Ben Obese-Jecty

Since 1220, trials by 12 good men—trials by jury—have been taking place. Juries are a key way that citizens consent to and participate in one of the most significant powers the state holds: to convict and imprison subjects. According to the Secretary of State’s figures, cited in this House on 16 December last year, only 3% of all criminal cases are heard by a judge and jury under the current regime. He also claimed: “Jury trials will remain a cornerstone of the British justice system. Delayed justice is justice denied.”—[Official Report, 16 December 2025; Vol. 777, c. 742.] Yet he is now choosing to bring to an end an almost 1,000-year-old system in the name of efficiency. This is a complete red herring. Remedies are already available that would help to solve the backlog. In November, the Institute for Government stated: “The major drivers of poor productivity are not having enough criminal lawyers, badly maintained court buildings, shortages of court staff and poor technology”. While none of those are quick or easy to overcome, maximising productivity is a far more practical and measured step than the controversial and nuclear option of judge-only trials via the introduction of a new intermediate court, the Crown court bench division, which has been neither piloted nor thoroughly modelled—[Interruption.] I hear the Minister chuntering from a sedentary position about who started that. Well, this Government are doing nothing to address it. They could do as we on the Conservative Benches suggest and make a start by providing an adequate number of sitting days. Lady Chief Justice Carr has already said that 2,000 days are currently going unused. I would advise the Government to help sort the backlog by allocating those, rather than by abolishing a significant part of our system. The Institute for Government has identified that scrapping jury trials will save between 7% and 8% of the time currently spent on Crown court jury cases. Abolishing a practice used in such a small percentage of cases shows that this Government are more focused on the same tinkering at the edges that the Justice Secretary has stated we cannot afford to do, as opposed to using pragmatic, clear solutions that could help fix the issues. It also represents yet another in a long list of examples of Labour wanting to take power from citizens and further engorge the state. The Justice Secretary need not listen only to me. The Bar Council’s leadership issued a statement that made clear its position that it was against the curtailment of jury trials, stating: “There is no evidence we have seen…that it will significantly reduce the Crown Court backlog. However, there is evidence that diminishing the constitutional principle of trial by jury will erode trust in our criminal justice system.”