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I know that on 30 March the hon. Member wrote to the Secretary of State asking for clarity on the guidance associated with the national policy statement for renewable energy infrastructure, EN-3, and its relationship with peatlands. I hear him speak about the importance of protecting peat, but I am less certain about what his position is on the Calderdale wind farm. Is he for or against the development of the Calderdale wind farm in his constituency?
The right hon. Member is making an excellent speech. Another key challenge in building the turbines is the infrastructure, because a huge amount of aggregate to facilitate the piling of the foundations and road infrastructure must be brought in from elsewhere, which could be a long distance away. That is exactly the challenge we are finding at the Calderdale wind farm, where aggregate will have to be brought from miles away—nowhere near the actual proposal. Does the right hon. Member agree that this demonstrates why it is so ludicrous to have wind farm developments on protected peatland in areas that are not suitable?
The very point the Minister is making is the reason why the application for the Calderdale wind farm has come before us: because this Labour Government removed the onshore wind moratorium put in place by the last Conservative Administration. Given the concerns that I raised about the protected nature of that peatland and the impact on the precious peat, and all the concerns raised by Opposition Members, what is the Government’s position when there is an application that is on protected peat?
I recognise that, but I have written to the Secretary of State urging the Government to extend the consultation period that is in place right now—it ends on 10 June. Given that the developer put this consultation in place in the middle of local elections, the two key councils, Bradford and Calderdale, cannot comment formally until after those elections, and it is also likely that there will be a change in leadership in those councils. Will the Secretary of State, via the Minister, consider at least extending that statutory consultation so that more people can get engaged and we can have proper responses from the two key councils?
The reason for calling this debate is that we are dealing with a real and live challenge, particularly in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies. The debate has been very worthwhile, but I have major concerns. There was a moratorium in place under the previous Conservative Administration, which has been removed by this Labour Government, enabling these sorts of developments—wind farms on protected peatland—to take place. Yet all the Labour Government can offer is guidance, which simply refers to protected peat being looked at and referenced within any application. That is deeply worrying. Secondly, the Minister referred to ongoing discussions on the carbon calculator with the Scottish Government. That is too late. An application is before us in West Yorkshire. Any ongoing carbon calculator discussions are too late, because the application is being considered right now. My third point is that as far as I can see, my neighbouring Members of Parliament have not put forward a position on the Floor of the House on whether they will join me to campaign as strongly as we can against this application. Concerns have been raised, but there is no formal position. It is deeply worrying that some of the Labour Members of Parliament I wrote to—I gave plenty of notice—did not feel it was worth turning up to this debate. It is clear that this Government’s policy in pursuit of net zero makes absolutely net zero sense. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered windfarm development on protected peatland.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. As the Committee has likely anticipated, I will argue that clause 3 should not stand part of the Bill. Clause 3 is the heart of the Government’s constitutional gamble. It creates a wholly new general rule for trial on indictment without a jury in a substantial category of criminal cases. Under the clause, a defendant charged with an either-way offence who has pleaded not guilty will lose the right to be tried by a jury unless the court considers that, on conviction, they would be likely to receive a sentence of more than three years’ imprisonment. It also allows reallocation later if the case changes, says that there is no right of appeal against allocation or reallocation, permits some decisions to be made without a hearing, and still allows a judge sitting alone to impose a sentence of more than three years. The Government continue to maintain that this change is necessary to reduce the Crown court backlog and reserve jury trials for the most serious cases. I note, though, that the very good House of Commons Library briefing points out that these provisions are based only in part on Leveson, and contain material differences from that which he recommended. Sir Brian proposed restricting, not abolishing, the right to elect, he did not propose the same increase in magistrates’ sentencing powers, and the Government’s model is more aggressive than the one on which much of the original discussion was based. JUSTICE makes the same point directly in its written evidence. It says that the Bill goes further than the review by removing the right to elect entirely, replacing the full rehearing appeal from the magistrates court with a permission stage, allowing the extension of magistrates’ custodial powers to 18 or 24 months, and introducing judge-only trials for either-way cases with likely sentences of three years or less. I say that at the outset because I am keen to avoid the suggestion that the Bill amounts to the Government reluctantly implementing a difficult but expert-led recommendation. That is simply not the case in clause 3. In fact, we are dealing with a discretionary political choice to legislate in a way that is broader, harder and less cautious than many of the evidence-based alternatives that are already on the table. As the Law Society put it: “Clauses 1 to 7 represent radical changes to criminal procedure without convincing evidence that they will improve efficiency.” The Bar Council says: “Radical changes to the availability of jury trials…are unnecessary and will consume resources without bearing down on the backlog.” That is the proper context in which clause 3 should be considered. As much for my own clarity as for the benefit of the Committee, I would like to dedicate a limited amount of time to clarifying what the clause actually does. It inserts into the Senior Courts Act 1981 proposed new sections 74A to 74D, which create a mechanism under which, in a very wide category