Dr Kieran Mullan
MP for Bexhill and Battle · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I welcome the opportunity to give my personal views on this Bill, as colleagues in health have taken over responsibility for it. I have spent most of my life as someone who was highly sympathetic to the cause of assisted dying and imagined that I would support it if I ever was an MP, but that changed in 2018 when I read the Gosport War Me…”
“I will not; there is not time. While I do not seek to say that the Bill will be used in that way—to deliberately bring about an end to the lives of confused or elderly patients—my worry is about how it will insert itself into that battle in our country between the best and worst of our natures, in families, conversations and settings wher…”
“The report describes what happened to some of them. One patient was admitted for respite care but deteriorated and became confused during his stay. Staff asked permission to give him diamorphine, but his daughter refused as he was not in pain. However, his wife later agreed, and he was started on diamorphine via syringe driver.”
“It happened because the staff in that hospital and on that ward had developed a culture of prioritising convenience in looking after patients over the value of their lives.”
“I remain deeply sympathetic to the scenarios and circumstances that people have described, and I can personally foresee a situation where I would want to make use of this Bill and feel that it would benefit me, but we should not legislate for what we might want.”
“Then there is something that perhaps seems benign but is sometimes very challenging: the patients who continually call out for help again and again and again, perhaps asking for a medicine or a meal that they have already been given, and refuse to be consoled.”
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“I understand that it is not unheard of in other jurisdictions with judge-alone trials, such as Canada and New Zealand, for parties to sometimes wait months for the full reasons to be given for the verdict. By contrast, a jury provides a benchmark of finality. They do not go home to handle other business for a month; they deliberate while the evidence is fresh and stay until the job is done. As I pointed out earlier, while they are doing that, the judge is free to carry on with other matters. A case awaiting a verdict is a frozen case. It hangs over the court’s docket. It prevents the defendant from moving to the sentencing or appeal phase and potentially requires the judge eventually to relearn and reacquaint themselves with the full details of the case, perhaps weeks later.”
“The Government promise that a judge, as a legal expert, will streamline the process. However, that argument collapses the moment that a judge says, “I will give my verdict, but you will have to leave it with me while I go away and write it up.” The goal is to save time but, if there is a separate process that requires significant enough time that it cannot be done as part of the trial, where is the saving? In written evidence, we were warned of what might be called a bottleneck shift, where we might clear courtroom space more quickly, only to move the delay into the judge’s chambers. As the Criminal Bar Association points out, the reasonable time provision is currently too vague.”
“They are predicated on the idea that that is the sole and only way that we can tackle the backlog in the Crown courts. If we are to accept the Government’s claim that trials without juries are a tool for efficiency, we must hold the system to that standard. For that reason, it seems sensible and necessary to require that, in any trial without a jury, the judge must provide their verdict and their reasons immediately. Allowing a judge to delay their reasoning is not just a procedural flaw, but a logical contradiction that undermines the very efficiency that the Bill seeks to achieve. The Government’s most frequent argument for restricting juries is that they waste time due to the need to go slowly through the evidence and the unpredictable length of deliberations.”
“If that study showed that that 20% saving was a myth, and that the time taken on the back end cancelled out any gains made during the trial, of course the reforms should be paused or reversed. We should not trade a system that works for one that merely looks faster on a spreadsheet. Jury trials are not an obstacle to justice; they are a safeguard against its abuse. It is important that we gather the facts and measure the actual time it takes for a judge to provide a reasoned judgment. If the evidence does not support the Government’s assumptions, we must have the courage to stop these reforms before we permanently damage one of our most valued constitutional inheritances. I now move on to amendment 52. As I have mentioned, we are debating the important element of reforms that are historic in their reduction of our access to jury trials.”
