundamental rights. The courts have repeatedly stressed that fairness is more important than efficiency, because it generates among people confidence in the state and in the criminal justice system. That is why—I repeat—our judicial system is recognised to be one of the best in the world.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I rise to speak in support of amendment 43, tabled in my name, and to amendments 25 and 12. Again, on this issue the Opposition and the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden have alighted on the same challenge or issue—the same thing we think is unfair. We have gone about our amendments in different ways, but we recognise the same issue. As we heard, the amendments address the retrospectivity built into the Government’s approach.

The Bill makes it clear that the new allocation regime will apply not only to future cases, but to existing Crown court cases that are due to begin on or after the specified day on which the measures are implemented. In other words, cases that are already in the system, in which defendants may have made decisions on the basis that they expect a jury trial, could be reallocated to a judge-only trial. Our amendment 43 would prevent that by ensuring that the new regime applies only to cases in which the first magistrates court hearing takes place after the change, and not to cases already in the pipeline.

The Government say the change is merely procedural and can therefore be applied to ongoing cases, but that understates what is happening. To change the allocation part-way through proceedings would not simply be technical; it would alter the ground beneath the defendant’s feet. In written evidence, JUSTICE shared our concerns, saying:

“The retrospective application of the provisions is contrary to the rule of law.”

It pointed to the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s legislative standards, which state:

“Retrospective legislation is unacceptable other than in very exceptional circumstances”

and

“must have the strongest possible justification”.

It is worth considering that legislative guidance, which states, first, that enacting legislation with retrospective effect should be avoided. Secondly, provisions that have retrospective effect should be drafted as narrowly as possible. Thirdly, individuals should not be punished or penalised for contravening what was, at the time, a valid legal requirement. Fourthly, laws should not retrospectively interfere with obligations when the liberty or criminal liability of the citizen is at stake. Fifthly, laws should not deprive someone of the benefit of a judgment already obtained. Sixthly, laws should not prevent a court from deciding pending litigation according to its merits on the basis of the law in force at the time when proceedings were commenced. Seventhly, retrospective legislation should be used only when there is a compelling reason to do so. Eighthly, a legislative power to make a provision that has retrospective effect should be justified on the basis of necessity and not desirability.

Having heard those points, we can immediately see the issues. On the principle that laws should not retrospectively interfere with obligations when the liberty or criminal liability of the citizen is at stake, it is clear that that liberty is absolutely at stake in these matters.

On necessity, we have repeated throughout the debate that the Government, in our eyes, have completely failed to make the case successfully that the measures in the Bill are the only way to drive down the backlogs. This morning, we debated the fall in backlogs in some areas seen in the latest published data; that happened without the measures in the Bill, and without other measures that we all think are necessary to help to drive down the backlogs. To our eyes, the retrospective element clearly does not meet the test of exceptional circumstances or necessity.

JUSTICE says that, given that the curtailment of jury trials will have a marginal effect on the backlog, it cannot see how retrospective applications can be justified, and I agree. It argues that it is deeply unfair for defendants who elected for a Crown court trial in expectation of a jury to have their cases heard by a judge alone under a process that did not even exist when they made that choice. Defendants who have opted for a jury trial may be incarcerated on remand awaiting trial by jury. Had they known that this would never materialise, they may well have opted for a magistrates trial and already been released.

There is, then, a risk that the reallocation of cases that are already in the Crown court caseload to the bench division will be subjected to judicial review. There is clearly no ouster clause in the provisions. How do we know whether many of those affected might decide that they should challenge the decision in the courts? JUSTICE suggests that it could happen with each and every case in the backlog that is allocated to trial without jury. This would require additional hearings and the preparation of representatives for every affected case already in the backlog, creating further delays and placing unnecessary burdens on the defendants and the prosecution who, as we have all accepted, are already under significant pressure.

What did the Prime Minister say about retrospective measures? We have already covered what the Prime Minister previously thought about the importance of jury trials, which he seems to have forgotten, but what did he say about retrospective measures? He said that

“they are usually a very bad idea”.

That is a direct quote from our Prime Minister. He said they were usually a very bad idea, yet here is his own Government enacting one.

Of course, we know what the Deputy Prime Minister thought about this issue. He appeared before the Justice Committee on Tuesday 16 December last year. He was asked about this issue by my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst), who said:

“There are currently in the region of 17,500 prisoners on remand in this country. Will these reforms apply retrospectively?”

What did the Deputy Prime Minister say? He said: “No.” The Committee must have to assume that that was his view of the right thing to do at the time. Why else would he have said no? It is reasonable for us to ask the Minister to explain why the Deputy Prime Minister has changed his mind.

Of course, the Minister herself has already been asked about this in the Justice Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) pointed out that a defendant committed to trial in the Crown court will expect a jury trial. He said,

“you will relook at cases that have been committed for trial at the Crown court and push some of them through the swift court—that is what you are telling me.”

The Minister replied:

“I think that is something we have to look at.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater said to her:

“So when the Lord Chancellor said it will not be retrospective, that was not a wholly accurate answer.”