of cases, the court must decide at the outset whether a defendant will be tried by a jury or by a single judge alone. The central test is the threshold sentence: whether the defendant, if convicted, would be likely to receive more than three years’ imprisonment or detention. If the likely sentence is above that threshold, the defendant gets a jury; if not, the default is a judge-alone trial in what the Government and stakeholders have described as the Crown court bench division, although that phrase is not used in the Bill itself. This is about not a tiny number of trivial cases but a structural redesign of the Crown court’s work. According to the Government’s own modelling, about 14,000 cases would continue arriving at the Crown court in 2028-29 and would require a trial, of which approximately 4,000 are expected to be heard by a judge alone, rather than a jury. The package is said to reduce Crown court sitting day demand by 27,000 days a year while increasing magistrates court sitting day demand by 8,500. Even if one accepts every assumption behind those figures—many serious people do not—they demonstrate that this is a major transfer of work and power. The offences within scope are not, as has sometimes been implied, confined to the sort of minor petty theft case used in media briefings. The written evidence from JUSTICE makes that point bluntly. Clause 3 would cover a huge number of either-way offences, including “sexual offences, sexual abuse of children, stalking, fraud offences, violence against the person offences and theft offences.” JUSTICE offers a chilling practical illustration with this observation: “Most of the postmasters wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal received a sentence under three years.” That point ought to give the Committee serious pause. We are being asked to remove jury trial for the types of case in which miscarriages of justice have historically occurred. The centrepiece of clause 3 is the idea that a court can safely determine, at an early stage, whether a defendant is likely to receive more than three years if convicted, and that that prediction is a just and adequate basis for deciding whether the defendant gets a jury at all. I do not accept that. More importantly, the Bill itself does not truly accept it either. The Commons Library briefing I referenced earlier notes this contradiction plainly: “While cases that are less likely to result in a sentence of more than three years would be allocated for trial by a judge alone, the judge could still pass a custodial sentence of more than three years.” In other words, the very legislation that uses the three-year threshold as the decisive basis for removing jury trials simultaneously recognises that the threshold may not map on to the final seriousness of the case at all. The initial allocation may say that the case is not serious enough for a jury, yet the final outcome may be serious enough for more than three years in prison. If that is not an admission that the threshold is an unstable and unsafe proxy, I do not know what is. Does that not cut to the most basic but most profound concern about this Bill—that it just is not fair? If the threshold cannot reliably distinguish the cases that merit a jury from those that do not, the clause is not preserving jury trial for the most serious cases. It is rationing jury trial on the basis of an impressionistic and sometimes speculative sentence prediction. The written evidence from the London School of Economics says exactly that, stating that the three-year threshold “is a poor metric for determining the right trial procedure” and that if jury trial is a “cornerstone protection against the state”, alternative measures ought to be exhausted first. We cannot properly predict a sentence at the plea and trial preparation hearing, and in the context of clause 3, that is a problem. If the allocation decision is to be made at the hearing, the notion that a judge can decide the likely sentence then and there is, in many cases, unrealistic and, at the extreme, absurd. In many cases, the evidence is incomplete at the PTPH. In sexual offences, full achieving better evidence transcripts are often unavailable, and practitioners rely on summaries. CCTV may not yet have been watched in full, medical evidence may be outstanding and the victim impact, which can materially affect a sentence, may be unknown. Sometimes the complainant is still in hospital. It may well be that the psychiatric or psychological impact becomes clear only weeks or months later. Yet the clause asks the court to decide mode of trial at exactly this sensitive and uncertain stage. The Government are therefore building a supposedly rational system on a procedural moment that practitioners know, and I am sure the Minister knows, is often evidentially immature. The Committee will remember reading the Victims’ Commissioner’s written evidence, which accepts the need for reform but recognises the concern that sentencing ranges vary and that the evidential picture may be incomplete when the crucial decision is taken. JUSTICE likewise says that the proposal risks unfairness because the allocation and reallocation system lengthens the PTPH and depends on speculative assumptions about how much court time will actually be saved. The Bar Council adds that the Bill gives no schedule or annexe identifying categories of offence; instead, a Crown court judge will simply assess in individual cases whether the likely sentence exceeds three years, meaning that the determination is case specific, contestable and uncertain from the outset. I can well imagine the response to all that being that if circumstances change, the case can be reallocated, but to my mind that is not a defence of the clause; it is an admission that the initial prediction is often too flimsy to bear the weight placed on it. As any King’s counsel will readily point out, real criminal cases are not static things. Charges are amended, defendants are added and new evidence emerges. Perhaps a section 18 becomes a section 20. When something like that happens, is it seriously proposed that the case repeatedly cycles through reallocation every time? Clause 3 says yes, at least in substance. Proposed new section 74B provides for a formal reallocation mechanism where there is a relevant change of circumstances, including changes in the indictment or new evidence affecting likely sentence. The problem is that that does not solve the uncertainty; it adds another layer of litigation, or at least potential litigation. It invites both sides to argue over whether the threshold position has changed, whether reallocation is required, whether the change is sufficiently material, what prejudice would be caused by moving the case, whether delay, wasted