“We picked this element as something amenable to study; there is nothing preventing the Government from commissioning a series of either sitting or retired judges to sit in the public galleries of trials happening in the ordinary way and then to go away and consider what reasons they would present and how long that would take. The Government could then measure and study the reality of that. Of course, that would vary from judge to judge, but a study with sufficient statistical power, with enough people taking part, could give us a genuine insight into how long these things will take. If the Government are confident that this process will be short and sharp and able to save time, I see no reason why they would not want to know it for sure before proceeding on that basis.”
“The Government have spoken frequently about the lack of availability of professionals within the legal system to hear criminal cases, and it will be the same KCs and others who will be stuck in the Court of Appeal on these cases, instead of being in the Crown court hearing cases from the backlog. For those reasons, we propose a simple, pragmatic pause. We are asking the Government to commission an independent study of the length of time required for a judge sitting alone to deliver a judgment after conviction. This is a matter of sequencing: evidence first, implementation second. In any other field, be it medicine or engineering, we would never implement a change of this magnitude without a pilot study or a comparative dataset.”
“In other jurisdictions, delivering a verdict and providing those judgments can be reserved, meaning that they are written weeks or even months after the trial concludes. Unlike a jury, a judge has a full docket of other administrative duties. We risk a situation where the time theoretically saved is then lost through another route. Without a comparative study of what I will refer to as the judicial deliberation gap, we are making systemic changes based on an incomplete set of metrics. Additionally, because a judge’s written reasoning provides a detailed map of their logic, we are likely to see a significant spike in appeals. A jury’s verdict is difficult to appeal on the facts; a judge’s written judgment invites scrutiny for any minor error in law or logic, further clogging the higher courts.”
“The Government’s efficiency narrative is focused almost entirely on the front end of a trial, the time it takes to empanel a jury and deliver legal instructions, and the time they claim is taken up by what some have described in evidence as playing to the jury. It ignores the back end of the process, the delivery of the judgment. In a jury trial, once the evidence is closed, the jury deliberates continuously and provides an immediate verdict of guilty or not guilty. Importantly, in that time, a judge can be otherwise engaged, hearing other cases and doing other work. From their perspective, the fact-finding phase is over instantly. A judge sitting alone does not have that luxury. To satisfy the requirements of transparency and guard against appeals, a judge must produce a reasoned judgment that addresses every point of law and fact.”
“The Institute for Government has analysed the proposals and suggests that the judge-only trials in the new bench division might save only 1.5% to 2.5% of total Crown court time. Furthermore, the Criminal Bar Association has pointed out that the Government’s impact assessment assumes that the average length of a trial in scope is six and a half sitting days when, in reality, these trials typically last closer to three days. By doubling the realistic length of those trials in their modelling, the Government have likely overestimated the potential savings. When we look at these figures, we must ask whether it is right to curtail a fundamental safeguard for a gain that may be as low as 1.5%, when today alone we have 10% of Crown courts sitting empty for no other particular reason than a lack of efficiency.”
“He further stated that “seeking to model how much time would be saved is extremely difficult.” That point is reinforced by the Government’s impact assessment. Their attempt to quantify the time saving found that it was likely to be in the range of 10% to 30%—potentially half the time saving that Sir Brian claimed—and even that figure is born of what we might call a light-touch engagement session with judges and others, rather than rigorous comparative data. If the primary justification for stripping away a constitutional right is a 20% efficiency gain, then Parliament is entitled to see clear, verified evidence that that gain is actually achievable. While the Government promise a transformation of the system, independent experts argue that the actual time saved will be marginal.”
“We must ask whether this fundamental change is based on robust data or merely an intuitive sense of speed and individual opinions. It is not only reasonable, but essential to ask the Government to conduct an independent formal study into the actual time savings achieved by judge-only trials before they are implemented. Amendment 58 focuses on one of the more easily measured elements, which could be properly studied. The Government’s case for reducing jury trials is predicated on the idea that it means the trials will be 20% shorter, yet when we examine the source of this figure, its foundation begins to look unstable. Sir Brian Leveson, whose review informed much of the Bill, stated that the estimate of a 20% reduction is subject to “very high levels of uncertainty”.”