The Minister replied:

“I think the answer he was giving was in the context of a question around the impact on remand hearings; I think that was the context in which he may have addressed that.”

My hon. Friend replied:

“No, he said the changes would not be retrospective, and now you are giving me a slightly different answer. If someone elects to go to the Crown court at the moment, it is on the assumption that there will be a trial by jury. What you are saying is that it might not be; they might be diverted to the swift court.”

The Minister agreed with that, saying: “That is right, yes.” That can be interpreted only as a suggestion that there was no difference with or without a jury as they are still in the Crown court—an extraordinary response.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater said:

“Minister, if you have been committed to trial in the Crown court at the moment, you are expecting to have a jury trial, and what you are telling me is that once these changes take effect, you will divert those people committed but whose trial has not started into the swift court.”

The Minister agreed, saying: “Yes”. My hon. Friend said to her:

“That is not what the Lord Chancellor said before Christmas.”

The exchange concluded with the Minister making this point:

“It is a change in relation to the procedure that applies to those cases. They are still getting a Crown court trial under the new proposals.”

We are back to an argument that we have revisited a number of times. When the Minister is pressed on a disadvantage in one form or another of having a trial without a jury, she insists that it does not make much of a difference as they will still get a trial that, in her view, has all the merits of a trial with a jury, to some extent. We made some progress on that earlier today, when the Minister acknowledged that there is something special about a jury trial. If there is something special about it, she must surely accept that those people who do not get one are missing something special and are therefore in some way disadvantaged.

JUSTICE is not alone in its criticism of the retrospective element of the proposals. As I have said previously, Mr Robertson, the founder of the chambers that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Attorney General all practised at—someone they surely give some weight and credibility to—is critical about this. He writes:

“Those charged by police with offences currently carrying a right to elect a jury trial will go through newly devised ‘allocation proceedings’ where they will lose that right if it appears to the court to be more suitable to have a non-jury trial or if it appears to the court that the value of the property involved exceeds a sum to be set by the government.”

By that, I think he means in relation to the severity of the case.

Mr Robertson goes on:

“This means, for all 80,000 cases in the backlog, more time—days perhaps—will have to be set aside for novel pre-trial proceedings featuring arguments about suitability and value of stolen property. There will be legal challenges to the government’s proposal that such legislation should apply to defendants who have already been charged or are awaiting trial. Applying these changes retrospectively amounts to a fundamental injustice, undermining legal certainty and the long-standing principle that individuals should be tried according to the rules in place at the time of the alleged offence.”

He is right, is he not?

Mr Robertson is not alone. The Bar Council says:

“The application of this proposal retrospectively inevitably will face a constitutional challenge. The Criminal Bar Association estimates that up to 30,000 cases will be affected. Not only is this extraordinarily unfair to those who have already elected the Crown Court, understanding that it is a jury trial, it interferes with legal certainty and runs the risk of tying the courts up in appeals, further increasing the backlogs.”

I hope that the Minister can reflect, as always, on those clear views, as well as the views of thousands of other legal professionals, academics and former judges, that provisions in the Bill are not necessary to bring the backlog down, and therefore should not be enacted retrospectively. They are fundamentally unfair, unconstitutional and against the usual practices of this place when it comes to retrospective legislation. I hope the Minister will support our amendment to make sure that the measures are not applied retrospectively.

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[Joe Robertson]

I look forward to spending the afternoon exchanging ideas with the hon. Member. Let me begin by expanding a little on what I had intended to say. I do not agree with the narrative that it is either the defendant or the victim who wins out, not least because not every defendant is a guilty person. I would also say that victims of the worst crimes, when they are waiting for a guilty person to be found as such, already face the backlog. They will not have a choice to go to the magistrates court, because those are not either-way offences.

The jury system will always take longer, and the people who have suffered the worst will always be subject to the longer jury trial. There is a reason why that is right: a jury is asked to take a decision on whether something happened, and its decision could mean that someone loses their liberty for a very long time. The criminal system in this country is tilted in favour of the defendant, so I am afraid that it is tilted in favour of people who commit heinous crimes. However, in our system we must believe that those who commit heinous crimes will be found out, convicted and serve the very toughest sentences.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Does the hon. Member agree that trying to divide our citizens into victims and defendants—the good and the bad—is not the best way forward? Defendants can themselves be victims, and victims can become defendants. It is important that we have a system of principle that applies to everyone. There is an assumption that we should favour of the victim and everything should be stacked against the defendant, but all of us, as individuals, could become defendants.

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[The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)]

I will endeavour to do just that, Ms Jardine.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden and the hon. Members for Bexhill and Battle and for Chichester for their amendments. Albeit with slight variations in wording, the purpose of amendments 12, 25 and 43 is to prevent the new allocation test for the bench division set out in clause 3 from applying to any cases received in the Crown court prior to the commencement of the clause.

