Helen Grant

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Latest on this tracker 62

1. 21 Oct 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

   Royal Mail: Performance

   I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing us a really important debate. This issue is clearly affecting us all, and Royal Mail is certainly also badly failing constituents in my Kent constituency. I feel the affection for our posties, which she touched on when she spoke about the red post boxes and so on; Royal Mail should be a national treasure, but it is not. My concern is that the situation is getting worse, not better. Royal Mail has been fined £37 million for poor performance in recent years, and there is an Ofcom investigation. Many of us feel that Royal Mail is not fit for purpose and that no change is happening, so does she agree that the Government need to do more by taking enforcement action and putting some more pressure on the leadership?

   Hansard source
2. 20 Oct 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

   Sporting Events Bill [HL] (Second sitting)

   I welcome the Bill’s focus on legacy and, of course, the Minister’s genuine enthusiasm for women participating in sport. As a former Minister for Sport, I know how great major sporting events can be for people and for our country. However, they do not automatically ensure more female participation, more women coaches and more women on boards. A good example is that a football competition might result in five new 5G pitches, but if subsequently those pitches are booked out for 90% of the time by boys and men, that will not move the diversity and inclusion dial or do anything about the gender gap. Therefore, it would be very good to hear how the Minister will actually address those issues. If she does <span id="92" class="column-number" data-column-number="92"></span>not feel that it is appropriate to respond in complete detail today, I would be more than happy to have a chat with her later, or of course she could write to me.

   Hansard source
3. 9 Jul 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

   Jury Trials

   At Justice questions last Tuesday, the Minister for Courts and Legal Services restated her total support for the Government’s attack on jury trials. She described it as “pragmatic structural reform”, and suggested that those who oppose it are burying “their heads in the sand”<span id="vol788_col743" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="743" data-volume-number="788" data-external-id="645B083C-2A1B-4BB7-BDC7-C39708F473AE">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 30 June 2026; Vol. 788, c. 743.]</span> She also said that it is a point of principle to limit trial by jury, and that she would pursue the policy regardless of the crisis in the courts. Whatever the practical concerns, are the proposed changes to jury trials also a point of principle for the Solicitor General—yes or no?

   Hansard source
4. 9 Jul 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

   Jury Trials

   The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), likely the next Prime Minister, has said that jury trials are the “lynchpin of a fair society” and that the plans to curb them should be paused. When he takes over, can we look forward to the Solicitor General’s supporting the scrapping or watering down of the very same changes that she has robustly supported? Does she think that any jury would believe a defendant whose story changed quite as often as this Government’s?

   Hansard source
5. 4 Jun 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

   Jury Trials

   Sir Brian Leveson recommended removing the right to elect a jury trial in cases involving offences that carry a maximum sentence of up to two years. Cases would be heard by a judge, sitting alongside two magistrates, in a Crown court bench division. The Government’s proposals go much further. They seek to remove the right to jury trial for offences carrying a maximum sentence of up to three years. Cases would be heard by a judge sitting alone. Why have the Government departed from Sir Brian’s recommendations in two important respects, both of which make serious inroads into the right to be heard by a jury?

   Hansard source
6. 4 Jun 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

   Jury Trials

   Given the Justice Minister’s conflicting remarks in the Courts and Tribunals Bill Committee, and given the Solicitor General’s responsibility for upholding the rule of law, will she confirm whether a decision that a defendant on trial will face a judge, sitting alone, will be subject to judicial review?

   Hansard source
7. 3 Jun 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

   South East Water: Disruption of Supply

   South East Water has openly and publicly admitted that it cannot supply drinking water for all the future homes that are planned for Kent. What is the Minister’s response to that specific concern, and is she having conversations with her colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government?

   Hansard source
8. 19 Mar 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

   Courts and Tribunals Bill

   On Second Reading of the Courts and Tribunals Bill, the Minister for Courts and Legal Services, told the House that “politics is about choices”, so let us be clear about the choices that this Government have made. They chose to bring forward a Bill with no consultation, no manifesto mandate, no Green Paper, no White Paper and no robust modelling. They chose to go further than Sir Brian Leveson had recommended. They chose to remove the right to trial by jury for offences carrying up to three years in prison—sentences that will cost defendants their jobs, their homes and their families. And they chose to do all this in five days of Committee scrutiny. What does the Minister think about the choices that her Government have made? What will she tell the victims of miscarriages of justice and the thousands of legal professionals who oppose the measures?

   Hansard source
9. 19 Mar 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

   Courts and Tribunals Bill

   I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for what she said about the Hudgell case and the child cruelty register. It has been an amazing campaign, led <span id="1014" class="column-number" data-column-number="1014"></span>by Paula Hudgell and her little boy, and I am pleased that we were able to get cross-party support to change the law and hopefully look after children and save lives. It is unfortunate that the right hon. and learned Lady just will not answer the very straightforward questions that I am asking. Jo Hamilton OBE was a victim of the Post Office Horizon scandal. She made it clear that, under Government proposals, none of the wrongly convicted 900 sub-postmasters would have had the right to a jury trial. Just this weekend, there was a further revelation, this time involving the Prime Minister. In a report, he had previously concluded that scrapping jury trials led to unreliable convictions in Northern Ireland in the 1990s. Will the Solicitor General explain how removing this vital safeguard makes the justice system more fair, not less?

   Hansard source
10. 5 Feb 2026·Parliament·Helen Grant

    Jury Trials

    There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Government. The Minister for Courts and Legal Services says that she would scrap jury trials even if there was not a crisis in the courts. The Lord Chancellor says that he is open to a conversation about alternatives and wants the backlog to come down. Which is it? Is it about the backlog, in which case what alternatives to scrapping jury trials are actually being considered, or is this just an unworkable attack on our civil liberties wrapped up in ideology?

    Hansard source