“I rise to speak in support of amendments 58 and 52; I will start with amendment 58. We find ourselves at a significant juncture in the history of our legal system, and the Government have presented us with a Bill framed primarily as a pragmatic response to the current record-breaking backlog of nearly 80,000 cases in our Crown courts. The central justification for their reforms, specifically the restriction of the right to a jury trial, is efficiency; the Government argue that by moving towards judge-led trials, we can streamline proceedings and reduce the demand on the Crown court by almost 20%. However, when we are asked to curtail a right that has stood as a cornerstone of our democracy for more than 800 years, we must move with extreme caution.”
“The Government cannot have it both ways; they cannot introduce measures in the same Bill that are based on the idea that judges are not sufficiently enacting the law as written, and then say that we are wrong to have concerns about judicial decision making in these sorts of scenarios.”
“As we are touching on these issues, those of us on the Opposition Benches are happy to say that we have to work harder on judicial accountability and decision making, and we are not afraid to say that we think it is better that juries do these things, because judges err. There is an irony really, because at the heart of the Bill is another measure in relation to the powers that we give family court judges. My hon. Friend will know that the impact assessment says that the law at the moment basically says that judges already know—based on the law—that the welfare of the child comes before visitation rights. The Government accept that that is what the law says, but they do not trust judges to understand and accept that law. They want to introduce measures that further restrict judges’ decision making.”
“As I understand it, the Bill has been given roughly the same time as the Salmon Act 1986, which introduced the offence of salmon handling, so it is reasonable to ask whether it has been given sufficient time. If the Minister thinks there will be no real gap in time in terms of judgments, there is no reason for the Government to oppose amendment 52, which says that those should be immediate. Given the controversy and the varying opinions from experts on both sides of the debate, a non-legislative study is a perfectly reasonable thing for the Opposition to ask for. We will press amendment 52 to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“And of course, to move away from opinions, the Government’s own study, which attempted to turn opinions into a quantitative exercise, found that the savings could be half those that Sir Brian Leveson said are achievable. It found that they could be between 10% and 30%, whereas Sir Brian said they would be 20%. The Minister said that time would be saved on summing up. I sincerely hope the defendant will get to hear the same things a jury would have got to hear. If they do not, I suspect we will see a further increase in appeals. The Minister spoke about the time taken. A Bill that will have a seismic impact on our legal system has been introduced without a public consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny, and the Committee time has been less than that given to the Railways Bill.”
“I want to pick up on a couple of points the Minister made, particularly the one that our amendment, in relation to a study, would require primary legislation. That is simply not the case. We specifically identified an element that could be studied without a need to change the law. No law would need to be changed to allow some retired or sitting judges to sit in on a court case and provide the judgment that they would have given had they been hearing it. No legislation is required for that. The Minister leans heavily on the experienced judges who agree with her, but more than 3,000 legal professionals, including senior retired judges, disagree with her.”
“As we have heard, critics, including the Criminal Bar Association, warn that extending summary justice to cases carrying two-year sentences is a recipe for— [ Interruption. ]”
“However, independent bodies such as the Institute for Government have noted that assumptions about time savings in magistrates courts are highly uncertain. There are serious concerns that magistrates courts, which already face their own peak backlog of over 370,000 cases, simply do not have the capacity to absorb that work. Although the provision in clause 6 will not lead to an immediate increase in sentencing length, it is reasonable to assume that the Government would not have introduced it if they did not have some intention, at some future point, to increase the sentencing powers available to magistrates and therefore to retain more cases in the magistrates courts. We must also consider the differential quality in justice administered under the expanded powers.”
“The affirmative procedure provides a much more robust safeguard. Under that route, a statutory instrument is laid in draft and cannot become law until it has been actively debated and approved by both the Commons and the Lords. That ensures that the Government must stand at the Dispatch Box, in the same way the Minister has been doing all week, in a Committee Room just like this, and openly justify why the increase in sentencing powers is necessary and proportionate. That level of scrutiny is essential, because the Government’s current justifications are contested. The Government argue that the powers will allow more cases to be retained in magistrates courts, thereby reducing pressure on the Crown court backlog.”