Two of the amendments refer to cases in which the defendant has elected for trial in the Crown court. The hon. Members did not think that judge-alone reforms should apply in such cases. To be absolutely clear, clause 3 does not apply to trials that are already under way. It provides that the new provisions will apply to trials on indictment beginning on or after the specified day, which must fall at least three months after commencement. That means that cases in the existing Crown court caseload in which a trial has not yet begun may be considered under the new allocation test for the bench division. Cases already assigned to the Crown court will not be returned to the magistrates court because of these reforms. Where a defendant has elected for their trial to be heard in the Crown court, that case will remain in the Crown court. Cases in which a jury trial has already begun will always proceed with a jury trial.

The question was asked, “Why did the Government choose, through this legislation, to apply the procedural changes to the existing caseload?” The answer is simple, and I regard it as compelling: it will enable us to start tackling the backlog sooner, delivering swifter justice for victims, defendants and witnesses alike, without compromising defendants’ rights or fairness. “Retrospectivity”, which is a word that we have heard a lot in this debate, is a misnomer here. Cases that have already been assigned to one court jurisdiction, whether that is the magistrates court or the Crown court, will not be allocated to another jurisdiction. We will not be returning cases to the magistrates court when a defendant has elected for a trial in the Crown court.

Trials should be tried in accordance with the law as it stands, as at the commencement of trial. Critically, the application of what are procedural changes to existing cases is consistent with long-standing legal practice, as can be seen from judge-only trials for jury tampering under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and the application of the increase in magistrates court sentencing powers in 2024.

I disagree with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East: there is no application of article 7 in this context, because we are dealing with a procedural change. We are not engaging the criminal law as it applies to offences and to penalties. As a general principle, a trial should proceed in accordance with the procedural law in force at the time at which the trial begins. That is lawful and consistent with precedent. It is a practical step to ensure that courts can make best use of their available capacity, and it avoids two different procedures running in parallel in the Crown court as a result of arbitrary cut-off dates.

Implementing structural reform in our courts will take time. As I said in answer to the hon. Member for Bridgwater on the Justice Committee, we must pull every lever at our disposal to improve efficiency because the situation is urgent. Yes, on a number of occasions I have used the word “emergency”. A critique put to me by Members of the House, including the hon. Member for Bridgwater, and by the media is, “It is going to take you far too long to get this backlog down.” Well, that is why we must pull every lever, whether on investment, on efficiency or on these structural reforms. We cannot wait years for them to kick into effect. That is why we have made our choice. I urge my hon. Friend to withdraw her amendment.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I will not say any more. I think we have discussed retrospectivity enough. As I have said from the beginning, retrospective legislation is always a bad idea, in any country. People are entitled to certainty about the law. If we start eroding that fundamental principle, God knows where we will stop. I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote, but I hope that the Government will consider the issue further. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Rebecca Paul]

I will speak in support of amendment 40, tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle, amendment 18, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Chichester, and amendment 28, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden.

Before I get into my speech, I think that the hon. Member for Chichester raised a really interesting point about whether we will ever really talk about “triable either-way offences” going forward, if these changes go ahead. In effect, we will have the rather strange situation—to take the example of category 2 sexual assault or death by careless driving—of either summary offences or those with a full Crown court and jury. It will be interesting to see how that all flows through in the definitions. That is an interesting debate, but probably not one that everyone wants to have right now. I will move on from such interesting questions, and I can tell that the Minister is delighted that I have decided to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I beg to move amendment 26, in clause 3, page 8, line 36, at end insert—

“(h) fairness when considering the rights and circumstances of the defendant;

(i) the interests of justice.”

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 44, in clause 3, page 8, line 36, at end insert—

“(h) whether it is in the interests of natural justice for the defendant for the trial to be conducted with a jury.”

This amendment would ensure that where the decision for a judge-only trial is being considered for reallocation following a change in circumstances, that the judge must consider whether it is in the interests of natural justice for the defendant to have trial with a jury.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The amendment would add to proposed new section 74C of the Senior Courts Act, which concerns matters that must be taken into account when determining allocation in cases that are already set to have a jury trial. Amendment 26 would add two further conditions that must be considered when making such allocation decisions. First, it would add

“fairness when considering the rights and circumstances of the defendant”,

and secondly, whether the decision is in

“the interests of justice”.

Those two additional grounds would constitute an important safeguard for a defendant, especially given that these provisions are being applied retrospectively to cases that are already listed. We do not know what the criteria will be for reallocating existing cases in the system. For example, will it apply to those in custody, those very near to their trial time or those who are set down for trial within a short period of the Bill commencing, whenever that may be? No clear guidelines have yet been published on how the allocations will be dealt with.

We also do not know whether the decision to reallocate will be made by the resident judge of a particular Crown court, or whether a court’s listed cases be dealt with by the court administrators who are just doing the list, which is how many things are dealt with. We do not know what the procedure is going to be—we have no idea how the allocation process is going to work—so we are asking for these two particular provisions to be added to the Bill to ensure that there is a proper safeguard in the system.

Courts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Siân Berry]

The Scottish Green party is a separate party from the Green party of England and Wales, so I cannot vouch for its policies. However, the Green party’s justice policies look in the round at what is effective in reducing crime, rehabilitating offenders and improving society, based on evidence. I am sure that the Scottish Green party have those principles in mind with any policy it puts forward.

