YouSaid · the spoken record
Robert Jenrick
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On the record 2014–2026
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This is everything the corpus holds for Robert Jenrick. It is not everything they have said on the record.
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“Of course. I want equality before the law. No one, from the most exalted figure in this land to the lowest, should be free from scrutiny, accountability and, ultimately, the full force of the law. Above all, we should publish this data because it would give the Government of the day incontrovertible evidence and the rationale to make the necessary changes. That would include our immigration system, because, at its heart, our immigration system should have one abiding objective above all others, whether economic or social: it should put the safety of the British people first.”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The establishment of a combined cadet force at the Newark academy was an incredible step forward for the town, bringing discipline, respect, training opportunities and a sense of pride. It was very unfortunate that the Department for Education chose to cut the funding, making it more difficult for other schools—particularly schools like this, in working-class communities—to establish new combined cadet forces in the future. What can the Minister do to ensure that funding is in place so that this is not just the preserve of communities with grammar schools or public schools, and that all communities, like the one that I represent, will be given the opportunity to have combined cadet forces?”
House of Commons1 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A student on a night out is stabbed multiple times with a 21 cm knife. He is lying in a pool of his own blood, literally drowning in his blood. The police come to the scene, but instead of doing everything they can to save his life, they handcuff and arrest the lad because there is an accusation of racial abuse. This is a scandal. Will the Home Secretary come to House and say what she is doing to investigate the way that the police conducted this matter, and can we have a debate on two-tier policing, which is doing so much to undermine respect for the police and the rule of law in this country?”
House of Commons21 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Chancellor’s approach to the cost of living crisis is to find small ways to subsidise people’s costs, but is not the best solution to build a strong, abundant economy by doing the hard yards of supply side reform? In that economy, there would be better jobs and higher wages, people would be richer and the state would have less bearing on their lives, yet under the Chancellor, the benefits bill is ballooning, unemployment is rising, particularly among the young, and taxes are at their highest ever level. In the spirit of giving people some relief today, will the Chancellor confirm—assuming that she intends to stay in office for the rest of this Parliament—that she will not be increasing taxes on working people at all for the rest of this Parliament?”
House of Commons21 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Well, what a complete shambles! Less than two years ago, this Government were elected with the largest majority of any Government, bar one, in 100 years. People across our country, including most in my home county of Nottinghamshire, put their trust in the Labour party. Why? Because it promised change. It said it would do things differently, it would be better and it would end the chaos. It would put country before party. And where are we, less than two years later?”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our streets feel increasingly lawless and our town centres are hollowed out. Those problems cannot all be placed at the door of this Labour Government. They are a result of 25 years of failed politics in this country by the two main political parties and all those who have gone along with them. Yes, I hold myself partly responsible for that, and that is why I chose to walk away from the party and do something new. But today things are getting worse on every one of those measures: 70,000 people have crossed on small boats.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Where are most of the Cabinet? They are plotting. I am surprised that so many Members are here—perhaps they are filling in time before the change of Government. These have been wasted years. That is what Winston Churchill said of the 1930s when he described them as “years that the locust hath eaten”— totally wasted time. At a moment when, in our hearts, each and every one of us knows that this country faces the most profound challenges at least since the 1970s, and perhaps more so, we have stagnating economic growth and the rapid deindustrialisation of our country. We have demographics that pose immense challenges, public finances that are on the rocks and getting worse with every passing day, and out of control illegal migration. We have social cohesion challenges of a type that we have never known as a country.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are here— [ Laughter. ] The hon. Member asks why I changed party. I will tell him why I changed party. It is because millions of people across the country look upon the performance of the last Government, and this one, and say that these are wasted years and that our country needs real change, yet we see nothing for it. This Government, let us be honest with ourselves, lie in ashes. They have failed. An air of unreality hangs over this debate. Members queue up to speak as if this were a normal King’s Speech. The Prime Minister summoned the King, the Crown, the golden carriages and the fanfares of the trumpets. For what? To paper over the cracks of his failing Government. This, as we all know, is a lame-duck Government presided over by a lame-duck Prime Minister. Where is the Prime Minister? He is in his bunker.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are a 90% to 95% service-based economy, and one of the most exposed economies in the western world to AI—just the moment to increase the cost of employing people. Look at small businesses like pubs, being battered by increases in business rates and every single cost. On every measure where the Government have tried to do something, they have made things worse.