Highlights from contributions by Labour backbenchers critical of Justice Secretary David Lammy’s Bill in this week’s parliamentary debate.

Tuesday’s House of Commons debate on the Government’s Courts and Tribunals Bill made headlines after a courageous speech from Charlotte Nichols, Labour MP for Warrington North. Responding to typically insensitive suggestions from Government sources that you can’t have suffered the experience of rape if you raise objections to its Bill, she told the chamber that she had herself been raped at an event that she attended in her capacity as an MP and had subsequently waited 1,088 days to go to court. She said she felt that “experiences like mine have been weaponised and are being used for rhetorical misdirection in relation to what this Bill actually is… The Government’s framing and narrative has been to pit survivors and defendants against each other in a way that I think is deeply damaging.”

“We have been told that if we have concerns about the Bill, it is because we have not been raped, or because we do not care enough for rape victims,” she continued. “The opposite is true in my case; it is because I have been raped that I am as passionate as I am about what it means for a justice system to be truly victim-focused. It is because I have endured every indignity that our broken criminal justice system could mete out that I care about what kind of reform will actually deliver justice for survivors and victims of crime more widely. In our manifesto, we promised specialist rape courts. This Bill is not that.”

She went on to point out that reductions in waiting times for complainants and defendants resulting from the Government’s sweeping changes could be as little as 1% to 2%, according to the Institute of Government and that the Bar Council believes that even that is wishful thinking, “so we risk offering false hope to rape victims, rather than real change.”

A number of other backbench Labour MPs spoke in the debate, highlights of which are reproduced below.

Jon Trickett, MP for Normanton and Hemsworth: When I was working for a living as a building worker, rather than being here, if there was a backlog of work, we were told to work through the night and at weekends, and on not very much additional pay. I wonder how it is that, today in our country, one tenth of all the courts are not even sitting, despite the backlog that the Deputy Prime Minister has told us about…

However, he has not shown to my satisfaction that the cause of the backlog is the juries… It is the product of a series of cuts by Governments of both parties, to be honest, and of a number of failures—there was privatisation, and all sorts of other issues. If those changes are contingent, rather than permanent, and a temporary problem that can be resolved, why are we destroying an element of the jury system?

Apsana Begum, MP for Poplar and Limehouse: No one is denying that after 14 years of desecration by the Conservatives, the backlog in the Crown courts is out of control and stacked against victims, but curtailing jury trials is not necessary to tackle it… It is no wonder, then, that thousands of lawyers have written to the Government to oppose these plans…

The value and importance of a jury system cannot be overstated. The House will be aware that I was cleared by a jury in 2021 after a vexatious trial driven by malicious intent. Originally, my case was set to be heard in a magistrates court. I am not saying that that would have led to a different outcome for sure, but for someone of my background—working class, Muslim, and a woman of Bangladeshi heritage—the risk of a miscarriage of justice would have been much higher, without a shadow of a doubt. Back in 2017, the now Justice Secretary said in his report:

“Juries are a success story of our justice system. Rigorous analysis shows that, on average, juries—including all white juries—do not deliver different results for BAME and White defendants…This positive story about the jury system is not matched by such a clear-cut story for magistrates’ verdicts… In particular, there were some worrying disparities for BAME women… Of those women tried at Magistrates’ Court, Black women, Asian women, Mixed ethnic women and Chinese/Other women were all more likely to be convicted than White women.”

The Bill will entrench structural discrimination, and I believe that Justice Secretary knows it… I am very worried that the proposals in the Bill will result in more victims being jailed. This really matters. Three-year prison terms are life-altering sentences, but under the Bill they could be handed out by a judge.

The Government have no mandate for a decision of such magnitude—it was not in the Labour party’s 2024 manifesto. Instead of restricting jury trials, I urge them to invest in and properly fund our criminal justice system in order to address the issue of court backlogs. Everyone—every single one of us—should have equal rights in our legal and court systems. Jury trials are a fundamental legal safeguard against miscarriages of justice, and surely our society should be based on true fairness in the course of delivering justice.