That is the end of what I was planning to say, and I hope we will hear more from the Minister about the erosion of jury equity and what Tim Crosland, in relation to the Bill, called its complete elimination. This will be an important effect of what is being proposed, and it has not had enough debate as yet.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

Before I turn to the substance of this clause, I want to begin by setting out the perspective from which I speak. Before entering Parliament, I worked as a prosecutor for more than 14 years. During that time, I dealt with a wide range of serious cases, including sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence, historical child abuse and cases involving families and vulnerable victims.

On a daily basis, I saw at first hand the impact of the criminal justice system on victims, witnesses and their families, as well as their emotions, their concerns and the importance of ensuring that justice is done fairly and transparently. Although I have not practised in recent years, my understanding of the system remains current. I remain in regular contact with practitioners, including solicitors, barristers, members of the judiciary and colleagues in the CPS, and I continue to follow closely what is happening in both the magistrates court and the Crown court.

In addition, during my time as a shadow Justice Minister, I worked on issues relating to prisons, probation and the courts, and I have seen how changes in the system, including the increased use of technology, remote hearings and the handling of evidence, have affected the way that justice is delivered. So I speak on this Bill from a position of experience and of ongoing engagement with the criminal justice system. Colleagues will be relieved to know that I will not be repeating this preamble in any future contributions.

Let me begin by addressing what lies at the heart of this Bill: the restriction of jury trials. Trial by jury is not a procedural detail; it is one of the most fundamental safeguards in our justice system. It reflects the simple but powerful principle that when the state seeks to take away a person’s liberty, that decision should not rest with the state alone, but with ordinary citizens—a jury of their peers.

That principle has a deep constitutional root—from Bushel’s case in 1670, which established the independence of juries, to its role across the common law world, trial by jury has long stood as a protection against arbitrary power. That is not just a feature of our legal system, but a principle reflected across the common law jurisdiction and a recognition that justice must be seen to be done and must not rely solely on the state. It is also one of the reasons that the public has confidence in our system.

The proposal in clause 1 to remove the right to elect a jury trial is not a trivial matter. It covers offences such as theft, fraud and stalking that carry real-life consequences, including custodial sentences, reputational harm and long-term impacts on people’s lives. The Government argue that the measure is necessary to deal with the delay in the system. I have great sympathy with the Government about the massive delay in the court system but, respectfully, jury trials are not causing that delay.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

If the situation the courts find themselves in is so obviously caused by the previous Government, why on earth is the hon. Member’s Government scrapping jury trials as a response?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Sackman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We often use the old adage about justice needing not just to be done, but to be seen to be done. That is vital, and again comes back to the language that people use about our courts. The suggestion that a person gets a rougher justice in the magistrates court is inaccurate, and we have to ensure that there is confidence in every tier of our justice system, including in our judges.

My hon. Friend is also right, not only about the perceptions of, but the real-world impact on minority communities and those who have historically had negative experiences with criminal justice. We know that disproportionality exists, whether in charging practices, sentencing outcomes or the amount of black and minority ethnic men on remand. Black and minority ethnic communities are disproportionately the victims of crime, and a person who is black is four times more likely to be a victim of homicide than a person who is white, which is a grave injustice.

That is why it is so important that the Deputy Prime Minister has committed that the Government will, in due course, introduce an amendment to the Bill to provide for a review to properly monitor the impacts of the reforms, and of wider justice measures, on precisely the communities and individuals that my hon. Friend spoke about. We have to enrich our understanding of the issue and ensure that the reforms command the confidence of all the communities that we represent.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

rose—

[Dr Mullan]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Sackman]

I am well versed in how our legal system works. I am well versed in the principle of the idea of innocent until proven guilty, and the criminal standard of proof. That is all important, as are the other safeguards that this reform system would retain. However, I make no apologies for the approach that we take in reforming this system, which, as I have said, is not just driven by necessity and pragmatism but by principle, and for the case repeated by myself and the Deputy Prime Minister—that we are a Government who will centre victims of crime. I also make no apologies for the investment we make in victim support services, or for the recalibration we are making in terms of how mode of trial is determined. Determining mode of trial is driven not just by the severity of cases, by creating an objective test to be applied by the courts, but the pursuit of timeliness. Timeliness, by the way, helps not only complainants and victims of crime but those accused of crime. If I were accused of a crime, I would want to clear my name as quickly as possible, so timeliness helps everybody across the criminal justice system.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I understand the point that the Minister is making about victims and I am obviously concerned for them, but we are also talking about defendants’ rights. She will be aware that 900 postmasters and postmistresses from the Horizon scandal have all said, “Please do not abolish jury trial,” and the reason is that when they were being charged with those offences, many of them were told to plead guilty by lawyers who thought that a public jury would find it difficult to believe that a Government organisation had made a mistake. However, some of them did elect Crown court trials and were acquitted. That is 900 potential defendant/victims. Lord Hain and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) mention the importance of the jury trial. I do think that the victim and defendants have a right to elect, and I think that we should abandon restricting the jury trials.