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The bravest of the brave—the men who served in Northern Ireland during the period of the troubles—now face a knock on the door or a letter through the letterbox. The previous Government, for all their failings, attempted to give a degree of immunity to those men, so that they would never have to live out the last days of their lives facing prosecution in the courts or wasting their life savings on legal fees. Think of what is happening to businesses the length and breadth of our country. The cost of employing people is going through the roof as a result of the Chancellor’s national insurance increases, making it more difficult to employ people at a moment when unemployment is rising and AI is transforming our economy.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Look at our farmers: the attempt by the Chancellor to impose the family farm tax, only partially U-turned on, has caused immense pain and suffering to thousands of farmers across our country, including many in my rural Nottinghamshire constituency. I went last year to meet a farmer in West Yorkshire whose father had taken his own life, by hanging himself in a barn, the night before the Budget, because he had read the briefing that the Chancellor had put out; the briefing was correct, but he wrongly feared that the measure would come in the next day. He killed himself. He is not alone. Think of the pain and suffering that some of the members of our armed forces have felt as a result of the thus far failed attempt to deal with issues in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will give way in a moment. Mass migration remains rampant. The public finances are getting worse. Look at what the markets are saying: the cost of borrowing is going up and the pound is falling. Unemployment is rising. Great, proud industries, such as one in my constituency, NSK, a business that makes steel ball bearings, are going bust because of uncompetitive energy prices and unfair competition from China—hundreds of people thrown on the scrapheap and now looking for new jobs in north Nottinghamshire. Youth unemployment is the worst that we have known it. We have record high taxes and borrowing. Our country is in a mess. Britain is broken. Yet so little is being done. Even where the Government have acted, they have made things worse.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What comes then will be more failed policies, no answers to the challenges that face our country and no response to the yearning in the country for real change. The only way to achieve that—and we all know it—is a general election.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) saying that the Home Secretary should be sacked for having the audacity to propose some pretty weak, but none the less sensible, changes to our legal and illegal migration systems. That gives us a clue about what is to come. Today is a pantomime. We know this King’s Speech does not exist. We know this King’s Speech will be chucked into the dustbin in a few months’ time. Maybe there will be another King’s Speech. What we know is that what follows will almost certainly be worse. The fate of our country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, does not rest on what is happening in this Chamber; it rests on the Labour party members who will choose the next Prime Minister, because this Prime Minister is finished. We all know that.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I wager that many Labour Members represent the good, decent, patriotic Brits who work in those businesses. They are selling them down the river. We need to end net zero and adopt a pragmatic and intelligent way to decarbonise our economy that does not immiserate working people and ruin what remains of our heavy industry. Those are two things that we could do. I will give the hon. Gentleman a last thing we would do: end illegal migration. The way we do that is not merely to stop the boats, but to end the farce of people coming here on indefinite leave to remain, knowing that they will ultimately become citizens of this country on a short path, costing the Exchequer hundreds of billions of pounds. The Labour party has a policy, we are told, that takes us some way to that; but then we have the right hon.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“How can we have people claiming PIP who have not even had a face-to-face appointment with a genuine clinician? This is madness. It has to change. Of course as a country we want a proper safety net, but that is not what we have today, and we all know it. At the moment, we have a farce where people are choosing not to work. That can change. It will not change under this Labour Government, but it can change, and we can save billions of pounds from it. I will give the hon. Gentleman a second thing we would do: scrap net zero, so that we end the deindustrialisation of our country. Steel, chemicals, fertilisers, glass, ceramics, car making: 2 million jobs depend on high-energy intensive industries. All will be gone within the next 10 years.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me give the hon. Gentleman some, then. We all know that this King’s Speech is not worth the paper it is written on—there is nothing in it. Speaking as a former Minister, it is made up of the very policies that officials pull out of the third drawer of a desk and hand to weak, inept Ministers who have no ideas of their own: “Here you go, Minister. Here’s a substitute for your own thoughts.” I will tell the House some things that we would do— that Reform would do, were there a Reform Government. No. 1, we would get a grip on the ballooning benefits bill. Let us get the millions of people in this country who are out of work back into the workplace to get the benefits bill down, as a moral imperative. Why write off millions of our fellow citizens, especially the young? How can people be off work with mild anxiety?”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When I hold this Bill up to the light, I see all over it the fingerprints of Lord Hermer—a man who frankly hates this country. Let us be honest with ourselves. I never thought I would see the day that Gerry Adams’s lawyer was sitting around the Cabinet table of the United Kingdom, in the very room that the IRA tried to blow up when I was a child. The men who serve our country deserve better than this Bill, better than Lord Hermer and better than this Government. I will be voting against the Bill. I hope it dies tonight.”
