Kieran Mullan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jun 2026 · Primary Care: Non-digital Access · Hansard source

  More

  I understand why making use of the NHS app and online appointments is sensible and works well for many patients, but I cannot be the only MP to have heard from constituents—you may even have heard from your constituents, Mr Speaker—who struggle with that. They may not have a smartphone. I have met many elderly patients who simply cannot make use of online forms and too often GP practices do not make it easy for them to make appointments by telephone or by walking in. It is important that the Government make it crystal clear to all our GP providers, who I know are doing their best, that no matter how far we go with digital innovation, our patients must always be able to access primary care through traditional routes, such as making an appointment by telephone or by walking in.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Primary Care: Non-digital Access · Hansard source

  More

  2. What steps he is taking to maintain non-digital access to primary care.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Deep Geothermal Energy · Hansard source

  More

  2. What steps he is taking to help support the development of deep geothermal energy.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Deep Geothermal Energy · Hansard source

  More

  Deep geothermal has great potential for left-behind communities in this country, and it is a first-class transition industry for our oil and gas workforce. I welcome the Minister’s comments and the positive engagement with the Minister in the other place, who is a huge champion of deep geothermal, but the message from industry is that that is not enough, and that the funds that the Minister mentions are not doing the job. A deep geothermal strategy, giving the Government’s vote of confidence in deep geothermal, could go a long way, and would not necessarily cost very much. Industry tells us that that in itself would drive growth. Will the Government consider a strategy for deep geothermal?

• 21 May 2026 · Family Justice System: Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding · Hansard source

  More

  It is all very well to send people on training. As a doctor, I have sat in on training sessions. People can be in a training seminar together, and some will pay attention and some will not. Some will take it seriously, and some will not. If there is not a system of accountability at the other end, training can become a tick-box exercise if we are not careful.

• 21 May 2026 · Family Justice System: Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding · Hansard source

  More

  I have asked the Minister about this before, and she did not answer. Maybe I will get an answer this time. One thing she might set those additional support services to do is let people know when perpetrators will get out of prison earlier because of the Government’s decisions. Can she at least commit to writing to victims to let them know in advance that their perpetrator is going to be let out of prison earlier?