cost or witness inconvenience should prevail, and what happens if the case is already part way down the tracks. Frankly, that sounds like a dream come true for a solicitor’s billing manager, but the rest of us can surely see the problem. JUSTICE and the Bar Council have both picked up on that point. JUSTICE notes that the “allocation of cases is going to lengthen the plea and trial preparation hearing as will the process of reallocation”, and it warns that the absence of any right of appeal against allocation decisions is likely to increase judicial reviews and Court of Appeal litigation. In the Bar Council’s written evidence, it states: “The proposed Crown Court Bench Division introduces an extra layer of hearings and complication…It could result in further litigation at an interlocutory stage.” It argues that one of the Bill’s fundamental flaws is precisely the fact that it presents a false binary: either do nothing, or do this. The Bill does not properly assess a range of other policy options. Having made those points, I would like to pose a question to the Minister, which I think may shed some light on where we are with the clause. Has the additional work needed at both Crown court and magistrates court level for allocation, reallocation, submissions and case management been factored into the claimed 27,000 sitting day decrease and 8,500 sitting day increase? If the answer is yes, can we get some insight into precisely where and how? If the answer is no, the core productivity claim behind clause 3 is overstated from the start. If clause 3 were merely a bad threshold coupled with an elaborate reallocation maze, that would be bad enough. However, the Government have compounded the problem by providing no right of appeal against allocation or reallocation decisions, and by permitting some decisions to be made without a hearing. Under proposed new section 74D, there would be no right of appeal against an allocation or reallocation determination made under proposed new sections 74A or 74B, and a reallocation determination could be made without a hearing. That is extraordinary. A defendant may lose trial by jury on the basis of an early-stage sentence prediction, under a mechanism that the Government know may need to be revisited as the case develops, yet there is no appeal. JUSTICE warns that the likely consequence of the proposal is judicial review pressure on the High Court, and appeal pressure on the Court of Appeal once written reasons are handed down, meaning that the supposed efficiency savings may be displaced into other courts. The Bar Council says much the same; it proposes, as a minimum safeguard, that there should be a hearing before reallocation, unless the parties waive it, and that there should be an appeal right. The absence of appeal is especially troubling because summary trial has historically been justified by two safeguards: lower-level offences and the ability to appeal. The Bill proposes to remove both. It moves up the seriousness of cases, while stripping away the classic safeguard of easy correction—that is not a tolerable bargain. Although the Committee has already debated the retrospectivity point at some length, clause 3 itself remains infected by it. The new allocation procedure will apply to cases already in the Crown court open caseload, including cases where the defendant has already been arraigned at a PTPH before the new regime comes into force, so long as the prosecution has not yet opened its case. For those cases, the court must make a determination under proposed new section 74A as soon as is reasonably practicable, and may do so without a hearing. That means that a defendant who chose a Crown court trial, expecting a jury, may wait months, prepare for that jury and then lose it retrospectively. The Minister herself has defended that approach by saying that the Government are on sound legal ground, and that there is no procedural or legal impediment, relying on advice from—as I recall—an unnamed KC. However, political defensibility and legal ingenuity are not the same as fairness. To put this in very plain terms, people did not opt to go to Crown court for the car parking or the architecture; they chose it for one thing only—a jury. To move the goalposts after the choice is made is profoundly unfair, regardless of other considerations. The Committee will recall reading through the written evidence from some eminent groups and individuals that, in as many words, call this retrospective application contrary to the rule of law. The Bar Council says: “The retrospective provisions may also be subject to numerous legal challenges.” Dr Samantha Fairclough argues that the plan is unfair, and she says: “It will also create significant additional work…and likely result in appeals.” That all points in the same direction. Retrospectivity here is not just constitutionally unattractive; it will ultimately prove to be practically self-defeating. A very large part of the Government’s case for clause 3 rests on the impact assessment, which says that clauses 1 to 7 will reduce Crown court sitting days by 27,000 a year, while increasing magistrates court sitting days by 8,500. It also says that the Crown court open caseload will fall by around 14,000 cases over 2028-2029, and that “overall the reforms will reduce demand on Crown Court time by almost 20%”. However, several stakeholders have criticised the assumptions and modelling, especially those on how much time judge-only trials would save. The Government’s core assumption is that hearing times will fall by 20% for judge-only trials, but Sir Brian himself accepted that this was associated with high levels of uncertainty, and the Justice Committee challenged how anecdotal the basis for that figure appeared to be.
I thank you for making that point, Ms Jardine. I just emphasise how serious the changes in this legislation are. I know the Opposition are willing to put in the hours that are needed to go through the full detail, so that everyone can say what they need to. I imagine the Government are equally keen to spend the hours required to do full justice to the Bill.
Absolutely, Ms Jardine—we can go into the early hours of the morning if we need to, and I am happy to do so this evening if that is what people would like to do. In cases of offensive communications, malicious communications, harassment, stalking and other digital evidence-related cases, the line between criminality and obnoxiousness can be fact-sensitive and context-heavy. We have all seen how politically sensitive a question this has become. We should remember, too, that some of these cases are driven almost entirely by screenshots and unauthenticated digital material, which may be manipulated, selectively presented or forensically thin.
