Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department plans to suspend temporarily the right to trial by jury to tackle the backlog of cases as a result of the covid-19 outbreak; and whether his Department would be required to conduct an impact assessment before introducing that suspension.

We have now published our court recovery plan, setting out how we are recovering the operations of our courts and tribunals after the pandemic and a more detailed criminal court recovery plan will follow. We are continuing to increase capacity.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/court-and-tribunal-recovery-update-in-response-to-coronavirus

We have no plans to remove the right to a trial by jury, something which I am deeply committed to.