We now come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Justice Committee. Andy Slaughter will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which there will be no interventions. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement, which should be brief questions directed to the Select Committee Chair, not the Minister. Front Benchers may, of course, take part should they wish.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for making time for this statement. The Courts and Tribunals Bill was introduced in February as a response to the Crown court crisis. There were over 80,000 outstanding cases as of December 2025, with some trials being listed into 2030. That harms victims, defendants and witnesses alike. We recognise the urgency of that crisis and acknowledge that continuing with the status quo is not an option.
In response to the crisis, the Government commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to conduct his independent review of criminal courts, which has been published in two extensive parts and makes 180 recommendations to address the crisis and reduce the backlog. The Government’s Bill has been informed by Sir Brian’s review, although it deviates from his recommendations in some key areas.
Last Wednesday, the Justice Committee published a report setting out our critique of the Courts and Tribunals Bill, based upon three oral evidence sessions and over 130 written submissions. I take this opportunity to thank all those who contributed to the report, in particular Committee members of all parties, many of whom are here today, and of course our secretariat. Our report makes recommendations to improve the Bill and draws attention to some of its unintended consequences, and it aims to inform further scrutiny of the Bill in both Houses. I note that we do not yet have a confirmed date for the Bill’s return to this House on Report. I hope we will have that soon.
I put it on the record that I voted for an alternative report that I felt better reflected my concerns, but I accept that the report is a fair reflection of the Committee’s view.
Given that the last recruitment drive for magistrates failed to deliver the much-needed uplift at that point, and with the expansion of magistrate-led trials adding further pressure, does the hon. Member agree that the Government should publish regular statistics on magistrate recruitment to ensure that they are on track to achieve the 21,000 by 2029?
The hon. Member is right to mention that there was a dissenting report, which was not approved by the Committee. Other members may wish to raise that issue. From my point of view, it was reassuring that the analysis in both reports was very similar. I hope that I correctly reflected some of those concerns in my statement. What the outcome of those concerns should be may have been a matter of difference between different parties, but that all adds to the spice of life on Select Committees. I agree with the hon. Member on magistrates. There has been so much attention on the issue of judge-only trials, which is crucial, but the Bill will succeed or fail on recruitment and the type and nature of magistrates court proceedings. They are being asked to do a huge amount of heavy lifting, and it is only fair that the Government keep us up to date on progress.
The Government introduced the Bill without publishing a formal response to part 1 of Sir Brian Leveson’s review. The Government also declined to allow the Justice Committee to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny. We instead launched our inquiry a matter of days after the Bill’s publication, as we felt this landmark piece of legislation required proper, in-depth parliamentary scrutiny. We know it is hard for the Government to change course once a Bill is introduced, but this is an area where the Government should have enabled more parliamentary input before pushing forward, particularly given that the Bill’s provisions will not come into force until March 2028 at the earliest. Our report is analytical, but crucially it is constructive and aims to improve rather than dismiss what the Government have proposed. It covers all clauses of the Bill dealing with reform of the criminal courts, but I will focus my remarks on a few key areas.
First, let me address the impact on magistrates courts, which will significantly increase owing to the removal of the right for defendants to elect for Crown court trial and by increasing magistrates’ sentencing powers. Our principal finding on this point is that we are not convinced that the magistrates courts will be able to cope. It seems unrealistic to propose that 7,000 magistrates can be recruited in three years so that there will be 21,000 magistrates by 2029. Previous recruitment campaigns have fallen far short of their targets. Retention also remains a persistent challenge and there is a chronic shortage of suitably qualified legal advisers. The Government must demonstrate, in more detail than they have done so far, that expanding capacity in the magistrates court is deliverable. As part of that, we recommend that the Government should significantly increase the number of salaried district judges. They must also ensure that the pay of legal advisers matches comparable legal roles in the public sector.
The Government seek the authority to increase magistrates’ sentencing powers to 18 months or even 24 months—double what they are now. Until recently the maximum was six months, and then from October 2024, 12 months. Sir Brian said that this should be set permanently at 12 months and that the Government should not be able to vary it at will. We say at the least that any change should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and debated in Parliament. Otherwise, every time there is a peak in prisoner numbers, the Government will shift magistrates’ sentencing powers down to six or 12 months and then back up to 18 or 24 when they stabilise again.
On appeals from the magistrates court, we recognise the Government’s concern that, as more cases are retained, unmanaged growth in appeal volumes could place additional pressure on the Crown court. We also accept that the current automatic right to a full rehearing can, in some cases, place a stressful burden on victims and witnesses. However, appeals currently represent a small and declining proportion of overall Crown court receipts, with only 0.4% of magistrates court decisions appealed in 2025. They are resolved quickly and with a high success rate, suggesting that the right to a full rehearing plays an important role in correcting wrongful outcomes.
The Bill provides for the introduction of audio recording in magistrates courts for trial and sentencing. This would allow for an accurate record of proceedings to be transcribed in support of an appeal. Several submissions we received raised concerns about the scale of such an undertaking and the practicalities of equipping magistrates courts with the necessary facilities. It would benefit no one if changes were introduced before recording systems were properly functioning or if they subsequently failed. We recommend that any changes to magistrates appeals should be introduced only once recording of all magistrates court proceedings has been introduced and is proven to be operating effectively.
The main public and professional criticisms of the Bill have been around judge-only trials, and the creation of a Crown court bench division. Our report focuses more on the question of whether that will work in practice rather than the principles of the reform. We decided the proposal to introduce judge-only trials hangs on allocation to a jury trial or the bench division. That will be done by an assessment, at the first hearing in the Crown court, as to whether the defendant would receive a sentence of three years or more.
While many cases will be straightforward, the allocation process could consume a significant amount of court time and judicial resource overall. We think the three-year threshold for deciding which sort of trial a defendant gets will need some more consideration. At present, when magistrates decide whether a case should be allocated to the Crown court, they consider the length of the potential sentence, but they also can consider the circumstances of the case. Should the Crown court not also be able to say that a case is likely to have a sentence of less than three years, but should still have a jury trial?
We conclude that the allocation process as currently designed is likely to be complex, time consuming and will lead to unintended consequences. Reliance on likely sentence length as the sole criteria will mean that defendants with previous convictions are more likely to face a jury trial than those without, and that children are less likely to face a jury than adults accused of the same offence. We recommend that children should be exempt from being tried at the bench division. We also raise concerns that the predicted 20% time saving of judge-only trials, so heavily relied on in both the Bill and Sir Brian’s review, lacks sufficient evidential basis.
Finally, on equality, we share the concerns of many in the justice sector around the potential equality impacts of the Bill, particularly in relation to race. An unreformed justice system already perpetuates a range of inequalities, and we do not feel that the Government have tackled those head on through the Bill. The Bill proposes to expand the role of both the magistrates court and judge-only Crown court proceedings, while reducing the role of juries.
The Lammy review, in 2017, concluded that juries are one of the few areas of the criminal justice system where black and ethnic minority defendants do not face disproportionate outcomes. It is shocking that only 1% of Crown court judges are black, a figure that has not changed since 2015. This has serious implications for the trust that black defendants may have in the bench division, where judges will sit alone. We recommend that the Government take action to improve progression routes to the senior judiciary, and that they set a clear national target to achieve a representative judiciary and magistracy by 2035.
We recognise the need to reform our criminal justice system and commend the Government for commissioning the Leveson review and proposing comprehensive reforms. We hope, however, that they will take note of our recommendations, which we believe would improve the Bill while maintaining the core values of justice and fairness in our criminal justice system.