It will no doubt be a relief to Members to hear that I am not going to talk for quite as long as I did this morning. I oppose clause 4 and schedule 1 standing part, and I support amendment 51, tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle. As is becoming habit, I will begin with a very brief overview of what we are considering. Clause 4 and schedule 1 create a new framework for judge-only trials in certain complex or lengthy cases. The listed offences include fraud, tax evasion, false accounting, insider dealing, money laundering, terrorist funding, bribery and related offences. The court may order trial without a jury if it is satisfied that the likely complexity and/or length makes that appropriate, that it is not in the public interest for the trial to be conducted with a jury, and that there are no other reasons why it would be more appropriate for the trial to be with a jury. There would be no right of appeal against that decision. That is a serious and constitutionally significant change in its own right, but what makes it even more troubling is that it has been justified on the strength of a paper-thin theoretical benefit. The House of Commons Library states that the Government estimate clause 4 will save 200 Crown court sitting days. That is around 0.18% of current Crown court capacity, which indicates just how small the potential gain is—if there is that gain at all. That is the first and most obvious point I want to make. The Government are proposing a very serious encroachment on jury trials in return for a saving that amounts to just 200 sitting days. JUSTICE describes the change as “unnecessary,” says that it “will not impact the backlog in any meaningful way” and warns that it risks opening the door to restricting jury trials in other categories of case too. The Law Society is similarly clear: “Removing jury trials for serious fraud cases is unlikely to have a significant effect on the backlogs, but would significantly erode the fundamental principle of open justice.” That should be the frame for the whole debate on clause 4. We are not being asked to approve some modest efficiency measure; we are being asked to displace the jury in some of the most important and contested criminal cases for an alleged benefit so small that, even in the Government’s own case, it barely registers against total Crown court demand. That trade-off is so poor that I refuse to believe the Minister, in her heart of hearts, believes it is the right way to proceed. The second point is that the case against juries being used in serious fraud and related cases has never really been made. In written evidence, the Law Society tells us: “Serious cases of any complexity, including serious allegations of fraud, must be presented by the prosecution in a way that is understandable, not only to the judge and jury…but also, in line with the principle of open justice, to the public.” It goes on to say: “They should be subject to effective case management to ensure they take only a reasonable length of time, if necessary, by reducing the number of charges”. In other words, the answer to complexity is to manage it properly, not to remove the jury. It is worth reminding ourselves that the issues juries decide on in fraud trials are factual, not technical—in particular, whether the defendant was dishonest. That is judged by reference to the standards of ordinary decent people. Twelve ordinary jurors are far better placed to decide that than a single judge alone. That goes to the very nature of fraud. Fraud is not merely an accounting or regulatory puzzle; it is an allegation of dishonesty, and dishonesty, by definition, is exactly the sort of question on which the community’s judgment matters. Who should decide dishonesty: a single professional judge, or 12 citizens applying the standards of ordinary life? In a democratic criminal justice system, the answer should remain: the jury. The evidence that we have does not support the idea that juries are what make these cases collapse, drag on or miscarry. JUSTICE’s written evidence points to the Southwark Crown court data gathered by His Honour Geoffrey Rivlin KC, showing that the vast majority of fraud cases lasted less than three months, with only one or two per year lasting over three months and only two cases in total lasting over six months. That is important, because it rather punches the myth that these are all endless epics that juries simply cannot understand or follow. Rivlin’s evidence also says that jury trials compose a discipline that helps to keep fraud trials shorter. Without that discipline, judge-alone trials may end up running as long as, or even longer than, jury trials. More to the point, delays, collapses and miscarriages of justice in fraud are not caused by juries, as shown by R v. Hayes where convictions were quashed because of judicial misdirection, not because of anything the jury did wrong. That strongly refutes the suggestion that juries are the weak link in these cases. The Government have two problems here: first, they have not shown that such cases are generally too long for juries; secondly, they have not shown that juries are what is causing the failures when these cases go wrong. Unfortunately, that leaves the Government looking rather like they are indulging in ideological hostility to jury trials rather than evidence-based reform. There is also a wider constitutional point. The Law Society says, and I very much agree, that removing jury trials for serious fraud cases “would significantly erode the fundamental principle of open justice.” These are often cases involving major companies, financial institutions, public markets, public money, terrorism financing, bribery and corruption. They are exactly the sort of cases where the public must have confidence that justice has not simply been done inside a closed professional world by one member of that same world. Fraud and related financial cases often concern the conduct of powerful, well-resourced and sophisticated defendants. In those cases, public confidence matters immensely. A verdict reached by a jury of citizens commands a kind of legitimacy that a judgment by a single judge does not carry in the same way. That is not a criticism of judges, but a recognition of why juries exist in the first place. They are there to not just decide facts but connect the administration of criminal justice to the public itself.