House of Commons27 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is the reason why—belated, yes, but belatedly it did happen—the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 provided a degree of immunity to those brave men. This Bill rips that up. It will be open season for men like David Griffin. Men like David Griffin deserve better than this Bill. Men who are serving this country now do so as well, because this is not just about the past—it is about the present and future, too. What signal does the Bill send to those who sign up to serve our country? That half a lifetime from now, new laws may come in, and they will be hounded through the courts, living out the last days of their lives worried about a knock on the door or a letter through the post? No. That is wrong. That is not the country that I want to live in.”
House of Commons27 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Bill is a betrayal of our veterans. It is a betrayal of the men who put on a British uniform and served their country, risking their lives to protect people of all communities in Northern Ireland during the period of the troubles—men like David Griffin, who I had the privilege to meet: an 84-year-old Royal Marine veteran who lives out his life at Royal Hospital Chelsea. He is a man who, half a lifetime ago in 1972, in a split-second decision when he was ambushed by terrorists, made a call. That call should not haunt him in the last years of his life. He should not have to wake up every morning worried that a letter will drop through his letterbox telling him that he is going to be prosecuted. Old men like David Griffin have been hounded for far too long.”
House of Commons27 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Last month, the United Nations General Assembly voted to demand that countries including the United Kingdom pay reparations for slavery. Astonishingly, the Foreign Secretary instructed our ambassador to abstain and to issue a pathetic hand-wringing statement that failed to mention the United Kingdom’s unique role in the eradication of this great evil. Are we a punchbag or are we a great, proud country? Will the Foreign Secretary explain her decision and state to the House unequivocally that the United Kingdom will never pay a penny of British taxpayers’ money in reparations?”
House of Commons21 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Kevin Brewer is a domiciliary care worker from Northern Ireland. He says that he loves his job, but he drives 70 miles every day. He told the BBC this week that for the first time he considered phoning in and saying that he could not do his job. In the end, he decided to put the cost of the fuel on his credit card. Chancellor, people are suffering across the country. I invite her to meet people such as Kevin at the national fuel tax protest on Whitehall on Monday, where motorists, white van men and women, care workers and many others from across the United Kingdom will come together to ask her to take action now to cut VAT on fuel and to say that she will not increase fuel duty in September.”
House of Commons21 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Prime Minister’s aides have briefed that “angry Starmer” is “furious”, but why is it that he only ever seems to get angry when trying to save his own skin? Is he not angry about the 600 men who crossed the English channel on small boats on Saturday? Is he not angry about the people who are queuing for fuel at the forecourts and cannot afford the Chancellor’s taxes? Is not the truth that his Government are now so paralysed that their only agenda is cleaning up the mess left by the paedophile pal Peter Mandelson?”
