Contribution
The hon. Gentleman is right. As I pointed out at the start, and as Labour Members have highlighted, it is not just people concerned about defendants who have raised concerns about the proposals; victims have as well. Victims groups wrote an extensive letter to the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, asking them to think twice about the erosion of jury trials. Any criticism that Members make of me will, I am afraid, also have to be levelled at the victims who do not agree with them. Victims are not all of one voice on this issue, and we should respect that, instead of assuming that every victim agrees with Labour Members, which they do not.
The erosions under the proposals are significant. This Government, in which trust is so low, also seek for themselves an extraordinary power to do what they set out to do in clause 3 through the back door, via clause 4, in which they are not only introducing judge-only trials in the Crown court for what they describe as lengthy and complex cases, but giving themselves the power to add to the list of eligible cases through order alone, bypassing the fullest scrutiny of Parliament. That is quite extraordinary from a Government who, when in opposition, concerned themselves greatly with the proper use of delegated legislation.
The Opposition remain as concerned as everybody else about the Crown court backlog. We know that victims and innocent defendants are suffering as a result of it, but so much of the Bill will not help, and may make matters worse. That is the reality. I notice that the Minister was happy to repeatedly say in Committee that opposing the measures does not suggest not having concern for victims; I hope that she sticks to that line during the rest of the debate, and I would encourage all of her colleagues to listen to the words that she said. Being concerned about the erosion of jury trial rights does not in any way mean that we do not care about victims, and I hope that the Minister repeats that later.
I was able to visit the Supreme Court yesterday, and I encourage any Members mulling this over to head to the exhibition space and take a look at the replica of Magna Carta. They should read for themselves the words illuminated on the wall: at its heart, the highest and best form of justice is justice delivered by your peers. That brings me to the position of Labour Members. Prior to this partial U-turn, dozens of Labour Back Benchers, including 37 MPs who signed a public letter, expressed deep opposition to the Bill’s proposals to curtail jury trials. They rightly described the stripping of jury rights as “madness” that
“will cause more problems than it solves”.
Labour Members spoke forcefully about the unique value of the jury, yet today, following the removal of just one clause—just one element of this damaging Bill—the Government expect those same Members to walk through the Lobby in support of it. I ask those Members: what has actually changed? Clause 1 still abolishes the right of an ordinary citizen to elect for jury trial. Clause 6 still pushes serious cases into summary courts, where backlogs are already surging, and clause 7 still cuts off automatic appeals. If removing the right to elect a jury trial in either-way cases was wrong before, it remains wrong today. Dropping one element of a bad package does not make the remaining elements good law.
In Committee, Opposition Members and Labour Back Benchers put forward a series of modest, constructive amendments designed to insert basic safeguards into the Bill, and the Government rejected every single one. We tabled amendments to preserve a natural justice exception, ensuring that where a defendant could demonstrate that a summary-only trial would result in a clear breach of natural justice, a jury trial would remain available. The Ministers defeated those amendments. We pressed the Government on the severe misalignment in legal aid—a defendant in a Crown court benefits from higher legal aid eligibility thresholds—but the Government rejected those amendments. Everything we sought to do to protect natural justice and lessen the impact of the Bill was blocked.