• 21 May 2026 · Family Justice System: Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for securing this debate on domestic abuse and safeguarding within the family justice system. Members in the Chamber will not be alone in having regularly encountered this issue in constituency casework. I expect all MPs across the House have constituents who are struggling with these issues, and perhaps even they are in their private lives. This subject demands seriousness, sensitivity and honesty from all of us. Behind every statistic in this debate are children living in fear, survivors trying to rebuild their lives and families navigating court processes at moments of enormous stress and vulnerability. For too many people, the family justice system is not an abstract institution; it is the place they have to go to where decisions are made that will shape their safety, their relationships with their children and often the trajectory of their lives for years to come. That is why getting the system right matters so much. As we have heard, domestic abuse is present in 73% of active family court proceedings and 87% of closed cases. One in five children in the UK experience some form of domestic abuse, and 78% of those children are directly harmed by the perpetrator. Those are sobering figures, and they remind us that domestic abuse is not something that exists separately from family justice proceedings. We also know that children are too often affected directly by failures of the system. According to Women’s Aid, over the last 30 years 67 child deaths have been linked to unsafe contact arrangements, with 19 having occurred since 2016. When we discuss safeguarding in family courts, we are discussing not peripheral procedural matters, but the core responsibility of the state to protect vulnerable people—women, children and also men. I want to acknowledge the work of survivors, campaigners and charities who have driven progress in this area through their extraordinary courage and persistence. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wokingham for bringing representatives from Kaleidoscopic UK, who I understand are attending the debate. I would be grateful to catch up with them afterwards, if that is possible. Many other groups and individuals work in this area. For example, I recently worked with Paula and Tony Hudgell and their MP, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant), to secure the establishment of the child cruelty register, so that parents and other individuals who commit child cruelty offences are monitored and tracked in the same way that child sex offenders are. The Opposition also supported the Government’s measures to restrict the parental responsibility of serious child sex offenders. During the passage of that legislation, we successfully argued, alongside others, that the provisions should go further than was originally proposed. They would only have applied to parents who perpetrated offences against their own children, but with Members across the House, we persuaded the Government to change that to those who commit offences against all children. We agreed that, on balance, a threshold of “serious offences” was the suitable way to go, but that if that worked well and was effective, we should consider lowering that threshold. Why should anyone who commits any sort of offence against a child not automatically have to argue for their own parental responsibility? It is important to recognise the work that was undertaken by the previous Government, which others have mentioned. In particular, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognised as victims in their own right children who see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse. Dame Nicole Jabobs and others long advocated for those changes, and the Act made victims automatically eligible for special measures in court. Those changes and others reflect society’s growing understanding in recent decades of the importance of confronting and tackling domestic abuse and abuse of children. The previous Government also commissioned the harm panel review in 2020, which was an expert-led review into how family courts handle domestic abuse and serious offences. We launched a review into the presumption of parental contact, and we piloted the pathfinder model, now the child-focused model, to improve information sharing, increase judicial continuity and ensure that children’s voices are heard more effectively throughout proceedings. Alongside that, we invested £3.3 million in the mediation voucher scheme, helping thousands of families to resolve disputes outside the courtroom where it is appropriate and safe to do so. There is still room for mediation and other measures to reduce the burden on our courts and save them for the most complicated and difficult cases. Last year, the independent “Everyday Business” review painted a deeply worrying picture of how survivors often experience family court proceedings. Survivors described feeling that their abuse was minimised or treated as secondary to maintaining contact arrangements. Judges and magistrates identified serious pressures on them arising from limited court time, delays and lack of continuity. Only 21% of cases reportedly had judicial continuity—a striking figure that shows that even when cases as complex as these go through the court process, we cannot rely on a single judge seeing them through from start to finish. The report also highlighted siloed working between different parts of the system. In many cases, there are overlapping criminal and family proceedings, yet delays and backlogs can mean that family courts proceed before criminal matters are resolved. That can have a huge impact. If an individual subsequently receives a criminal conviction, that may well unpick and call into question the original rulings. These are not easy issues to solve. I recognise all of the work done and the arguments made by campaigners, but legislating in this area is incredibly challenging because the dynamics of families, particularly those experiencing breakdown, are very complex. There are also strongly held views in different organisations on, for example, the presumption of parental involvement and how family courts should approach contact arrangements. Many campaigners argue that abuse has historically been minimised in decision making. In too many cases that is true, but whatever view people take, there should be broad agreement on one central principle: safeguarding and child welfare must come first. That includes ensuring that professionals throughout the system are properly trained to understand the dynamics of domestic abuse. Women’s Aid has argued that we need not just legislative reform but a wider cultural shift across the family justice system. There is real substance to that argument, because even the best legislation will fall short if victims feel that they are not listened to, believed, or welcomed and facilitated to participate. I will be grateful if the Minister says more about how the Government intend to deliver cultural change in practice. I also want to talk about accountability. We have heard discussion of the Sara Sharif case. I have mentioned in the House before that I first encountered these issues as an MP through an amazing lady, a constituent of mine, who was fostering a young girl who had been removed from her family on a temporary basis. The wider family did not want that young girl to be given back contact with her immediate family, the foster carer did not think it was a good idea, and social services did not think it was a good idea—but the judge awarded custody back to her parents. That young girl is now in a wheelchair. She is highly dependent and severely disabled. The exceptional individual I mentioned went on to adopt her in those circumstances, which is one of the most noble things I have ever seen anybody do. She approached me because she was aware of all the mechanisms of accountability that everybody else in the system has to go through, particularly teachers and social services. She simply wanted to know what accountability was available for the judge. I wrote to the Lady Chief Justice and said, “Obviously, you can’t comment on this case, but what are the systems, for a case like this where things have gone badly wrong, for a judge to have to account for the decisions they have taken?” There are none, outside of complaints about extreme behaviour, which none of us would consider to really test the issues, or if the judge makes a legal error, for which the threshold is, again, really high. I think we have a lot to do. Certainly, in the Conservative party we are working on how we can introduce much more accountability in the judiciary—not to make them accountable to the Government, because the separation of the judiciary and the Government is very important. I draw on my experience as a doctor; we have done loads to improve the accountability of highly trained, highly specialist medical professionals who we would not want the state interfering with. It is simply about ensuring they are not a law unto themselves when it comes to making poor decisions. Previously, the test was pretty much whether a doctor had made a decision that any other doctor thought was reasonable. Now, the test is much more about whether that decision was objectively reasonable. I also want to touch on the pathfinder courts. As we have heard, 10 of 43 courts have now been implemented. I would like to understand the Government’s timetable for the very welcome decision to roll them out more widely. The Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), talked about the interdependencies around access to specialist services to make that a reality. I think requesting a timetable is not asking too much of the Minister. Those are important things that we are all in agreement on, but at the same time this Government are taking what I think are catastrophic decisions in relation to the justice system. The Government have legislated for perpetrators of domestic abuse as serious as rape, child abuse, stalking and harassment—very many offences—to get out of prison earlier. Right now, there are people in prison for the rape of their partner, or sexual offences against their own children, who will get out of prison earlier because of the steps that this Government have taken. I will continue to press that matter with them, whatever else they are doing that is positive. People go to the court system because they want justice, and seeing rapists being let out early is not justice. That is something the Government should continue to reflect on.