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. What is considered complex and lengthy could be quite subjective. We all know that we are potentially going to end up in the courts over defining exactly what is complex and lengthy. It feels like the Bill is not written clearly enough for us to understand exactly how it will work in reality. Amendment 51 is an important safeguard against those risks. In his written evidence, His Honour Geoffrey Rivlin KC notes that the schedule 1 list already “appears to be arbitrary, perhaps the work of a moment; and it goes beyond anything suggested before. But even that is not the end of it.” That is because part 2 of the schedule gives the Secretary of State the power by order to add or remove offences. He quotes the explanatory notes to show that offences not related to fraud or financial crime could easily be added in the future. He describes this as “a mighty step along the way to the end of jury trials.” That does not strike me as overstatement. The Secretary of State will indeed have this untrammelled power, and we should carefully heed this sober warning from a senior judge. For similar reasons, the Opposition oppose schedule 1 standing part of the Bill. Schedule 1 is the list that gives clause 4 its reach, and the list is already troubling. It is not confined to a tiny, tightly defined category of unusual mega-fraud; it covers a wider class of economic and financial offences, including money laundering and terrorist funding, and can then be expanded later. If we think the core principle of clause 4 is wrong, then the schedule that operationalises it is wrong too. Rivlin’s description of the list as “arbitrary” is worth keeping in mind. One of the reasons that schedule 1 is objectionable is that once Parliament accepts the principle that a whole category of serious Crown court cases can be singled out for juryless trial on grounds of length and complexity, the argument for confining the list to that category becomes very hard to sustain. The logic of the thing pushes outward. That is why schedule 1 is dangerous: for not only what it contains now but what it invites later. I am particularly concerned that there is an ideological push away from jury trials. My concern is that this is only the start, not the end of where the Government want to get to. I urge the Committee to think about this carefully. We are taking important decisions for the future.
I agree with my hon. Friend, as I normally do. Finally, there is the obvious practical point that there are better answers available. The Law Society says that reform and investment must be strategic, not piecemeal, and warns against stand-alone measures such as changing from jury trials to judge-only trials without convincing evidence that they will significantly reduce the backlog. It says that Parliament should insist on “detailed modelling” and on understanding the Government’s intentions across the whole package of reform, not just on this isolated measure. The existence of pressure in the system does not prove that every proposed constitutional shortcut is justified. The question is whether the shortcut is necessary. With clause 4, the answer is plainly no. For all those reasons, I oppose clause 4 and schedule 1, and I support amendment 51. Clause 4 offers a constitutionally serious reduction in jury trials for a tiny claimed benefit of 200 sitting days. The evidence does not show that juries are the cause of delay, collapse or miscarriage in these cases. Fraud cases are not too technical for juries. The key issue is dishonesty, and ordinary citizens are uniquely well placed to judge that. The removal of juries in these cases would damage open justice and public confidence. Schedule 1 gives effect to that flawed principle and then goes further by creating a route to ministerial expansion. Amendment 51 is therefore a sensible and necessary safeguard, but in truth, the better course is simpler still: clause 4 and schedule 1 should not be included in the Bill at all.
My hon. Friend is making some powerful points. Hearing him read out what the law says brings home to me just how terrible this Bill is. Surely everyone can see that there is no clarity how it would work. Rather than there being any clear guidance, it essentially feels as though any judge can have their own view on complexity and length. We will end up with inconsistency and disputes and arguments about the approach. Surely, that could do the opposite of address the backlog by adding additional complexity and confusion to our justice system.
As my hon. Friend was speaking, it suddenly occurred to me that under our current system, jurors can already make that argument—that if sitting on a jury would be particularly disruptive, they should not have to do so. How does that interact with this measure? It feels like this does not make sense.
If we are increasing the sentence in the magistrates court, I would imagine the Minister will agree that, in some situations, we are increasing the complexity of the case. For example, a sexual assault case could be quite complicated and require, in order to look after the alleged victim and make sure their wellbeing is managed, four consecutive days of sitting to get that over with. How will the magistrates court do that? They are all volunteers, and quite often they are working. How will this help address the backlog if we are in a situation where those volunteer magistrates are not able to commit to the four consecutive days needed to deal with a complex and sensitive case such as a sexual assault?
Does my hon. Friend agree that Government Members and the Minister have spent a lot of time talking about victims being central to all of the changes, so why on earth would they not support the amendment if it is really about protecting victims from being cross-examined?