“Under the negative procedure, a statutory instrument is usually made by a Minister and becomes law immediately upon being laid before Parliament. It remains law unless either House successfully votes to annul it, through a process known as praying against an instrument, within a set 40-day period. In reality, the power to object is rarely used and even more rarely successful. I understand that the House of Commons has not successfully prayed against a negative instrument since 1979, and the House of Lords has not rejected one since 2000. The procedure essentially relies on the absence of objection to grant legitimacy to a change in law. In an area as fundamental as the power to imprison citizens for extended periods, Parliament should not rely on a lack of noise to signify consent. It must require explicit, recorded approval.”
“When we discuss the power to deprive a citizen of their liberty for up to two years, instead of one, we are discussing one of the most serious powers the state can wield. Magistrates courts are designed for summary trial, which is a process intended for the swift disposal of less serious, low-level cases. Allowing that framework to pass two-year sentences is a major shift. As laid out by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion, the evidence we heard explained that such an expansion will mean that more serious and complex cases will be dealt with by lay justices. For a change of this magnitude, the negative procedure provides an inappropriately low level of scrutiny. To understand why the affirmative procedure is necessary, we must look at the mechanics of parliamentary oversight.”
“The central question we must address is not merely whether the powers should be increased, but how such a decision should be scrutinised by Parliament. The Bill allows the changes to be made under the negative procedure. Through amendment 53, we propose that any future exercise of the power be subject instead to the affirmative procedure, requiring the explicit approval of both Houses of Parliament. As I have said, I also support amendment 13 from the Liberal Democrats, which says the powers should not be increased full stop. Increasing the maximum custodial sentence a court can impose is not a minor or technical adjustment; it is a substantive change in the fundamental balance of our criminal justice system.”
“I rise to speak to my amendment 53 and to amendment 13, tabled by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester. Clause 6 includes a provision that seeks to expand the Secretary of State’s power to vary the maximum custodial sentence that may be imposed by magistrates courts for triable either-way offences. At present, the general limit for such sentences stands at 12 months, having been increased from six months in 2022. The Bill proposes that we allow that limit to be further increased, by way of regulations, to 18 or even 24 months. While the Government frame that as a necessary tool for operational flexibility, it represents a significant extension of the custodial powers of our magistrates courts.”
“We must ensure that our fundamental rights are not treated as administrative details to be checked off on a spreadsheet. For those reasons, I support the proposal that any future increase to magistrates’ sentencing powers must be subject to the affirmative procedure, as well as other amendments that seek to constrain the Government’s actions in this regard.”
“The combined effect makes it even more imperative that any increase in power is not snuck through via the negative procedure. As we have heard from other Members, there is a backlog in the magistrates courts of 379,000 cases. Anything that increases their workload will potentially have adverse consequences. In summary, increasing the maximum sentence in magistrates courts is a major constitutional change that affects the liberty of the citizen. It is not a matter of administrative convenience that should be left to the fast track of the negative procedure. If the Government are confident that increasing the maximum to 18 or 24 months is the correct solution to the backlog, they should have no objection to making that case openly and seeking a positive vote of approval from both Houses.”
“We must look at the cumulative impact of the Bill. While clause 6 increases the power of the magistrates courts at the front end, clause 7 restricts the right to appeal those decisions at the back end. The Bill replaces the automatic right of appeal and full rehearing with a permission-based model. That creates a clear and troubling shift: more power is being exercised at the lower level, while the ability to challenge those decisions is being constrained. With around 40% of appeals against conviction from magistrates courts currently successful, it is clear that the system is correcting a meaningful level of error. Increasing sentencing powers while simultaneously narrowing the mechanisms for correcting those errors is a double blow to the rights of defendants.”
