Mr Paul Kohler
MP for Wimbledon · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“Back in March, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) travelled to Belfast to address the Alliance party conference. In his speech, he warned that “it is too easy for the powers-that-be to write their own rules and cover up”.”
“Despite the unholy alliance between the Minister and Members on the Tory Front Bench, this issue is clearly a product of Brexit. I visited Dover with the Home Affairs Committee last week.”
“Will the Secretary of State confirm whether he will support the Lib Dem amendment to the Bill requiring that any decision to block disclosure on national security grounds is referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny?”
“The 2026-27 main estimate for the Northern Ireland Office asks the House to approve spending plans for this politically sensitive region of the United Kingdom. In cash terms, the 2026-27 block grant has barely increased from 2025-26 levels.”
“That figure sounds impressive, but it does not begin to address the operational drain that legacy demands place on day-to-day policing. The Chief Constable, Jon Boutcher, has warned that without the PSNI being funded to service the demands of what is planned to become the Legacy Commission, the entire project will fail, yet when he petiti…”
“A Federation of Small Businesses survey found that more than half of businesses trading between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are experiencing real difficulties, with more than a third of UK-wide respondents who moved goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland having stopped doing so entirely.”
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“Will the Secretary of State confirm whether he will support the Lib Dem amendment to the Bill requiring that any decision to block disclosure on national security grounds is referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee to ensure proper parliamentary scrutiny?”
“Back in March, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) travelled to Belfast to address the Alliance party conference. In his speech, he warned that “it is too easy for the powers-that-be to write their own rules and cover up”. He was talking about the need for a Hillsborough law, which he said at the time “is currently stalled in Parliament due to an unacceptably wide carve-out for the security services.” We on the Liberal Democrat Benches are deeply concerned that exactly that issue now confronts veterans, who, under this Government’s draft troubles Bill, are exposed to investigation and prosecution while the state that gave the orders shelters behind similar carve-outs.”
“Despite the unholy alliance between the Minister and Members on the Tory Front Bench, this issue is clearly a product of Brexit. I visited Dover with the Home Affairs Committee last week. Dover has invested more than £40 million in infrastructure, but the software is not working, and there will be chaos unless the EES is suspended this summer. This is a Brexit dividend, but will the Minister emphasise to the French that, rather than enjoying the schadenfreude, they should know how much their economy will be damaged by the chaos that will ensue?”
“Northern Ireland has endured too much and waited too long for a Government who match the scale of their ambitions with the substance of their spending. On the evidence of these estimates, it is still waiting.”
“Implementation of the Windsor framework is a stated Northern Ireland Office priority, yet the only dedicated line of funding for it in the estimate is an £8.5 million reserve fund, and at the Select Committee today we heard that the Northern Ireland business support service—also known as the one-stop shop—will not come on stream until the next financial year at the earliest. Finally, may I point out that the estimate transfers £35 million from the Home Office for the immigration health surcharge, yet the Home Office has not published data on the number of asylum claims lodged in Northern Ireland? We are being asked to approve spending derived from a population of claimants the Government decline to count.”
“A Federation of Small Businesses survey found that more than half of businesses trading between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are experiencing real difficulties, with more than a third of UK-wide respondents who moved goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland having stopped doing so entirely. Just one in seven Northern Ireland businesses say that they benefit from dual market access, which is much less than the 71% figure quoted by the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee this afternoon, citing a pre-Windsor framework survey. Some two thirds of Northern Ireland-based businesses say that they have no understanding of the framework and have not taken advantage of it.”
“Let us be clear that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has twice recommended a dedicated ringfenced funding stream to meet PSNI legacy costs, and it continues to do so in the face of Northern Ireland Office rejections. On trade, it is worth reminding the House that 56% of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU. They have been proved correct, as Northern Ireland has borne the consequences of Brexit ever since, with disrupted supply chains and barriers to trade. Of course, the Windsor framework was meant to give Northern Ireland the best of both worlds, with unfettered access to both the UK internal market and the EU single market. The evidence suggests that it has delivered neither.”