It is a pleasure to start the day with you and end the day with you, Ms Jardine. I am sure you are very much enjoying starting your day with me and ending your day with me, too. [Laughter.] I have just realised how that can be interpreted. My apologies, Ms Jardine; I cannot account for the minds of other Members. To get back to business, I do not support clause 6 standing part of the Bill. It will expand the Government’s existing power to increase the maximum custodial sentence that a magistrates court can impose for a single either-way offence. The current maximum is 12 months, but the clause will permit Ministers, entirely at their own discretion, to increase that to 18 months or even 24 months. That will affect consecutive sentencing for multiple either-way offences. The Government have justified the change on the basis that the power is needed so that sentencing limits can be adjusted swiftly to rebalance work between the magistrates courts and the Crown court. The Government estimate that increasing the maximum to 18 months would save 8,000 Crown court sitting days. That all sounds rather neat but, in reality, it is another example of the Government trying to force more serious criminal business into a part of the system designed for swift, relatively low-level justice, and doing so before they have properly shown that the courts can absorb it or that the benefits are worth it. The first and perhaps most important point is that even Sir Brian Leveson did not recommend the change. Sir Brian said that his recommendation on restricting the right to elect trial by jury was “contingent upon magistrates’ sentencing powers remaining at the current maximum of 12 months.” He also recommended that the Government’s ability to amend magistrates’ sentencing powers by statutory instrument be repealed, and that the current 12-month maximum be made permanent. Clause 6 therefore cannot be said to follow Leveson: it goes beyond him and, on this point, directly contradicts him. That is a serious weakness in the Government’s position. Ministers have repeatedly leaned on Leveson when defending the Bill as a whole, but in this instance he gave no endorsement of what clause 6 will usher in. More than that, he warned us directly against it. It is perfectly valid to ask, “If the very review on which the Government say the Bill is based said that 12 months should remain the ceiling, why are Ministers now seeking the power to raise it to two years?” Let me briefly touch on a second common-sense point. The move from six to 12 months took effect only for offenders convicted on or after 18 November 2024. In other words, the current system has barely had time to bed in and the Government are already asking Parliament to authorise a further jump to 18 or 24 months. The earlier increase to 12 months was justified as a response to court pressures, and the Government said it would save up to 2,000 sitting days. We have not had anything like enough time to assess properly how that change has worked in practice before Ministers seek power to go dramatically further. If the Government and the Minister wish to make evidence-based law, they should first show Parliament what the 12-month expansion has actually done: what kinds of cases have been retained, what sentencing patterns have changed, what effect there has been on appeals, what impact there has been on magistrates courts and whether the claimed savings have materialised. Instead, they are asking, through clause 6, for a much broader delegated power, and inviting us to trust that this will all somehow work out later. That is not good enough where a question as fundamental as the administration of good justice is concerned. The Bar Council puts its objection crisply and, I think, rightly. It says: “Summary trial is designed for the purpose of dispensing swift justice in low-level cases. The extension of summary justice to cases in which a defendant could receive up to 2 years’ imprisonment…particularly when combined with the removal of a right to elect Crown Court trial, and the removal of a right of automatic appeal” amounts to a “comprehensive rolling back of safeguards.” That is blunt language, but it is hard to disagree with. Clause 6 will change the kind of cases that summary justice is expected to absorb. The Law Society warns that under the clause magistrates will have the power to impose lengthy custodial sentences for serious offences such as actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm and possession with intent to supply drugs “in proceedings that are intended to be quicker” and less formal than than those in the Crown Court. It warns that this raises the likelihood that “people will receive longer custodial sentences with fewer safeguards or opportunities to rectify wrongful convictions.” I will dwell on this point for a moment, as it is something that none of us who have been tasked with scrutinising the Bill in detail should forget. A system designed to be faster, simpler and less formal is being asked to shoulder cases in which the consequences are far more severe. Two years in prison is not some trivial matter: a custodial sentence like that can cost a person their job, their home, their family life, their good name and their future. A justice system that is appropriate for low-level offending cannot be assumed fit for cases that carry that sort of lifechanging penalty. There is then the practical point that clause 6 will not solve the pressure in the system so much as move it around. The change will merely transfer the burden from one overstretched part of the system to another. The Law Society says that the magistrates court already has its own backlog of more than 370,000 cases, and that the Government have shown no convincing plan to deal with the added pressure brought by more serious and complex cases. JUSTICE makes the same point, and adds an especially telling practical detail drawn from the Institute for Government’s analysis: since magistrates’ sentencing powers were increased from six to 12 months in 2024, only around 30% of sentences in the six-to-12-month band were handed down by magistrates. That suggests a lack of confidence, or a continuing tendency to send more serious cases upwards, which in turn means the Government’s projected savings may not materialise in anything like the way they hope. If magistrates are already not retaining all the cases that the Government assumed they would after the jump to 12 months, what is the evidence that authorising 18 or 24 months will suddenly transform the position? If cases continue to be sent up, or bounce between jurisdictions, the supposed efficiency gain becomes much more doubtful.
I agree with my hon. Friend. Frankly, I am shocked that a Labour Government would do that. It is the last thing I expected of a Labour Government.
Perhaps I am more optimistic about these things.
Thank you for that guidance, Ms Jardine, but that seems to suggest that we are not allowed ever again in this Bill Committee to bring up the fact that the right to elect for jury trial and rights to legal aid are being removed. Surely we need to be able to talk about that as we go through the Bill.
Thank you for that guidance, Ms Jardine. I would suggest that the legal aid changes are a really important outcome of clause 6. In fact, I think I would come under huge criticism if I made this speech without mentioning legal aid, because I have not raised it at all—well, I did in an earlier speech. I have not raised it at all today.