House of Commons20 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Treasury is raking in tens of millions in increased tax revenues from rising fuel and energy prices on the one hand; on the other, it is providing some mild relief to a chosen few. The Chancellor is robbing Peter to pay Paul, and then expects the country to give her a pat on the back. Will the Minister do what could be done now: cancel the proposed increase in fuel duty for September and provide some genuine relief to everyone who is feeling hard pressed right now?”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The British people are being clobbered. The Chancellor could have come here today and scrapped her hike in fuel duty. She could have come here, ended the insanity, and got drilling again in the North sea. Instead, she offered nothing—absolutely nothing. This crisis deserves a proper response. When will she finally understand that for now at least she is the Chancellor, not just a bystander?”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When some of us campaigned for Hezbollah to be proscribed in full, Foreign Office officials and others said that it was impossible, because it would harm diplomatic relations. That was overcome. The same spurious argument was made with respect to Hamas. That was overcome. Imagine how foolish our country would look today if we had not proscribed Hezbollah and Hamas in full. The same argument has been made by the last Government and by this Government with respect to the IRGC. Will the Foreign Secretary be clear that she will not stand in the way of the full proscription of the IRGC, so that these dangerous criminals who harm our own people and our allies around the world have no place and no home in the United Kingdom?”
House of Commons3 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Chancellor is like a rogue landlord who keeps squeezing the tenant with higher and higher rent, and all the while, the property is going to rack and ruin. I do not know who she is speaking to, but she needs to get out and talk to hard-working people who are hard up right now—people who are worried about their bills and the lack of good jobs—rather than the extremists she cosies up to for votes. The Chancellor’s next scheme for raising taxes on working people is to hike fuel duty at the pump. Will she cancel that measure, and give some relief to care workers, white van men and other hard-working people who get up in the morning and drive to work? They are the backbone of this economy.”
House of Commons3 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The surrender of British sovereign territory began under my former party and has been made only worse by this Labour Government. It is a damning indictment of the two old parties. The Minister represents the neighbouring town to mine and, when he is not jet-setting, he presumably walks the same streets and talks to the same people. How can he, hand on heart, say that his constituents should spend up to £50 billion on this policy at a time when taxes and bills are rising and everyone in this country feels hard up?”
House of Commons25 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Appointing Peter Mandelson to our premier ambassadorship was always a grotesque error of judgment by the Prime Minister, given everything we knew about this man. Now we are told that this man leaked confidential information to a convicted sex offender when he was a Cabinet Minister and took tens of thousands of pounds in secret backhanders. It is a total disgrace. Has the Minister really come to the House to say that he does not intend to bring forward primary legislation to deal with this now but will write to the House of Lords to seek support for modernising its procedures in a few months’ time, and that he will not go proactively to the police to demand an investigation when Peter Mandelson has clearly broken the law and now stands accused of serious misconduct in public office and should be tried for his offences?”
House of Commons2 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Then we might be able to have faith in what he is saying.”
House of Commons22 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, would the Secretary of State stop saying this is a locally led process. The power rests solely with him, and each of these delays is his decision and his decision alone. Secondly, the real question here is: why are elections to be delayed for a second year? When I was the Secretary of State, the legal advice I received—including from Sir James Eadie, the Government’s chief legal adviser —was that it was not legally sustainable to delay for a second year, hence we did not. Even during covid, we kept the elections going and did not delay for two years. What the Secretary of State is doing is almost certainly illegal. If he is so confident of his position, will he publish his legal advice and publish the legal advice that I and the then Prime Minister received when we decided not to delay for a second year?”
House of Commons22 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of the last meetings that I took as shadow Justice Secretary was with the parents of Lenny Scott. Lenny Scott was an exceptionally brave prison officer who uncovered corruption in his prison. He left the service, and years later he was hunted down and brutally murdered. Because he died after leaving active service, there was never any compensation paid to the children he left behind. I know that the Prime Minister would want to right that wrong. I wrote to the Justice Secretary privately after I discovered this—I should say that Lenny Scott’s parents never asked for any support. Will the Prime Minister correct this, ensure that this brave man’s children have the support that they need as they grow up without the father they deserve, and join me in thanking all the brave men and women who serve us in our Prison Service?”