Abtisam Mohamed, MP for Sheffield Central: If the contribution that these measures will make to reducing the backlog is uncertain, why are we being asked to make such a profound and permanent change to one of the central safeguards in our criminal justice system?

Members have spoken about a range of offences, from theft to drug-related crimes, but when people are taken to court over action to advance causes in which they believe—in the past it was the suffragettes; today it is the climate activists and Palestinian protesters—it is ordinary people, their peers, who recognise the moral imperative behind their actions to prevent greater harm. The freedoms that this system protects are not abstract. They exist precisely to safeguard individuals against the power of the state when they stand accused of a criminal offence, and that is why we should be cautious before curtailing them.

Imran Hussain, MP for Bradford East: I rise to oppose the plan to curtail jury trials, because restricting jury trials is wrong in principle and wrong in practice. Trial by jury is not some quaint tradition that we can trade away when Ministers feel the pressure. As has been said, it is one of the great democratic safeguards in our justice system; it allows ordinary citizens to be judged by their peers and the power of the state to be held in check. It is dangerous to challenge that principle, because there is a reason for it: the balance between the state and the citizen. History teaches us that changing that balance in favour of the state is a dangerous road to go down…

Ian Lavery, MP for Blyth and Ashington: The public sees trial by jury as a fundamental right—one that embodies fairness and equality before the law. There is an existing mistrust of judges and magistrates—and do you wonder why, when three quarters of the judges are Oxbridge graduates, the majority attended public schools, and only 10% of magistrates and judges are from ethnic minority backgrounds. That sort of thing has really got to change, because the situation is not acceptable.

There needs to be more scrutiny of the proposal to limit defendants’ rights to appeal a magistrates court conviction, because the current position is, quite frankly, indefensible. It is not acceptable. The right to appeal is fundamental to natural justice.

Rachael Maskell, MP for York Central: When victims and defendants have lost confidence in the establishment and the elite, including the judiciary, a bridge to maintain confidence between them and their communities and the justice system is vital… Maintaining the bridge to justice with people who have walked in their shoes, grown up on their street and faced the same challenges enables the victim and the defendant to know that at least the court understands, even if it has not found in their favour.

For someone to have their truth told to those from their community serving on a jury, and to know that the evidence has been deliberated well, upholds confidence in the courts and in justice, but to break that trust breaks justice and builds barriers.

Kim Johnson, MP for Liverpool Riverside: Only 10% of Crown court judges are from ethnic minority backgrounds, and just 1% are black—a figure that has remained the same for a decade. When trust in the police and the criminal justice system remains chronically low among black communities, and when we know that these systems produce disproportionate outcomes, particularly in relation to joint enterprise, why are we pouring yet more fuel on the fire?

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill: Last July, I met the Bar Council… They had a number of recommendations that should be considered—for example, that defendants who are awaiting trial should be remanded at a conveniently located prison close to the court, because Serco, the company tasked with prisoner transportation, persistently fails to transport prisoners in good time. This wastes the court’s time and results in a new court date having to be set. We should end that privatisation and bring prisoner transportation back in-house.

We should provide greater flexibility for hearings and allow virtual courts, so that more cases are heard; permit all available judges, including those who have retired but are below the age of 75, to sit as many days as they are available; invest in more court staff and support; and list trials from Monday to Thursday, so that all short matters can be dealt with on one day—namely, Friday—minimising disruption for all other court users, such as jurors, witnesses and defendants. These are all simple changes that would significantly maximise sittings while preserving the basic foundations of our criminal justice system. The wholesale change that we ought to be considering today is the complete reversal of the austerity measures introduced by the coalition Government, which led to this mess, but that has been overshadowed by the proposal to restrict jury trials.

Finally, racial bias in our criminal justice system is well documented… we will have a situation where there is no automatic right to appeal, when black women are 22% more likely to be convicted. To quote Ife Thompson, one of the brilliant lawyers who was protesting outside Parliament today, “In a justice system that already produces racially discriminatory outcomes, removing juries means removing one of the few spaces where ordinary people and some real diversity still exist in the courtroom.”

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