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David Lammy has been accused of making a “massive mistake” by Labour MPs and peers after announcing radical plans to cut thousands of jury trials across England and Wales.
Defendants will no longer have the option to choose to have their cases heard before a jury, the justice secretary told the Commons. Magistrates’ powers will be extended from dealing with maximum sentences of one year to at least 18 months, he said, and a new judge-led court will be established.
The deputy prime minister has backed down on plans to remove jury trials for all cases involving a maximum jail term of five years after an outcry from MPs, lawyers and campaigners.
The proposals are closely aligned with the sentencing review by the retired judge Sir Brian Leveson, who had suggested diverting more offences to magistrates courts or to a new intermediate court called the crown court bench division.
The government has said:
Jury trials will be reserved for cases in “indictable-only” offences such as murder and rape and “either-way” offences with a likely sentence of more than three years in prison.
Defendants in “either-way” offences with likely sentences of three years or less will no longer be able to choose a jury trial.
Magistrates court sentencing powers will be increased from one year to 18 months. The powers could also be extended to 24 months if necessary.
A new tier of judge-only “swift” courts will be created to hear cases without a jury.
The move means defendants accused of burglary, theft, fraud, sexual assault, stalking, sharing indecent images, drug dealing and criminal damage up to £10,000 could be denied the right to put their case to a jury.
Lammy told MPs: “As Sir Brian has made clear, investment is not enough. The caseload is projected to reach 100,000 by 2028 and without fundamental change, could keep rising, meaning justice will be denied to more victims, and trust in the system will collapse.
“Mr Speaker, to avoid that disaster, I will follow Sir Brian’s bold blueprint for change.”
Labour MPs said the changes would make it harder for defendants and may not reduce the backlog.
Stella Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow, said jury trials only accounted for 3% of cases, asking how much difference curbing them would make. “It’s hard to see how this measure … will address that backlog,” she said.
Clive Efford, the MP for Eltham and Chislehurst and a leading member of the Tribune group, said it could penalise working-class defendants and could lead to an “us-and-them in the criminal justice system”.
Richard Burgon, the left-leaning MP for Leeds East, said the policy sent “a chill through my heart”, and compared it to policies enacted by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
“Doesn’t the justice secretary want to think again?” he said.
Writing on X, Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, said the proposals were a “massive mistake” and would never get through parliament.
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Diane Abbott, the independent MP for Hackney North, said there would be miscarriages of justice for minority groups and women if the right to a jury trial was restricted.
“The entire house is concerned about victims including attacks on women and girls. But the entire house is also concerned about the many women who will undoubtedly suffer miscarriages of justice if the right to trial by jury is curtailed,” Abbott said.
Helena Kennedy, the Labour peer and human rights barrister, said Lammy’s claim that rape victims were missing out on justice because of delays fuelled by jury trials was “shameful”.
She told Times Radio that those calling for curbs on jury trials usually had a “snooty view of the general public’s ability to try a case”.
“I think that we should recognise that this would be the end of jury trial,” she said.
A memo leaked last week had suggested Lammy was looking at going further, making jury trials applicable only for public interest offences with possible prison sentences of more than five years, removing the ancient right of thousands of defendants to be heard before a jury.
The justice secretary suggested on Sky News that discussions in cabinet had led to the current proposals, raising the prospect there had been a cabinet backlash to such radical reforms.
Lammy will face opposition from human rights organisations, barristers and some race campaigners who believe there should be no erosion of the right to a jury trial.
A review conducted by Lammy in 2017 concluded that juries remained “fit for purpose” and “act as a filter for prejudice”.
Speaking in the Commons, the shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, said: “His past is catching up with him, because the best opponent of the justice secretary’s plans to curb jury trials is the justice secretary himself.
“In 2020 he said: ‘Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea. You do not fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair.’ In 2017, in his report into prejudice in the criminal justice system, he found juries, and I quote, ‘act as a filter for prejudice’.
“But now he’s become justice secretary, he’s scrapping the very institution he once lauded. Which is it? Will the real David Lammy please stand up.”
Jenrick also brought up previous comments made by Keir Starmer, saying: “And what about this? ‘There should be a right to trial by jury in all criminal cases.’ Any ideas, Mr Speaker? Who else but the prime minister this time. Does this government have no shame?”