“That figure sounds impressive, but it does not begin to address the operational drain that legacy demands place on day-to-day policing. The Chief Constable, Jon Boutcher, has warned that without the PSNI being funded to service the demands of what is planned to become the Legacy Commission, the entire project will fail, yet when he petitions the Secretary of State he is told that policing is a devolved matter, and when he turns to the Executive he is told that legacy costs arose under direct rule and are a matter for Westminster. The responsibility bounces between the two, but the PSNI ends up footing the bill. The estimates do not contain any resolution to that deadlock. There is no acknowledgement that the legacy burden is a UK Government, not a Stormont, liability.”
“The 2026-27 main estimate for the Northern Ireland Office asks the House to approve spending plans for this politically sensitive region of the United Kingdom. In cash terms, the 2026-27 block grant has barely increased from 2025-26 levels. As the Stormont Executive are warning, that will leave a massive deficit and represents a 2.7% decrease in real spending power. That settlement arrives against a backdrop in which the Executive overspent their budget by £400 million in the last financial year, covered only by a Treasury reserve advance now being repaid in instalments, with £80 million due this year in the first tranche. We have a Government clawing back money, not investing in Northern Ireland’s future. On policing, the Government have provided an extra £113 million through the PSNI digital security fund.”
“Although the alleged attacker had leave to remain, concerns about irregular migration across the Northern Ireland border are being exploited by right-wing extremists to foment hatred and division. Given the importance of accurate information, will the Minister confirm whether the Government will begin collecting data on such crossings, as officials were unable to provide it when I recently raised the issue as a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee?”
“My thoughts and those of the whole House are with Stephen Ogilvie, who suffered truly horrific injuries on Monday night, and with the residents of Belfast who were forced to flee by rioters who do not speak for any legitimate community grievance. The knife attack was repugnant, but so too were the scenes that followed. This is the second consecutive summer of racially motivated disorder in Northern Ireland that the PSNI has faced while understaffed and underfunded. The Minister rightly says that the PSNI should be given time and space, but will he confirm what additional financial support the Government will provide for the PSNI, because it needs it?”
“Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris)—for meeting me to help to move things forward, although sadly Merton council declined to attend that meeting. Nationally, the Liberal Democrats are offering concrete solutions. We would cut VAT for hospitality from 20% to 15%, which a study from the Night Time Industry Association shows would pay for itself by increasing sales and VAT revenue. We would reform business rates to reward occupancy and community value, while agreeing a youth mobility scheme with the EU to resume the flow of young, eager Europeans keen to work in hospitality in their gap years. We would also reform the apprenticeship levy so that our hair salons and other small businesses are incentivised to develop talent. Our high streets need urgent help. Too many shops have put the “closed” sign up for the last time.”
“I am a south Londoner, even though my parents were both cockneys, because my mother came to Morden from Hackney one day in the 1940s to attend a Sunday Pictorial film stars garden party—as a fan, not as a celebrity, I hasten to add—in nearby Morden Hall park. She was enraptured by the thriving art deco high street that she encountered and decided on that day that she wanted to live in south London. Sadly, Morden town centre has been in decline for many decades, despite Merton’s Labour council promising, for at least the last 30 years, to rejuvenate it. The council’s latest plans have now been put on hold till the end of the decade. Sadly, nothing is happening. I thank the Minister’s colleague—the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon.”
“Across the sector, the number of apprenticeships dropped from 16,000 to 6,000 between 2016 and 2023 because of a VAT regime that incentivised salons to use self-employed staff rather than to grow and develop their own talent. However, my constituency is doing better than many parts of the country. Footfall in Wimbledon town centre is rising, and Wimbledon village was recently named the UK’s top neighbourhood high street. However, the same is not true of Morden town centre, most of which has been part of the Wimbledon constituency since the 1980s. Morden town centre was once a go-to destination.”
“That measure, along with record increases in the minimum wage and an expansion in the legal burden of workers’ rights, both of which have a disproportionate effect on small businesses, seemed almost designed to destroy growth and hold back our high streets. Online shopping is a major contributing factor. By failing to enact sensible reform of the business rates system, successive Governments have failed to address the unfair advantage enjoyed by online retailers. Increasingly, high streets are filled with things that one cannot get online, but even here, Government policies are failing responsible employers. Take the hair and beauty sector as an example. The first Headmasters salon opened in Wimbledon village more than 40 years ago.”