House of Commons21 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The question before us is, what is the best way to resolve this, and is the route to fix our criminal justice system and to deliver swift justice for victims to scrap something that we have known as a country since 1215, if not before?”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We all accept that there has been a lack of investment in our criminal justice system under Governments of all political persuasions, that the criminal Bar is in a weak place, and that young people do not feel they can go into the law or at least not into this most challenging and poorly paid part of it. We all accept that some of our courtrooms are in a terrible state, that the IT system is failing, that the contracts for getting prisoners to court on time are poorly managed and that the private contractors are underperforming. We all accept that the system is in a mess and needs to be reformed, but that is not the question at hand today.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government propose to abolish the right to trial by jury for a vast range of offences and for any case where they expect a sentence of three years or less. This is nothing less than wielding a constitutional axe against a centuries-old cornerstone of our liberty. Juries are not some bureaucratic add-on to our justice system; they are the means by which the public consent to and participate in the exercise of the gravest power of the state: the power to convict and imprison our fellow citizens. Yes, we face a serious Crown court backlog—that is not in any dispute today. That is not even a subject of debate today, because everyone on both sides of the House knows it and acknowledges it. We all accept that its roots did not begin under this Labour Government; it goes back to the pandemic and further than that.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House believes that it is wrong to abolish jury trials for crimes with anticipated sentences of three years or less because jury trials are a fundamental part of the UK constitution and democracy; acknowledges the scale of the courts backlog and the necessity of reducing it to ensure justice for victims but believes that restricting the fundamental right to trial by jury will have a limited effect on reducing that backlog; calls on the Government to increase the number of court sitting days to help urgently reduce the backlog; and further calls on the Government to publish immediately all modelling it has undertaken and received on the potential impact of the abolition of jury trials on that backlog.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is heavily disputed by other practitioners, including—and I do not mean to demean Lord Leveson—people who are closer to the coalface of our criminal justice system: judges and criminal barristers. The Department has not published any modelling. Does it exist? If it does, publish it and then we can have an honest and evidence-led debate.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is shameful to our country that victims of serious crimes like rape will have to wait until 2028 or 2029. In fact, I believe the longest listing hence today is 2030. No one in this Chamber could possibly defend that for one moment, but will this policy make a material difference to fixing that problem? I do not believe that it will. I have not heard anyone who really believes in their heart that it will fix the problem, and if it is going to make a difference, publish the modelling and the evidence so we can see it, because Lord Leveson has not published any modelling. Lord Leveson gave a view that it might lead to a 20% reduction in the length of a trial.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is opposition in the House of Lords from Labour peers of the highest repute like Helena Kennedy—people who have spent careers in the law. This was not in the manifesto; the House of Lords does not have to support it. The last time Jack Straw and Tony Blair tried to do this, the House of Lords stepped in and it failed. This is a distraction. This is a waste of everyone’s time. If the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary and his Ministers care about swift justice, they should scrap this pointless distraction and focus every hour of the day on the hard yards of government, on doing the difficult things, and on the administrative failures of the Ministry of Justice that have existed for years, so we can actually ensure that the backlog is brought down.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend is right. Having served as a Minister in the last Conservative Government under multiple Prime Ministers, I have been led up a few hills before myself, and I know what it feels like to be a Minister in this situation. This is not a hill to die upon. Let us fix this problem. Let us build a cross-party consensus on how we get the backlog down—I will speak about a few of the solutions as I see them, as we see them, in a moment. This policy is not going to happen. I honestly believe that this is not going to happen. There is opposition not just from the official Opposition, but from every other party—Reform, Plaid, independents and the Liberal Democrats. There is opposition from Labour Members—good, experienced colleagues on the Government side.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course, Mr Speaker—apologies. If the Government have a case, they should publish the evidence and the modelling. This is not a minor policy; it will change something that we have enjoyed as a country for hundreds of years. Something as significant as this should be done on the basis of evidence, so I say to the Minister that whether the Government accept our motion or not today is by the bye, but they should accept the spirit of it and publish the evidence now so that everyone can see it; so that the lawyers, judges and practitioners who care and are worried about this can engage in a proper debate; and above all, so that we in the House of Commons, who are the guardians of our constitution and our ancient liberties, can have a debate on the basis of facts.