Contributions
747 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)Just to be absolutely clear, I have not accepted the CBA figures. What I have told you, and everyone here, is that on the last published figures, the backlog continued to rise…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)As I think I am hearing from the Opposition, given that clause 3 is really meaty and has lots of aspects and that, I suspect, all hon. Members, including myself, have prepared on…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)I will just conclude this point. The central insight of the independent review of the criminal courts, in direct answer to the hon. Member for Reigate, borne out by the modelling,…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)The hon. Lady will have seen that with the presentation of the Bill, as is right and appropriate, a suite of documents and material was made available to Members of this House and…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)I will not take any more interventions; I want to make progress. The point is that we are already beginning to see the investment aspect of this. The second pillar of how we…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)Of course, judges sitting alone do sentence. I understand the point the hon. Member is making in relation to the Crown court bench division, but it is important that my mum,…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)I am not sure who to give way to, but I will give way first to the hon. Lady—I will try to be as fair as I can.14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)For those watching on TV—which is probably my mum—I will be absolutely clear: the Government are not abolishing jury trials. The Government are preserving jury trials for the most…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)The hon. Member is right. Where currently a defendant charged with a triable either-way offence has the ability to choose trial by jury in the Crown court, even in a scenario in…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)Of course that is right. No one is talking about the abolition of jury trials. We have said, and I will say repeatedly, that juries are a cornerstone of the British legal system…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)Does the shadow Minister recognise that, in the IFG’s report, one of the central insights was that the key drag on court productivity was workforce shortages? We are making that…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)We are working hard.14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)What clause 1 does is remove the ability of a defendant to choose where they are tried, which, at the moment, they have a right to insist on. So we have—14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)I will give way to my hon. Friend.14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)I was coming to that point, but as the hon. Member has raised it, I will address it now. First, I put it on record that any suggestion that the Ministry of Justice or I have…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Third sitting)The hon. Member started with a long digression into trial by ordeal. I hope this Committee will not become a trial by ordeal, but I find the brass neck approach to this from the…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)We do not necessarily accept that that is why. There may be all sorts of reasons, which need to be unpacked, and that is the kind of thing I hope will be enriched by a statutory…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)But does the shadow Minister accept that these things take time? His party is a great believer in the force of the market, and the market here has decided that it wants to go and…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)While I am very proud of our legal system, I do not necessarily take the view that ours is best and we cannot learn from other systems. Indeed, some of the places that we have…14 Apr 2026HANSARDCourts and Tribunals Bill (Fourth sitting)I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman because he is making important points, but the point was well made a moment ago that in line-by-line scrutiny the intent is to go…14 Apr 2026