[Sarah Sackman]

Of course, the Post Office Horizon scandal was one of the great miscarriages of justice of recent times. However, it is important to remember that we are discussing the whole system and that, of course, for the most serious crimes under a reformed system, we would be retaining jury trial. It is also important to remember, as I think even those representatives from the criminal Bar accepted, that there is no constitutional, absolute right to a jury trial. If that were so, the 90% of people whose cases are dealt with in the magistrates court would have a right to insist on a jury trial. This whole debate is centred around the appropriate way to treat that cohort of cases in the middle—between summary-only, which stay the same, retained by the magistrates, and all the indictable-only cases, or indeed anything likely to receive a sentence of over three years, which retain a jury trial.

Courts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the Minister for that explanation. I hope she will bear with me as I try to take it on board.

Clauses 1 and 2 amend the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 so that a defendant charged with an either-way offence is no longer able to elect trial by jury. As was clearly established earlier today, that right to elect is entirely abolished by clause 1. Instead, it will be for the magistrates court alone to decide where the case should be tried; it can either remain in the magistrates court or go up to the Crown court. Clause 2 deals specifically with situations where there is a written indication of a guilty plea.

Section 17ZB of the Magistrates’ Courts Act, as inserted by section 6 of the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, sets out that the court can, on the material before it, without any hearing or representations, be satisfied that it is highly likely that, were the accused to plead guilty at summary trial of the offence in question and be convicted, the court would commit the accused to the Crown court for sentencing. Section 17ZB(5) then provides the accused with the opportunity to object to being sent to the Crown court for trial for the offence. Clause 2 amends that so that the accused and the prosecutor do not have the option to object and can instead only make representations as to whether the sentencing powers of the court would be adequate.

I note that “Crown Court” in the original section 17ZB is replaced with “court”. I assume that that refers to either the magistrates court or the Crown court, but I would be grateful for the Minister’s confirmation and explanation of that quite technical point, and of how it works with the Crown court bench division in the mix. The Bill’s explanatory notes suggest that it just means the magistrates court, but I went through the law— I should say that I am not a lawyer, but I dug it all out and read it—and, like a lot of Committee members, I am thoroughly confused. Normally, if something is logical and makes sense, I can follow it, so I am worried that it does not quite tie together. I am worried, even though I cannot quite articulate why, that the fact that the section will now just say “court” introduces some ambiguity. How is that defined? Quite often, these little bits of detail can be the speck of sand in the eye that can cause more problems than we realise.

This is a very technical issue, and I appreciate that it is difficult to go into it here and that the Minister is very good on the technical side of things—we have worked together on other things with very technical points, so I know that she is very thorough—but I think it is worth going through it again and making sure that the whole thing hangs together, so that we do not end up in a situation where the wrong place is doing sentencing or the wrong estimate of a sentence is made, and there is no way to unwind it. I am just a bit worried that there is potential for some problems to come out of this.

I appreciate the Minister’s helpful clarification that section 17ZB has not yet been commenced. However, if it had been, or if it were to be in future, it would, in a similar way to clause 1, remove powers and rights from defendants and give them less choice in how justice is dispensed in their case—essentially, a roll-back of rights. As I mentioned, I think we need to look at what will happen if the sentence estimate is wrong and how that will work its way through.

I thank the Minister for explaining that the provision is procedural, but it still strips people of the right to object and replaces it with the much weaker right merely to make representations. The explanatory notes are really clear on that point, even if they are not clear on a lot of others. They say that the changes made in clause 2

“remove the ability of the defendant or the prosecutor to object to the case being sent to the Crown Court for sentence”,

and instead create

“a process for each to make representations about whether the magistrates’ court’s sentencing powers would be adequate.”

That might have no impact if the section is never commenced, but if it ever is commenced, and we do not make sure that we have got clause 2 right, it may cause a problem and prioritise convenience over procedural protection.

When someone’s liberty, livelihood and reputation are at stake, it is a serious thing indeed to say that they may no longer object and may only make representations. Once again, the defendant is being moved further from the centre of the process, and the state closer to it. That is not right. Earlier in today’s proceedings, the Minister was reminded from the Opposition Benches that the legal system is balanced in favour of the defendant. That is not the spirit in which this change is being made. Indeed, that is the common thread running through clauses 1 and 2: at every stage, the defendant’s agency is reduced and the system’s convenience is elevated. The Government call that reform and improvement, but it is not; it is a distortion of our centuries-old legal protections.

There is a broader point here about confidence in the justice system. If the Government’s answer, again and again, is that defendants should simply trust the state’s estimate of seriousness, trust the allocation decision, trust the sentencing forum and trust that everything will work out in the end, that is not a strengthening of justice. It is a narrowing of the safeguards that make justice legitimate in the first place and will do nothing to address the backlog, which I recall was supposed to be the rationale for making these changes in the first place. Clauses 1 and 2 in combination are not what is required to address the Crown court backlog.