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Both parties must share the blame for the present situation. The former permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice came before the Justice Committee last year and was asked broadly the same question that the hon. Lady just asked me: what is the root cause of the current backlog? She responded that although the system had been poorly funded for some time, which had created a number of challenges, the primary cause was the pandemic. Covid created immense strain on our justice system. As a result of that, a backlog that had, broadly speaking, been falling in the years prior to the pandemic—it had begun to rise slightly in the period immediately before—shot up. [ Interruption. ]”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In fact, to the extent that we have accurate figures, it is rising by about 500 cases every month, so the problem has continued to get worse and worse. I therefore do not see today’s debate as a partisan debate between the two main parties. The key thing is how we solve the problem. How do we look to the future? Is slashing jury trials the answer? No. Are there better ways to do this? Yes.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am just restating, I think fairly, what the former permanent secretary said. The Ministry of Justice did not do enough to get the backlog under control. There has been a serious failure to fix the productivity problems in our court system, as I think the Institute for Fiscal Studies set out independently in a report last year. Could the last Government have done more? Well, perhaps they could have. They did try to do things: they increased the number of sitting days and brought in special courts, such as Nightingale courts, in parts of the country, which began to make some difference. None the less, the backlog kept rising. The backlog has risen very substantially under this Labour Government as well.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rest my case, my Lord. I sincerely thank the hon. Gentleman for the way he has conducted himself, and the campaign that he has fought and is fighting on this issue. Having campaigned at times against my own Government and having voted against the last Conservative Government, I know that it is not easy to do, and I credit him for the work he is doing.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me answer the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), because he is making an important point. Lawyers rarely agree—in fact, their profession is often to disagree. This issue has united everyone in opposition to it. The Law Society, the Bar Council, the Criminal Bar Association and lawyer after lawyer has said that this policy is wrong and a better way is possible. This is not party political. It cuts across all parties, and opponents include vehement critics of mine. I woke up the other day to hear Anna Soubry on the “Today” programme saying that everything I was arguing was right. This is about getting the right answer for our criminal justice system.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let me come to some potential solutions. It is important to note that the backlog varies very widely across the country. His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is a poorly managed organisation with limited accountability to Ministers, and it has not been performing its function as well as it should. There are parts of our country where the backlog is far smaller than in others. In Liverpool and parts of Lancashire—despite the closure of your local court, Mr Speaker—the court backlog is substantially lower, as it is in Wales. There are significant regional differences because better managers, active judges and good case management of the kind that my right hon. Friend mentioned have made a significant difference.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to go back to her, welcome those sitting days with open arms, and say, “What would it take for you to produce more? Can we turn 2,000 into 5,000, or 10,000?” Get the courts actually sitting. That is not happening right now. The principal reason for that is financial: the Ministry of Justice has not been able to secure from the Treasury a comparatively small sum of money. We can argue about the priorities of this Government, and we will differ across the House, but the sum of money that we need for the proper operation of our criminal justice system is relatively small. It must be better to spend that money on this cause than to scrap an ancient freedom that we have enjoyed, generation after generation.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will just advance my case a little, and then I will come to my hon. Friend. The most important thing that we could do is get the courts sitting round the clock. There are sitting days on the table that are not being used. The Lady Chief Justice, the most senior person in our judiciary, has said repeatedly that she is able to offer the Government more sitting days. She has said it in the press, she said it before the Justice Committee the other day, and I am sure that she has said it privately to Ministers as well. The Government have been pushed, slowly, to take her up on those sitting days, and I commend them for that. However, there are still, by the Lady Chief Justice’s measure, at least 2,000 extra sitting days available that the Government are not taking her up on.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend makes a number of very important points. There are better ways to handle this situation. I do not pretend that they are simple; they are difficult. They involve getting to the heart of bureaucratic organisations that have been poorly managed and are unaccountable. Let us look at some of the solutions. One, which Brian Leveson mentions in his report, is incentivising early pleas to prevent cases dragging on unnecessarily, for example by ensuring that those accused of offences meet their counsel earlier, so that they get good advice about their likelihood of success or otherwise sooner, and changing the fee structure accordingly to achieve that.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