“Primark is coming to the Wimbledon Quarter—Primark’s first new London store in nearly a decade—and Aldi, Marks & Spencer and Barclays have all recently invested in Wimbledon town centre, but they are international chains with deep pockets and preferred borrowing arrangements. Their confidence must not mask the fact that there are fewer and fewer independent businesses in Wimbledon. Such businesses are worn down by costs that they can no longer absorb. Like the coalition in 2010, this Government received a hospital pass from their predecessors, but that is no excuse for making matters worse. The rise in employer’s national insurance contributions—Labour’s tax on jobs—fell hardest on high street businesses, whose staff cannot be automated or offshored.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) on securing this debate. I declare an interest as the owner of CellarDoor, a bar and cabaret venue in Covent Garden, and as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the night time economy. Small businesses, hospitality and the night-time economy are the backbone of our high streets. In London alone, they support nearly 1.5 million jobs and generate close to £50 billion a year. Yet the independent, locally-owned shops that once defined our high streets have been squeezed out and far too little has been done to nurture those that remain. That said, I welcome new investment in my constituency.”
“Will the Government also ban all UK maritime services from supporting Russia’s fuel exports? Finally, will the Government scrap the shameful sanctions waiver on fuel and diesel products refined from Russian crude oil?”
“The House will join me in expressing deep condolences to all those who have lost loved ones as a result of Russia’s unlawful war in Ukraine. The UN has verified nearly 16,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths and 45,000 injured civilians since Russia’s illegal invasion. On Tuesday alone, Putin’s evil regime fired another 74 missiles and 656 drones at residential buildings and non-military infrastructure across Ukraine, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 100. Russia has destroyed 90% of Ukraine’s thermal power generation, while continuing to profit from fossil fuel exports that fund this destruction. Will the Minister please confirm that the Government will stop prevaricating and show leadership on the world stage by transferring the £30 billion of frozen Russian assets held in the UK to Ukraine to aid in its defence?”
“Will he also give us an update on whether the Northern Ireland Office plan is still on schedule, and explain how the troubles Bill is to be amended to remedy the structural shortcomings exposed in the review?”
“The May review of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery describes a “toxic”, “divided” and “disrespectful” senior culture, along with structural weaknesses in the governing legislation. It also raises concerns that the Government’s forthcoming troubles Bill will make matters worse. However, in his response to the review, the Secretary of State appeared to suggest that it was simply up to the ICRIR to sort this out, although the ICRIR is sponsored by his Department, the review was commissioned by his Department, and his Department is now legislating to rebadge this failing body as the legacy commission. Will the Secretary of State tell the House whether he accepts that he is ultimately responsible for Peter May’s 19 recommendations being followed?”
“Their call to abandon the remedial order that remedies defects in the Tories’ flawed legacy Act disingenuously implies that veterans who served in Northern Ireland are currently protected from prosecution, despite the fact that the provisions in the Act that purport to confer such immunity were never brought into force and were subsequently declared unlawful by the UK courts. I ask the House to vote for our amendment but not the Conservatives’ one.”
“The tensions come from the fact that Northern Ireland has the advantage of access to the EU’s single market while the rest of the UK does not, and the only durable way to manage the complications that arise is to bring the rest of the UK into closer alignment with the EU. Finally, I turn to amendment (o), tabled by the Conservatives. Although we support the need to increase defence spending and join them in calling for urgent publication of the delayed defence investment plan, their cynical amendment fails to make reference to the Tories’ responsibility for the hollowing out of the armed forces.”
“The EU is transitioning to a new migration and asylum pact, and we, like other non-EU countries including Norway and Switzerland, should be involved in that arrangement. As my party’s Northern Ireland spokesperson, I welcome the European partnership Bill’s provisions simplifying food and plant movements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but let us not pretend that the Windsor framework has delivered the “frictionless” utopia that was promised. Despite the purported benefits of the green lane, nearly 60% of Northern Ireland businesses report challenges, and one in three have ceased trading with Great Britain entirely.”