It appears that the backlog may be starting to come down already, as a consequence of uncapped sitting days and other changes that have been implemented, so why are the Government not taking a more cautious approach and exhausting all the good ideas that we have heard from expert witnesses before taking a sledgehammer to jury trials? Obviously, the first problem to address is the fact that up to 24% of Crown courts are not sitting on any given day, and getting the many defendants who arrive late to court there on time would be transformational. Why are we not solving those much more straightforward issues before pressing ahead with exceptional structural reform? We need to get the basics right, address inefficiencies and, most importantly, listen to those who know how to do it, such as the Bar Council and circuit leaders, and learn from the courts that are already making progress, such as Liverpool.

The Government are absolutely right to take the backlog issue seriously, but it is wrong to think that limiting jury trials will improve the situation. It could make the whole situation worse by creating years of transition and uncertainty and by moving one backlog from the Crown courts over to the magistrates. Furthermore, the cases moving over will be more complex, more technical and more sensitive. The Government are about to create a massive backlog in the magistrates court, which will then start to impact on low-level cases such as speeding offences.

I say that the Government should be more cautious because they have already accepted that there are other levers available. Ministers have announced that there will be no cap on Crown court sitting days next year, and that both the Crown court and magistrates courts will be funded at their highest ever operational level. That is much welcomed, but if the Government say that investment and capacity matter, why on earth would they not wait to see the full effect of those changes before pushing ahead with exceptional constitutional reform?

The Opposition position on that has been perfectly clear. On Second Reading, the Opposition’s reasoned amendment did not deny that the backlog is serious, but argued that the right answer is to improve case management, encourage earlier pleas, increase sitting days, increase the hours per day that courts are able to sit through better use of technology and improve the efficiency of prisoner transport. Those are practical, common-sense reforms; they go with the grain of the system, rather than taking a sledgehammer to jury trials and then hoping for the best.

The Government’s own impact assessment rather proves the point that this issue is as much about shifting pressure as solving it. It estimates that removing the defendant’s right to elect for jury trial would reduce crown Court demand by around 16,000 sitting days, but at the same time increase magistrates court demand by around 8,500 sitting days. The same document expressly recognises that reallocating cases to the magistrates courts is expected to increase the open caseload there and is likely to extend waiting times for hearing and sentencing in that jurisdiction. Even on the Government’s own figures, it is not some clean efficiency saving. It is a transfer of burden into a part of the system that is already under strain.

That is why clause 2 is more important than it first appears. Clause 1 removes the right to elect. Clause 2 then narrows the ability to resist where a written guilty plea is involved. Piece by piece, the Bill is building a system in which more serious, either-way cases are kept down, defendants have less say and the magistrates courts are expected to absorb ever more complexity. Ministers may present each provision as a small adjustment in isolation, but taken together, they amount to a very significant constitutional and practical change.

That change also carries transition risk. The Government are assuming that work currently taking place in the Crown court can be absorbed more quickly elsewhere. I know I am not telling the Minister anything that she does not already know, but the magistrates courts are not just a spare room in the system waiting to be filled. They will have to take more serious, more technical and more sensitive cases while continuing to deal with the huge volume of everyday criminal business that only they can process.

If the Government get this wrong, they will not have solved the backlog. They will simply have displaced it and degraded the quality of justice in the process. My plea is a simple one: “Proceed with caution. Let the effect of unlimited sitting days bed in. Fix the operational failings that everybody in the system can already see. Get defendants to court on time. Keep courtrooms sitting. Use technology better. Learn from the parts of the estate that are already improving, but do not dress up the removal of long-standing protections as if it were the only grown-up response to backlog. It is not. It is simply the most drastic one.”

That is why I cannot support clause 2. On its own, it may look technical, but in context it is part of a broader attempt to reduce rights, safeguards and the defendant’s role in how justice is administered. That is the wrong direction of travel.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

I rise to ask about two things. First, for clarification on what clause 2 is actually trying to do, because, like the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, and like the hon. Member for Reigate, I was very confused by it. I read it many times and read the explanatory note as well. In desperation, I even went on to ChatGPT to see whether it could explain to me what clause 2 is trying to do.

I hope the Minister will bear with me: as I understand it, the procedures in the magistrates court are as follows: If it is a summary case, then the case stays in the magistrates court—the sentencing, trials and so on—and nobody has any right to go anywhere else. If it is an indictable offence, it has to be heard in the Crown court. There is no discretion and it is nothing to do with the magistrates court. If a defendant is charged with an either-way offence—this is the whole point of a jury trial—it has always been the case that he or she can turn up in court and say, “I plead guilty.”

--- Later in debate ---

Trial on indictment without a jury: general rule for allocation

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I beg to move amendment 23, in clause 3, page 5, line 25, leave out “the condition” and insert

“one or more of the conditions”.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 39, in clause 3, page 5, line 26, at end insert—

“or,

(c) the defendant demonstrates to the court that the circumstances of his case are such that to be tried without a jury would amount to a breach of the principles of natural justice.”

This amendment would ensure that trials by jury continue for indictable offences carrying a sentence of less than three years in prison if the defendant can demonstrate that it would be in the interests of natural justice.