“It is important that we read what Sir Brian said: “My strong recommendation is that the maximum should remain at 12 months. Furthermore, I recommend that the legislation be amended so that the Lord Chancellor no longer has the power to reduce the maximum to six months via a Statutory Instrument. The 12-month maximum should be made permanent.” Here we have another example of the Government wanting us to set aside all our concerns about the erosion of jury trial rights on the basis of Sir Brian’s expertise and experience, at the same time as ignoring it themselves. If the Government intend to move in the opposite direction of expert legal advice, it is only reasonable that they be required to obtain explicit approval from Parliament through the affirmative procedure every time they seek to do so.”
“Crucially, when we have previously raised the question of the Government varying from Sir Brian’s recommendations, the Minister has prayed in aid Sir Brian saying that the Government could go further in some circumstances. This could not be further from that. He said that the reforms he recommended were “contingent” on the Government also introducing a power to cap the sentences that could be passed by magistrates. The use of Sir Brian as evidence of opinions across the board is reaching farce now. We have the Government disagreeing with Sir Brian on whether there should be a judge and two magistrates, disagreeing with Sir Brian over the maximum sentence for triable either-way cases in the magistrates court, and now they are directly opposing what he wanted them to do in relation to magistrates’ sentencing powers.”
“If we are to allow a system where unrepresented defendants face longer custodial terms in shorter hearings, that decision must be subject to the highest level of parliamentary debate. It is also worth noting that the Government’s proposals depart from the recommendations of the very review they claim to follow. Sir Brian Leveson, in his independent review of the criminal courts, recommended that the Government’s ability to amend magistrates’ sentencing powers by statutory instrument of any kind should actually be repealed. He suggested that the current 12-month maximum should be made permanent, rather than leaving it as a “variable” that the Executive can adjust.”
“Critics, including the Criminal Bar Association, warn that extending summary justice to cases carrying two-year sentences is a recipe for what they describe as “rough justice”. The procedures in magistrates courts are streamlined. For example, the Government’s own impact assessment assumes that even these more serious trials will be completed in a matter of hours. Furthermore, there is a significant disparity in access to legal representation. The income threshold for legal aid in magistrates courts is much lower than in the Crown court. That means that a defendant who would have been eligible for a publicly funded lawyer in the Crown court might be forced to represent themselves in the magistrates court, even when facing a two-year prison sentence.”
“Thank you, Ms Jardine, for taking the Chair as we continue this later sitting. Before we suspended, we were debating my amendment 53 to clause 6 in relation to the use of the negative procedure rather than the affirmative procedure to change sentencing powers. I was talking about the importance of considering the nature of the justice delivered in the magistrates court when making changes to the powers of that court. As I have said previously in Committee, the fact that we have some criticisms of elements of the magistrates court does not mean it should be got rid of—we accept that these must be balanced measures—but it is important for us to consider that when expanding its powers.”
“This happens all the time. We point out deficiencies in the Government’s position, so Members get their Whips’ handouts with suggestions to “just point out to them what they did on x, y and z.” But the public do not care. That is a zero defence of their position— [ Interruption. ]”
“I will be quick. The public care about the Government’s justification for what they are doing, not what we have done. If the Government are leaning on what we have done in the past, it shows how weak their arguments are.”
“I rise to speak in support of amendment 22 tabled by the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester. This is another element of the Bill that will not survive contact with the Lords. It is quite clearly unfair. I want to pick up on some of the points that were made. There are key reasons why the amendment is sensible. In other parts of the debate, Government Members have raised the negative impact of cross-examination by defendants, which they do not think is a good thing. They do not think it is a good thing that victims may be cross-examined by defendants, yet they will not support a measure that would reduce the risk of that happening, and it does happen. The context of all the different parts of the clause is important to bear in mind.”
“Yet we heard in evidence from the Criminal Bar Association and the Bar Council that the £34 million of legal aid announced in December still has not filtered through into the system and is still not available. We are now in April.”