“The case for building our European partnerships, rather than forsaking them, has never been stronger. The new UK-EU security and defence partnership is consequently welcome, but aspiration must be matched with urgent commitment. The threats gathering on our continent will not wait while Labour indulges in another psychodrama like those that plagued the previous Tory Government. The proposal to deepen co-operation with Europol, Frontex and the European Migration Network to combat people-smuggling is overdue and welcome. The sharing of biometric data, criminal records and intelligence on people-smuggling gangs should never have ended, notwithstanding Brexit. However, we need to go further.”
“The National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that Brexit has reduced UK GDP by at least 6%, with business investment running nearly 20% lower than that in comparable economies, and both employment and productivity down by roughly 4%. That is why I am urging every Labour Member who wants to grow our economy and fund our armed services properly to vote for our amendment, which simply calls on their Government to begin negotiating a new customs union with the EU. The world today bears little resemblance to the one in which Brexit was conceived. Putin’s Russia is four years into a land war in Europe, has sent warships into British waters and has poisoned British citizens on British soil, while NATO is under threat from an American President who treats collective security as a transaction rather than a commitment.”
“This is at best tinkering, not the full-bodied re-engagement that our economy desperately needs and that the public are demanding. Debate on this issue is too often conducted as though opinion froze a decade ago, but the country has moved on, with two thirds of the public now favouring proper re-engagement with the EU. Sadly, the current Prime Minister has tied himself down with red lines that make that impossible, while the leading contender to take over from him has already U-turned on his EU commitments, along with his U-turns on proportional representation and the fiscal rules. Andy Burnham does not just turn and U-turn; he spins.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward) on her passionate and compassionate speech. There is much in the King’s Speech that I can support in principle, and the Liberal Democrats will engage constructively, but not uncritically, with its proposals. Too often, however, this Government’s instinct has been to prevaricate rather than to lead, and nowhere is that more apparent than in their dithering over our relationship with Europe. Any measure that rebuilds even a fraction of what the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) undermined and the Conservatives demolished deserves support, and on those narrow terms I welcome the European partnership Bill, but let us be candid: the Government are not proposing an ambitious reset.”
“That “wait and see” approach is part of the uncertainty that our veterans and their families fear. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what concrete steps he will take in Committee to ensure that genuine, independent protections for veterans are built into the Bill, rather than leaving those safeguards to be resolved on a case-by-case basis?”
“The Liberal Democrats have opposed the granting of immunity from the outset and maintained throughout that removing it was a legal necessity, not a political choice, and this judgment confirms that we were right. The Supreme Court set aside the Court of Appeal’s declarations that the ICRIR was incapable of discharging its article 2 investigative obligations. However, that was not an endorsement of the ICRIR’s design. The Court held that the challenges to the absence of legal aid, the absence of provision for next-of-kin questioning of witnesses, and the Secretary of State’s power to restrict disclosure could not succeed as abstract prospective challenges; rather, each of those questions would need to be assessed on the facts of individual cases.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. The Supreme Court judgment lays bare the consequences of the previous Government’s catastrophic approach to legacy, which drew a wholly unjustifiable moral equivalence between terrorists and those who serve the Crown. That scheme was declared unlawful and incompatible with our human rights obligations by every court that considered it, and has now been repudiated by this Government. Those on the Conservative Benches who championed it in this House did our veterans no favours, and neither has their ill-disguised and cynical party political mischief-making regarding the remedial order and today’s statement.”
“The Liberal Democrats believe, as I think do many Government Members, that victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse deserve a justice system designed with their needs in mind, not one that treats their cases as scheduling problems to be managed and uses a pretext for restricting jury trials.”
“They thought that it would be change of the sort that was in the manifesto, not restricting jury trials, of which there was no mention in the manifesto. Public confidence in this place is at an all-time low. If Governments win elections with manifesto pledges and then ignore those pledges or offer diluted concessions that go not so very far, they lose the confidence of the public. It is so fundamental, and it is such an important moment in our democracy. Governments have to live by what they said they would do. Here is the Government’s chance to do so. Rather than diluting the right to jury trial, as the Bill’s central provisions would do, new clause 2 proposes a better answer to the backlog: courts established specifically for sexual offences and domestic abuse cases, with specialist knowledge and resources to handle them properly.”