Amendment 24, in clause 3, page 5, line 28, leave out subsection (5) and insert—

“(5) The conditions in this subsection are met in relation to a defendant if—

(a) the defendant, if convicted of the offence or offences for which the defendant is to be tried, would be likely to receive a sentence of imprisonment or detention of more than three years for the offence or offences (taken together);

(b) the defendant is of good character;

(c) the defendant has not previously been convicted of an imprisonable offence;

(d) the defendant would be treated as a rehabilitated person under section 1 of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974;

(e) if convicted of the offence or offences for which the defendant is to be tried, would likely suffer significant reputational damage or have their employment or professional qualifications adversely affected;

(f) there are reasonable grounds to believe that the gravity or complexity of the case may increase; or

(g) other exceptional circumstances pertain to the case.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I will not press these amendments to a vote, but I want them to be debated; they are probing amendments. Amendment 23 was tabled by me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). At the moment, the proposed legislation only has one condition; I would like to put in more than one condition to be met when the courts are considering whether a case should go to the Crown court.

Amendment 24 sets out the conditions that I wish the Committee and the Minister to consider: when there is discussion or consideration about whether a case should be sent to the Crown court, they should look at whether

“the defendant, if convicted of the offence…for which the defendant is to be tried, would be likely to receive a sentence of imprisonment…of more than three years”,

which is what the Government have initially proposed. I also say that whether the defendant is of good character is a completely relevant consideration, along with the considerations in paragraphs (a) to (g) of the amendment.

I will explain the rationale behind that proposal. We have spoken about the fact that there are people of previous good character, who may be in a different position from people who have convictions, who could go to the Crown court. That is one good argument to make but, for me, when we are trying to restrict an either-way right of trial, the fact that someone is of good character is a relevant consideration. All the conditions I have set out should also be included in the Bill so that they are considered by the court when determining where the case should be heard.

Courts and Tribunals Bill

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

I welcome much in this Bill, including the investment in legal aid, the additional sitting days and the funding for our courts. However, I want to focus my remarks on two proposals within it: the restriction of jury trials for either-way offences, and the removal of the automatic right of appeal from the magistrates court to the Crown court.

I speak as someone who began their legal career as a prosecutor in the 1990s. The kind of backlogs we see today simply did not exist in those days, even though more cases were heard in the Crown court because magistrates had sentencing powers of only six months. The delays we face today are not caused by jury trials. I remember that as shadow Justice Minister I repeatedly challenged the previous Conservative Government about the consequences of the decisions they were making. Courts were closed, judicial sitting days were cut, court staff were reduced, and legal aid was placed under enormous strain. At the same time, the system had to cope with the demands of modern digital evidence, delays in disclosure, problems with prisoner transport and the disruption caused by covid.

The Government argue that these reforms are necessary to reduce the Crown court backlogs, and often point to the delays faced by victims of sexual and domestic abuse. I take those concerns very seriously—a substantial part of my career as a prosecutor was spent as a designated child and sexual abuse specialist and rape specialist. I worked closely with victims, witnesses and families affected by these traumatic offences. If I believed that the abolition of jury trials would genuinely allow those cases to be heard more quickly, I would support it, but I do not.

There is also the issue of removing the automatic right of appeal from the magistrates court to the Crown court. This change will disproportionately affect defendants from poorer backgrounds who may not have legal aid representation. We know that a significant proportion of those appeals succeed, which raises serious concerns about access to justice.

These two proposals will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable in our society, particularly those from socially, economically and educationally deprived backgrounds. My constituency ranks as the 38th most deprived in the country. For many of my constituents, the criminal justice system already feels distant and difficult to navigate. We should be careful not to introduce changes that risk criminalising and disadvantaging them even further.

There are real reforms that could address the delays. The first and foremost is the Labour party’s commitment to having properly funded specialist rape courts. I know that lawyers and judges will be prepared to sit at weekends to tackle those cases. Secondly, we could be more like the civil system, where timelines are set so that cases progress properly. If any of the parties do not act properly, there could be financial sanctions for them. I know we will be opening more courts and courtrooms, but we need to expand the number of judicial sitting days. We also need to review the contracts with Serco and other bodies that produce defendants in court, because a lot of delay is caused by defendants not being produced at court. The prosecution and the police need to be able to present their evidence to the defence as soon as possible, and the defendant needs to be legally represented, so that additional evidence can be considered. As a result, we could have pleas at a much earlier stage. We need to look at those things first, put them in place, and see what happens, before we get rid of or restrict jury trials.

Criminal Courts: Independent Review

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for securing this debate.

It is right that this House examines Sir Brian Leveson’s review with care before any legislation is brought forward. I spent many years at the Bar, as a prosecutor as well as a criminal defence lawyer, before becoming an MP. While an MP, I have served on the Justice Committee and for a number of years was shadow Minister for justice, prisons, probation and courts. During that time, I challenged Ministers at the Dispatch Box many times about the record delays to cases in the Crown court.