“The consistent position is that unrepresented defendants can take up more court time and can cross-examine victims, and that is more difficult for victims. As other Members have touched on, this takes place in the context of the other things that we have been unsuccessful in changing this evening. Sentencing powers are increasing and the right to appeal is being watered down. There is a pernicious erosion of the fairness of our courts at the same time as the yardsticks are being essentially changed in relation to access to legal aid. This is important in the wider context of what is happening with legal aid. The Minister wants to say all the time that the Government are stretching every possible sinew to do everything else they possibly can to improve the backlogs in the courts.”
“She cannot say, “We are doing everything possible,” and then react so vociferously when I point out a clear example of where the Government are not doing everything possible. If they were doing everything possible, that £34 million would be available to practitioners through additional legal aid. So right now, the Government are not doing something that they could do to help increase things such as the availability of legal advice and the number of people choosing to practise in the criminal Bar. Again, in relation to legal aid, this is a perfectly reasonable amendment. I am pretty confident that the Government will have to announce or concede to this change at some point, and it is purely for party political reasons that the Minister will not concede this point—because it is a Lib Dem amendment.”
“Yes, absolutely. I have acknowledged that on a number of occasions, along with what the Government have done on Crown court sitting days and a number of other ways that I recognise the Government have improved things. The point I have made repeatedly is that the Crown court backlog prior to the pandemic was lower than the backlog we inherited from the previous Labour Government. Again, I think the Minister might get a better hearing from us Conservatives if she was fairer in that regard, in terms of her criticisms of our record—if she actually acknowledged the record in its entirety in relation to the backlogs prior to covid. I mentioned that £34 million because the Minister cannot have it both ways.”
“We should not trade away fundamental procedural protections for a marginal gain in court sitting days. If we want to solve the backlog, we should focus on the low-hanging fruit identified by the Bar Council and others: open all existing courtrooms, more than 10% of which are closed today and were closed yesterday; fix prisoner transport, an issue that costs us thousands of days every year; and properly resource the legal profession. We must reject the 24-month limit and maintain the 12-month cap to ensure that serious custodial decisions remain subject to the full rigour and safeguards of our Crown courts.”
“What might have arguably been permissible at the lower end of the threshold does not automatically translate into an assumption that it is therefore appropriate at the higher end of the threshold. It is because the measure will apply towards the higher end of threshold that we think it is inappropriate. We failed to persuade the Government, and as a result this clause remains concerning. In summary, the proposal to increase magistrates’ sentencing powers to 24 months is a move towards cheaper, faster justice that is likely to be neither cheap nor fast, and it will certainly not be just. It risks creating a surge of unrepresented defendants, exacerbating racial disproportionality and displacing the backlog into a court jurisdiction that is structurally ill-equipped to handle it.”
“It really undermines the concept of having a specialist court if what goes on in that specialist court is then used to support an argument of general application. That goes against the whole point of a specialist court—we have gone out of our way in that case, because we recognise that the circumstances are special. For example, the types of custody, the implications for criminal records and the style in which cross-examination happens are all different in the youth court and the adult estate. We must therefore recognise that we are in a completely different position. The Minister also talked about how the negative resolution procedure is already used in this area. The crucial difference is that we are taking a leap to 24 months, in terms of the impact of these decisions.”
“If the Government are claiming that that will be a further 8,000 sitting days, there must be some juggling with the figures. If the Government are seeking to achieve 130,000, and Sir Brian thinks that is the right number, and the Government’s plan has got an additional 8,000 that Sir Brian never envisioned, does that mean we have 8,000 to play with in some other regard that Sir Brian did not understand? Can the Minister explain how we have ended up with the same figures and the same goal, but in a completely different way, with a further 8,000 that Sir Brian never anticipated or wanted? We also heard the argument that this is fine because the youth courts do it. We had that argument in an earlier sitting, and I made it clear that there are some fundamental differences.”