Thank you for that, Ms Jardine. I reassure you that I will not be speaking for very much longer, but I will cover the last of what I consider to be the important points. Thank you for your guidance and patience. The Law Society warns that the Bill’s proposals will increase the number of defendants in magistrates courts who are ineligible for legal aid, even though they would currently qualify if their case were heard in the Crown court, because the magistrates court means test is significantly stricter. It notes that duty solicitor numbers have dropped sharply between 2017 and 2025 and that the impact assessment does not properly address “the disparity between the magistrates’ and Crown Court means tests”. We know that individuals in full-time, minimum-wage employment may not qualify for legal aid in the magistrates court, and that unrepresented defendants often do not understand charges, and often enter inappropriate pleas, struggle with cross-examination and end up with harsher outcomes. Under the Bill, then, a defendant may face a much more serious case in a summary forum, with a possible sentence of 18 months or two years, yet be less likely to have publicly funded legal representation than they would be if the case were before the Crown court. That simply is not fair. Even if one were somehow persuaded that giving the magistrates courts the power to impose sentences of 18 or 24 months might in principle be acceptable, we would still have a major objection to how the clause is drafted. It does not simply set the limit and leave it there; it expands the regulation-making power so that the Government may increase the maximum to 18 or 24 months by statutory instrument. The delegated powers memorandum justifies that on the basis that magistrates’ sentencing limits may need to be adjusted swiftly “where operational pressures” require a “rebalancing of work”. Are we not, then, being asked to hand over a flexible tool that could be used to rebalance criminal jurisdiction by secondary legislation? I could not be more convinced that Parliament should retain oversight of increasing the powers of magistrates. At the very least, any such regulation should be made by affirmative resolution. This is not the sort of decision that should be casually adjustable at ministerial convenience. For all those reasons, I oppose clause 6 standing part of the Bill. Even Leveson did not recommend this change; on the contrary, he said his wider recommendations were “contingent upon magistrates’ sentencing powers remaining at…12 months” and recommended that the power to alter them by statutory instrument “should be repealed”. The move to 12 months has taken effect only recently and has not yet been properly evaluated. The clause will extend summary justice into cases carrying up to two years’ imprisonment, despite the fact that summary justice was designed for lower-level, swifter cases. It will push more serious cases into magistrates courts that are already under strain, and do so in a package that also weakens appeals and intensifies legal aid problems. It risks moving the backlog rather than solving it, and it does so by way of an over-broad delegated power that gives Ministers too much room to reshape criminal jurisdiction by regulation. The magistracy deserves respect, and nothing I say should be taken as criticism of the many magistrates who serve conscientiously and well, but having respect for magistrates is not the same thing as assuming that every structural burden should now be placed on the summary justice system. The Government have not even begun to make the case for the clause compellingly.
The barbaric regime in Tehran has murdered tens of thousands of its own people. It remains the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism and is responsible for appalling antisemitism, and for spying on the British Jewish community. Why did the Government not stop Iran from being appointed to prominent positions in the United Nations Economic and Social Council, as the United States did? If Iran is found to be behind the disgusting attacks on Jewish sites in recent weeks in London, will the Government move forward with the proscription of the IRGC, and act against any financial institutions in the UK that are involved in funding state-sponsored terrorist activity in the UK?
This morning, we heard Sir Olly Robbins say that there was a “dismissive attitude” and an atmosphere of pressure from No. 10 towards security vetting due to its desire to get Mandelson in post as soon as possible. Given Sir Olly’s account, why did the Foreign Secretary lose confidence in him last week? Surely the Prime Minister passed the buck for his own failures and appalling judgment.
Like the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary will be aware that Peter Mandelson was on the board of Sistema alongside Russian spies. Has she now checked whether the concerns raised during vetting related to Mandelson’s business links with enemies of the United Kingdom, including Russia and China? Has she asked for the details of the mitigations Sir Olly mentioned this morning and whether they were put in place around Mandelson? Does she know what kompromat our enemies have on him, and is she reviewing all his activities as ambassador for any compromise of UK national security?
On that point, how does the hon. Lady feel about the funding that TfL offered for the reopening of the bridge? To my mind, as a former member of the London Assembly, it has not been sufficient over the last 10 years.
10. If she will publish a timetable for the implementation of the UK-EU treaty in respect of Gibraltar.
I ask the House to note my relatively recent visit to Gibraltar, which is declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The naval base in Gibraltar is of high strategic importance and the decision to allow the Spanish authorities to monitor equipment going to the British military is highly concerning. Will the Minister guarantee that the treaty will neither directly nor indirectly in any way limit the operations, access or security of the UK naval base?
This is probably a useful speech to intervene on, due to my striking resemblance to Tom Cruise. [Laughter.] The key point in that scenario was about responsibility. Labour Members are probably lucky that Sadiq Khan has cancelled all the tubes today, otherwise they might be under another transport mechanism. Does this not show more widely that the Prime Minister is failing in his key role, which is to take responsibility for the decisions he is charged to take?