When the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently asked the public which rights should be protected in a Bill of Rights, two things topped the list: the right to NHS care and the right to trial by jury—a constitutional safeguard rooted in public trust. Sir Brian’s report exposes the scale of the crisis: record delays, cases listed years into the future and justice slipping beyond reach. Yet in Bolton South and Walkden, as a result of the current Government’s expansion of court sitting days, we have been able to reduce some of the backlog.

Capacity is not just about buildings, however—it is about people. Not only juniors, but senior barristers are leaving criminal practice because the fee structure cannot sustain a career. Judicial shortages mean that we lack the judges, recorders and district judges we need to run additional courts. That has not happened by accident. It is the result of 14 years of Conservative Government political decisions on court closures, cuts to sitting days and erosion of legal aid.

Before contemplating such constitutional changes as limiting jury trials, we should act on the most basic recommendations in the review—for example, increasing sitting days now and using courts to their full capacity. If we want earlier guilty pleas, the defendant must have access to timely legal advice, which also means that the fee structure for payment must be re-examined.

There are many sensible proposals in the review, including support for criminal pupillages and improved case preparation, but they honestly cannot justify removing the right to a jury trial or curtailing the right to appeal, particularly when more than 40% of appeals from magistrates courts to the Crown court currently succeed. We cannot resolve delay by reducing scrutiny or by getting rid of jury trial, one of the foundations of our civilised society. I know that some changes have already been made, but jury trial is fundamental to our system. We need reform, but it must be to strengthen trust, not to weaken it. When justice fails, not only do individuals suffer, but confidence in our entire system is lost.

Duty of Candour for Public Authorities and Legal Representation for Bereaved Families

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this debate.

I speak as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Primodos, which I have led for over a decade alongside affected families in their fight for truth and justice. Primodos is one of the clearest examples of a systematic failure of candour in British medical healthcare. Between 1958 and 1978, around 1.5 million women in the United Kingdom were prescribed the hormone pregnancy test. From the 1960s, doctors and researchers raised concern that it was linked to miscarriages, stillbirths and severe birth defects.

Instead of acting, the regulators actively suppressed the evidence and colluded with the pharmaceutical companies. When Dr Isabel Gal published her study in 1967, officials undermined her work rather than investigating it. Later, archives in the UK and Germany showed that they knew of the concerns, but kept patients in the dark, even though other countries had withdrawn the drug from the market.

After years of campaigning, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency finally established an expert working group in 2017. Its task was to examine whether there was a possible association. The final report said there was “no causal association”. That was not in the original draft; it was inserted late, under outside instruction, and caused misunderstanding by giving the impression of certainty. Moreover, the families were excluded from the process. We continued to campaign; in 2020 the Cumberlege review was set up and found that there had been avoidable harm, that people should receive redress, and that there should be a duty of candour and cultural change. However, five years later, only one recommendation—a patient safety commission—has been delivered.

The impact on the families has been horrendous. I call on our Government to recognise Primodos as a case study—[Interruption.]

[Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)]

Order. We have been disrupted by a Division. I am expecting everybody to be back here in 15 minutes, at 3.20 pm. When we come back, the hon. Lady will have half a minute.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Meanwhile, the Government have pursued legal strike-out applications to shut down the families’ cases—blunt tools that treat them as vexatious, even while Ministers have accepted in public that there was a failing. I call on the Government to recognise Primodos as a case study of breach of candour, to implement the Cumberlege review in full, including redress, to legislate for candour across public authorities, to guarantee legal parity, and to support the Hillsborough law now.

Courts and Tribunals: Sitting Days

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that the concordat process, which I have concluded with today’s announcement, has concluded earlier than the one that I inherited from his party would have done, so we have been cracking on. I have been getting on with the job: I increased sitting days immediately, I have taken every opportunity to increase them further, and I have now made a record allocation.

The hon. Gentleman says that the Lady Chief Justice has offered more sitting days, but he will know that she is not able to offer sitting days. She is able to comment on maximum judicial capacity, which she has done, as is appropriate. In order to make sure that sitting days are possible in the Crown courts, I have to consider wider system capacity issues, including the availability of legal aid, prosecutors and defence barristers. We have 110,000 Crown court sitting days—an unprecedented, record number—and I can say that there is capacity in the system overall, not just judicial capacity, for those days.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

Yesterday, the Public Accounts Committee published a report that says that rape and serious sexual offences are taking many years to come to trial. When I was a shadow Justice Minister, I asked the previous Government day in, day out from the Dispatch Box about what they were doing to reduce the court delays. For 14 years, they did nothing. In eight months, this Lord Chancellor has provided 110,000 court sitting days. Does she agree that the expression that comes to mind is “the pot calling the kettle black”?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I can tell my hon. Friend that many expressions have come to mind as I have been listening to the drivel from some Conservative Members—not all of which would not fall foul of “Erskine May”, so I will keep my counsel on that.

My hon. Friend refers to the Public Accounts Committee report, and I gently observe that I was a long-term member of that Committee. I have the highest regard for the Public Accounts Committee, but I reject its criticism, because this Government clearly have a plan—not just on funding and resources for the Crown court, but on the reform that will ultimately be needed to get the system into balance.