“Indeed, we’re not only ignoring your specific recommendation, we’re ignoring what you said about the other recommendations being contingent on the Government doing this thing around controlling the sentencing”. It is doubly insulting to Sir Brian to then suggest, as the Minister did, that he would be relaxed about this, and that he invited them to go further. Certainly, no reasonable person would interpret his suggestion in that way. There is also a question about the numbers. We know Sir Brian’s central recommendation is that we reach 130,000 sitting days. That is the number that he arrived at. We must assume that he has arrived at that number contingent on the Government sticking to his advice that we do not increase the maximum sentencing powers of the magistrates.”
“Sir Brian Leveson recommended that the current 12-month maximum should be made permanent. I draw attention to a previous response from the Minister, when she again raised the possibility that the review invited the Government to go further. We have discussed that this might be a relevant argument to make if, for example, we were talking about a recommendation on which the review did not clearly oppose the Government going further. If I was Brian Leveson, I would feel a bit like I was being mugged off by the Government, because they are saying, “We agree with what you want to do, but we’re going ignore you on the position that you are fundamentally clear on.”
“While clause 6 increases power at the lower level, clause 7 restricts the ability to challenge those decisions by removing the automatic right of appeal and replacing it with a permission-based model. The Bar Council describes this combination as “a comprehensive rolling back of safeguards.” At present, around 40% of appeals against conviction from magistrates courts are successful, and 47% of appeals against sentence are upheld, demonstrating that the lower courts frequently make meaningful errors. Doubling their sentencing powers, while simultaneously making it harder for a defendant to correct a wrong conviction, is a dangerous path to take. It is also worth noting that the Bill departs from the recommendations of the very review that it claims to implement.”
“As we have said, there is also a challenge with the backlog in the magistrates courts, which are currently facing their own record high of 370,000 cases. The system is also facing a critical shortage of magistrates and legal advisers. The loss of sitting days due to the absence of legal advisers, who are often trainees, even for better-paid work, is a persistent problem. Some estimates suggest that there are more than 20,000 sitting days-worth of work from professional judges in the Crown court. Expecting that to be absorbed into an overstretched and shrinking cohort of volunteers in the magistrates courts would, as the CBA describes, “transfer the burden from one over-stretched part of the system to another.” Finally, we must look at how the clause interacts with the rest of the Bill.”
“Beyond ethnicity, the Lammy review noted a great cultural gulf between predominantly white, middle-class judges and magistrates and the defendants appearing before them. By forcing more serious cases into the magistrates court, and removing the right of defendants to elect a jury trial, the Government are moving cases away from the most trusted and equitable part of our justice system into one where public trust, at least for some communities, is already fragile. JUSTICE notes that any reform that reduces choice risks deepening existing disparities and exacerbating distrust for minoritised communities. The Government’s primary justification is efficiency, but the Bar Council argues that these reforms will likely consume resources without bringing down the backlog.”
“The Minister has previously spoken about the lack of disparity in sentencing outcomes, for example, but specific statistical analysis showed that black, Asian and mixed ethnic women were more likely to be convicted—conviction is the question we are considering here—in magistrates courts than white women. We have discussed before how that may not necessarily be a direct causal relationship, as it could just be correlation. However, as the Lammy review points out, it is incumbent on Governments of any colour—Conservative, Labour or whatever they might be—to justify and explain those disparities. As we have discussed previously, we have not managed to justify and explain them, yet we are introducing measures that could potentially exacerbate them.”
“We cannot call a system just if it increases the stakes of a trial, while simultaneously stripping away the means for a professional defence. We must also confront the impact of these changes on minority communities. The Bar Council and JUSTICE both point to the findings of the 2017 Lammy review, as it is referred to in shorthand, which identified juries as a “success story of our justice system”, because they do not appear to discriminate between different ethnic groups when returning verdicts. However, the review found that the positive story of jury equity was not matched in magistrates courts.”