“New clause 2 would deliver what this Labour Government themselves pledged in their manifesto: specialist courts for rape and domestic abuse, trauma-informed proceedings, fixed trial dates, and proper support facilities for victims. It would create time limits for case preparation, fixed trial dates and prioritised listings, including for cases where the defendant is on bail, addressing one of the most dangerous and distressing features of the current system. I remind Government Members that the front cover of the Labour party manifesto featured one word: “Change”. The Government’s supporters and their own Members—and even the Opposition—all thought that would be change for good, not for bad.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I will speak on new clause 6, new clause 25 and, in particular, new clause 2 tabled by the hon. Member for Warrington North. Her proposal represents the genuine structural reform that victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse have long been promised and too long denied—the radical change that the Labour party proposed when in opposition and in fighting the last election. I acknowledge the hon. Member’s extraordinary courage in waiving her anonymity to speak openly in the Chamber. She revealed how long she had had to wait before going to court and mentioned that every single one of those days was agony, made worse by having a role in public life that meant that the mental health consequences of her trauma played out in public.”
“While I concede that the black hole might not have been foreseeable, the fact that there was a backlog in the courts was clearly foreseeable. The idea that the Government came into power and then suddenly realised there was a backlog is implausible. We are two years into this Government. The change that was promised is long delayed and people are losing confidence—we see that. This point crosses political boundaries. The public are losing confidence in our democratic processes, and change delayed is change denied.”
“Is the Minister talking about extending one trial over more hours? Surely the solution is having two trials in parallel. I do not know whether the Minister has ever been on a jury; I have been on a jury three times. It is very difficult for jury members, particularly non-lawyers, to listen to evidence for more than four hours. Currently they might do five, or five and a half hours in a day, and that is difficult for them. The idea of a trial in the morning and a trial in the afternoon running in parallel, separately, is better for jury members and for the system, and addresses many of the Minister’s concerns, does it not?”
“It ignores the special circumstances in Northern Ireland, and has been described by the Police Federation for Northern Ireland as “minuscule”. I want to press the Secretary of State on the same two questions. What additionally is he doing to ensure that the PSNI has adequate funding and resources to respond to the threat posed by dissident republican groups, and what discussions has he had with the Chief Constable, Jon Boutcher, and the Northern Ireland Executive to address their repeated concerns about PSNI funding?”
“I begin by praising the bravery of the police, the fire and ambulance services, and the delivery driver, all of whom put themselves in danger to prevent a tragedy. I am sure the Secretary of State recognises that, as an act of terrorism, this is a matter of national security, which is the responsibility of the central Government. Unfortunately, whenever asked about funding to combat dissident republican terrorism, the Northern Ireland Office repeatedly points to general funding allocated to the Executive, as though the responsibility to combat such terrorism lies with them. Admittedly, some extra funding, as we have heard, is given for additional security funding, but that is intended to cover all forms of terrorist activity.”
“There is still no confirmed date for the Committee stage, which has been repeatedly delayed and is still planned to be a Committee of the whole House, therefore precluding the detailed line-by-line scrutiny that could usefully take place outside the Chamber. In that context, it is difficult to justify carrying the Bill over without greater clarity. Our position is not about opposing progress, but about ensuring that the legislation we pass is robust and capable of delivering a process that people, in particular veterans and victims, can trust. The carry-over motion risks extending uncertainty without resolving the underlying problem. It is important that my party makes clear that the current Bill is far from adequate. For these reasons, we will oppose the motion.”
“As currently drafted, there is no clear statutory threshold for repeat investigations without genuinely new evidence, no firm presumption in favour of remote participation, and limited clarity around how welfare, proportionality and the cumulative impact of past investigations will be applied in practice. Under the current Bill, veterans will continue to face uncertainty around repeat investigations, the threshold for reopening cases and the circumstances in which they may be required to engage again with investigatory processes. I acknowledge that the Secretary of State has made clear his intention to bring forward amendments, but we currently have no idea how extensive those will be.”
