Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to apply trial by a single judge sitting alone retrospectively to defendants who have already entered a plea and elected trial by jury.

The Government is focused on bringing down the backlog as soon as possible. Once the criminal court reforms come into force, they will apply to existing cases, provided the trial has not yet commenced. This will mean that cases which are past the point of initial mode of trial determination, but have not yet commenced trial, will be able to be changed from jury trial to trial by judge alone (either under the Crown Court Bench Division or on the grounds of technical complexity or length). Cases which are in the Crown Court will be retained within that jurisdiction.

Cases already part-way through a jury trial will proceed with a jury trial. Similarly, cases already assigned to one court jurisdiction (magistrates’ court or Crown Court) will not be reallocated to another jurisdiction.

The reason for taking this approach is so that the time savings and benefits of the reforms can be felt as soon as possible. Allowing pending cases to be tried by judge alone will enable us to start tackling the open caseload as soon as the new legislation is enacted, delivering swifter justice for victims without compromising defendants’ rights or fairness. It will also avoid two different procedures running in parallel in the Crown Court as a result of arbitrary cut-off dates. The application of procedural changes to existing cases is consistent with longstanding legal practice.