PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Changes to Jury Trials - 3 February 2026 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

As I have said, our focus is on victims who are being left to wait three, four or five years for their day in court. That is why I will bring forward bold change to fix the rotting Courts Service that we inherited, deliver record investment in our courts so that they can sit for more days than ever before, introduce modernisation to deal with the inefficiencies that we inherited, and reform the system so that we can triage which trials get a jury and stop criminals gaming the system.

As you know, Mr Speaker, the age-old jury system connects the public to the exercise of law, and is therefore at the heart of popular consent for criminal justice. In abandoning this link, are the Government careless of the accountability that it brings, or are they driven wholly by thoughtless expediency? Are Ministers careless or thoughtless?

We are not abandoning the jury system, but as Sir Brian Leveson said in his Sunday Times article this weekend, the threshold needs to be rebalanced. I am not sure if the right hon. Gentleman was in Parliament in 1988, but I am sure that he did not object when Margaret Thatcher rebalanced the threshold and moved criminal damage and driving a vehicle without authority to the magistrates courts.

There is clear evidence up and down the country of Serco failing to serve the Courts Service appropriately, including for my constituents in Torbay. Does the Secretary of State accept that if we can make sure that Serco can get people to the courts more rapidly, it will give them better access to justice and allow them to access jury trials?

That was very well linked at the end!

The Courts Minister and the Prisons Minister are working together on this issue. Sir Brian Leveson will have more to say tomorrow in part 2 of his report, on efficiencies, but one of the things that we are looking at is local authorities opening bus lanes to those drivers, so that they can speed through.

I recognise the Justice Secretary’s sincere commitment to tackling the court backlog that was disgracefully left by Conservative and Reform politicians. However, one of the most troubling aspects of the proposals on jury trials is the suggestion that the changes will be permanent, regardless of whether the backlog persists. Will he consider explicitly making these measures temporary and subject to review, so that their impact, if any, on reducing the court backlog can be properly assessed?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that, but may I refer him to Sir Brian’s report, and to his article in The Sunday Times this weekend? He talks about trials being longer, DNA evidence, the fact that we are passing more legislation in this place, and the police arresting more people. For all those reasons, and if we are serious about tackling the backlog and getting to a properly established system in which people do not wait much longer than six months to a year for their trial, the changes that we are making have to be permanent.

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

There is a lot of focus on replacing juries with a single judge in some criminal trials, but the Government also intend to increase magistrates’ sentencing powers, so that they can give sentences of up to 18 or 24 months, which is beyond what Sir Brian Leveson suggests. Is it the Government’s intention that district judges sitting alone will be able to sentence offenders to up to 24 months?

My hon. Friend and I have discussed this issue, and he knows that we need to increase the number of district judges. The forthcoming Bill will give us the power to increase the threshold for magistrates. Obviously, it will be essential to look at how that co-ordinates with the new swift bench, once we get Royal Assent towards the end of this year.

Sir Brian Leveson’s review did not contain any specific modelling to support his view that limiting jury trials would reduce by 20% the time taken for trials. If the Government’s own modelling does not support and validate Sir Brian’s assessment, will they U-turn on the policy?

Of course we support Sir Brian’s assessments of 20%. He also relied on international comparators. That is one reason why I was recently in Canada, which thought that 20% was an extremely conservative estimate, and that 50% was more likely. We will of course publish our modelling alongside the introduction of the Bill, as the hon. Gentleman would expect.

As the Deputy Prime Minister speaks, there is no sitting in 56 of the 516 Crown courtrooms. That is because he and his Department cap the number of sitting days in those courts. It is, in my view, a dereliction of duty to plan to do away with some jury trials when courts are not sitting. The Institute for Government says that Sir Brian’s 20% estimate, which was pulled from thin air, is more like 2%. What on earth are this Government doing? Why do we not get a grip of what is really happening in the system?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend—

We used to be friends, David!

He still is my hon. Friend. I know that he has a principled objection. It is important to recognise that Sir Brian has emphasised that we need to do all of it to deal with the inefficiencies. We will have more to say tomorrow, when Sir Brian publishes part two of his report, which looks at courtrooms, prisoners and how the justice system works as a whole. We are increasing sitting days and investing more than ever before. I am negotiating with the Lady Chief Justice; there will be more sitting days to come. However, we also need reform to ensure that we continue to support the jury system, which is what we are doing.

I call Nick Timothy, and welcome him to his role as shadow Justice Secretary.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I have been reading the Labour party manifesto, but without much luck. Can the Justice Secretary tell the House on which page the promise to restrict jury trials appears? Was it on the same page as digital IDs and all the tax rises?

I welcome the hon. Member to his place, and congratulate him on his recent promotion. We will judge him on his record. We note that he was responsible for cutting 20,000 police officers across the country, and that he was the author of the hostile environment policy, the Windrush tax and, of course, the wonderful election-winning dementia tax. He will note that our obligation in government is—as his was—to ensure a fair trial. We are bringing forward a threshold change very similar to the change that Margaret Thatcher brought forward in 1988.

Not waving but drowning. Forty of the right hon. Member’s colleagues—the number is rising—say that restricting jury trials is “madness”. He says that he will not listen to them, judges, lawyers or the victims of crime, so perhaps he will listen to these esteemed voices.

“Jury trials will always be a cornerstone of British justice.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 517.]

That was the Minister for Courts and Legal Services. “There must be a right of trial by jury in all criminal cases”—that was the Sentencing Minister.

“Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea. You do not fix the backlog with trials that are…perceived as unfair.”

That was Justice Secretary himself. If even he knows that this is a bad idea, how long must we wait for the 14th U-turn from this miserable Government?

It is a bit rich raising what my colleagues are up to on the Back Benches when the hon. Member’s colleagues are going to other Benches in this House. He knows that article 40 of Magna Carta makes it clear that justice delayed is justice denied. That is why it is our judgment and the judgment of Sir Brian Leveson that, for example, if someone has shoplifted an iPhone, they should not be entitled to elect for a jury trial. That should be something that can be dealt with by a magistrate or a single judge.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

The Justice Secretary is right to say that justice delayed is justice denied, but the Institute for Government’s report into jury trials showed that his plans to erode jury trials will make very little difference to the courts backlog, so it is no surprise that there is wide-ranging opposition to the proposals from within the legal profession and across these Benches. If the Deputy Prime Minister does decide to press ahead with these unpopular reforms, he stated that it would not be retrospective, but the Courts Minister said it would be retrospective in the Justice Committee. Who is telling the truth?

The IfG estimated a 10% contribution. If this were a 10% contribution to bringing down waiting lists at a hospital in the hon. Lady’s constituency, she would have it. Sir Brian estimated a 20% contribution. I said we would bring forward the modelling. Of course, it is right that there is no substantive criminal liability change in our proposals, so in that sense, it is not retrospective, but in terms of caseload, of course, they will be subject to the new mode of trial once this Bill gets Royal Assent.