“More importantly, all the veterans’ organisations with whom I am working oppose those provisions, as do every political party and community in Northern Ireland. However, voting in favour of the remedial order does not require us to do likewise regarding the Bill before us, because despite many months of patient negotiation between the NIO, veterans’ groups and commissioners, Opposition parties and the MOD, the Bill remains deeply flawed. The central issue is the lack of sufficient protections for veterans and failing to address the very real danger that the process becomes the punishment. The Secretary of State heralds his six safeguards, but even he has now acknowledged that they do not go far enough.”
“There is a stark irony here: a party that claims to stand by veterans introduced a system that precluded justice for the families of those very veterans, which is why every veterans organisation with which I am working is opposed to these callous attempts to use the very real plight of our veterans in a nakedly political assault on the Human Rights Act. The Liberal Democrats remain adamant that supporting the remedial order was the right thing to do. It was a narrow technical measure to remove two unlawful provisions granting blanket immunity to paramilitaries and veterans alike. We consistently opposed these measures in the last Parliament as contrary to the rule of law and drawing an inappropriate moral equivalence between terrorists and servants of the state.”
“His family has spent years seeking truth and accountability, only for legislation granting blanket immunity to terrorists to strip away hope that those responsible would ever be properly investigated, charged or convicted. Or there is Patsy Gillespie, who worked in an Army base and in 1990 was strapped into a van by the IRA while his wife and children were held at gunpoint—a hero whose last act was to shout a warning that saved the lives of many before he and five members of the King’s Regiment died as the bomb went off. The Conservatives, who claim to have always had our veterans’ backs, had little to say when their own legislation barred investigations into the maiming and murder of hundreds of state actors such as these.”
“As a party that believes in the rule of law and fulfilling our international obligations under the European convention on human rights, we also supported the Government’s subsequent remedial order, which simply removed two provisions where the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal issued declarations of incompatibility with the Human Rights Act 1998, one of which has never even been brought into force. Sadly, the Conservative party sought to weaponise that vote by creating a false dichotomy between veterans and victims, cynically pitching one against the other, seemingly oblivious to the fact that those two categories are far from mutually exclusive. Cases like that of Private Tony Harrison, murdered by the IRA in 1991, bring this into sharp focus.”
“Although we voted with the Conservatives on their reasoned amendment to kill the Bill, we broke with them to abstain on Second Reading to signify that, while we are deeply unsatisfied with many of the provisions, protections and omissions in the troubles Bill, we remain opposed to the blanket immunity confirmed by the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, somewhat delphically described as “conditional” immunity by the Conservatives even though the only condition is the admission of guilt.”
“During my research for today’s speech, however, I discovered that, while we are close, that is not the case. In my defence, what with the ever-dwindling number of Conservative MPs it is hard to keep track of the denominator in that equation, but I none the less apologise to the hon. Member and this House for my error. This debate provides an opportunity to judge whether the troubles Bill is fit for purpose, commands confidence and does justice to those it seeks to serve. On all three counts it gives me no pleasure to conclude it currently falls far short. As I hope the Secretary of State recognises, the Liberal Democrats have engaged with the troubles Bill constructively from the outset.”
“The Liberal Democrats are committed to ensuring all those who served to uphold the rule of law during Operation Banner are treated with dignity and afforded proper legal protection. As a Member of a parliamentary party whose percentage of veterans is well into double figures, I assure the House that their experience informs my party’s approach and strengthens our determination to assist the Secretary of State in getting this right. Before I address the substance of this motion, however, I would like briefly to correct something I said to the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) when we last debated this hugely consequential matter. In response to his intervention during the debate on the Government’s remedial order, I said that the percentage of veterans in my parliamentary party is greater than in his.”
“I think the evidence is that 3% of trials currently have a jury, and that will go down to 1.5%. That is a 50% reduction. Does the hon. Member not agree that that is a huge reduction in the number of jury trials from the present number?”
“I think we all agree now, do we not, that allocation decisions are not, on the whole, subject to judicial review if they are in the Crown court. If the Minister conceded that point, we could move on. Why does she not just concede that point?”