One area that has been talked about is the ability of scrutiny bodies to take decisions, and the challenge in London is that there has to be a two-thirds majority to make a decision. The suggestion was made that this could be changed and be brought in line with other authorities, so that we have simple majority voting. Does the Minister agree that we have missed an opportunity to do that?
Will the Minister give way?
My right hon. Friend will remember that I asked the Prime Minister yesterday about the box note of 11 November 2024, in which Simon Case recommended that vetting be gone through before the appointment was made. The Prime Minister’s decision note did not include the Prime Minister’s decision, which has been redacted from the conditions of the Humble Address. Does my right hon. Friend think that the redacted information would show what the Prime Minister was trying to achieve by appointing Peter Mandelson without the appropriate vetting?
Will the hon. Member give way?
There must be a reshuffle coming, because no one would seriously make a speech like this at such serious times. The hon. Gentleman says that the Prime Minister was a stickler for process and claims that the Prime Minister somehow delegated responsibility for the appointment. Why did the former Cabinet Secretary—the chief adviser to the Prime Minister and chief civil servant—give that advice in the box note? Will the hon. Gentleman defend the Prime Minister’s decision not to follow that advice from the person who was making the decisions?
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
We now have a three-minute speaking limit.
That is the end of the Back-Bench contributions. I invite the Minister to respond.
With the leave of the House, we will consider the motions to disagree with Lords amendments 99 to 116 collectively. Lords amendments 99 to 116 disagreed to. Lords amendment 120 and 121 disagreed to. Lords amendment 123 disagreed to. Lords amendment 155 disagreed to. Government amendments (a) to (f) to the words so restored to the Bill. Lords amendments 1, 3, 5 to 12, 14 to 25, 27 to 35, 38 to 40, 42 to 84, 88, 92 and 93, 95 and 96, 117 to 119, 122, 124 to 154, and 156 to 170 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived in respect of Lords amendment 39. Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83H(2)), That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing with certain of their amendments. That Miatta Fahnbulleh, Deirdre Costigan, Laura Kyrke-Smith, Sam Carling, Andrew Cooper, Sir James Cleverly and Zöe Franklin be members of the Committee; That Miatta Fahnbulleh be the Chair of the Committee; That three be the quorum of the Committee. That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(Christian Wakeford.) Question agreed to. Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.
I congratulate the hon. Member for creating a link back to the topic.
The most dangerous wreck in Britain—respond to that, Minister!
I beg to move, That this House has considered the Government’s accountability to the House in connection to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States of America. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this important debate. The Prime Minister personally decided to appoint a serious, known national security risk to our most sensitive diplomatic post. Peter Mandelson was not just a man who had already been sacked twice from Government for lying and not just a man who had a public relationship with a convicted paedophile, but a man with links to the Kremlin and China—links so close that they were raised as red flags with the Prime Minister before his appointment. Yesterday, the Prime Minister did not deny that he knew about those links before he appointed Mandelson. He could not deny that because by his own admission he had seen the documents that proved the links. I cannot overstate how serious a matter this is. The Prime Minister sent a known security risk to Washington, to a position where he would see our most important ally’s top secret intelligence. What if he had seen something and leaked it to one of our enemies? How much would that have damaged our security partnership? We cannot even be sure that that did not happen. What is most extraordinary is that the Prime Minister appointed Peter Mandelson before vetting was complete. He did that despite a letter from the then Cabinet Secretary, Lord Case, clearly expressing to the Prime Minister that the process required security vetting to be done before the appointment. So how can he then have claimed on the Floor of the House that the process was followed, when he knew that it had not been? The Prime Minister mentioned the word “process” more than 100 times in Parliament yesterday, but he was the one who did not follow that process. This morning, we have heard the bombshell testimony of the former permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, Sir Olly Robbins. Sir Olly Robbins had a long and distinguished career serving Ministers. He is not the sort of person to give us a frank personal account of how things played out last January. So when he told us today that Downing Street put the Foreign Office under “constant pressure” to clear Peter Mandelson, that No. 10 showed a “dismissive approach” to Mandelson’s vetting process, that it would have been “very difficult indeed” to deny clearance and that doing so would have “damaged US-UK relationships”, we know he is giving us only the slightest indication of how bad things were. And that there was actually an overwhelming drive from the Prime Minister’s office to ensure Peter Mandelson was installed as ambassador. Sir Olly Robbins has told us that No. 10 showed no interest in the vetting—no desire to wait and ensure that due process was followed. In fact, the Cabinet Office even questioned the need for Peter Mandelson to be vetted at all: the same Cabinet Office that had discovered Mandelson’s links to Epstein, China and Russia in its due diligence—the Cabinet Office that the Minister is in charge of right now. Instead, according to Robbins, “The focus was on getting Mandelson out to Washington quickly”, and before the vetting even started Peter Mandelson had already been granted access to “highly classified briefing on a case-by-case basis”. This is what the Prime Minister calls full due process.