• 19 May 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

  More

  I ask the Minister to think about a situation in which a victim of rape comes to her constituency surgery whose rapist is currently in prison but will now get out of prison earlier. I wonder what that victim would think about the answer the Minister has just given to a serious question about a serious issue. If she refuses to tell the House that information, will she—at the very least—commit to writing to all the women and girls whose offender is currently not due to come out of prison for two or three years, but who will now be getting out this year? Will she at least have the good grace to tell the victims when that is going to happen?

• 19 May 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome the new Minister to her post. For all the policies she might be glad to inherit, she is also inheriting a plan later this year to let out potentially thousands of the worst offenders against women and girls, including rapists and those responsible for sexual assault. The Government are refusing to be transparent about this and are not answering freedom of information requests and written questions about how many rapists and sexual assault offenders will be allowed out of prison earlier. Will this new Minister turn over a new leaf and at least be transparent about how many rapists the Government will be letting out of prison early later this year?

• 19 May 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  One thing this sorry episode has achieved is to make the Minister an absolute expert on warm words and platitudes. I want to go back to the issue of disappearing messages, which was raised earlier. Obviously, those messages are not retrievable, but the very minimum we should get is a detailed breakdown of all those who were asked to supply information and said they could not do so because they had disappearing messages on their phones. We are entitled to know which Ministers’ communications and which conversations are no longer accessible to us.

• 19 May 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Government Response to Humble Address · Hansard source

  More

  Further to that point of order, while I do not have the same experience as my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis), the Minister has said that the documents are ready to publish and that the only issue is securing Government time to do that on 1 June, the first day back after recess. What advice can the Speaker provide to the House on what other mechanisms are available to ensure that there is time on that day, if the Government are unwilling to allocate it?

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  It is all very well for the Minister to make that statement. Why does she think that?

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister give way?

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I intervened when the Minister said she thought that extending sitting hours would make things worse. When I asked her to explain that, she then said that she thought the benefit would be minimal. That is a different point. Given that we have said there should be an extensive consultation to figure out all those things, so that it appeals to people, such that that they will want to take part in these extended sitting hours, why would it make things worse? If people are willing to do it, I just do not see the logic of that point.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I wish to make some brief remarks. I am keen to see suggestions of alternative approaches, but we have to be careful when it comes to discounts for guilty pleas, because there is a balance to be struck from the perspective of victims and complainants. We do not want to be in a situation where they feel that justice is undermined, particularly given the many other things the Government are doing to reduce the punitive element of the justice system. I am sure the Committee will know that thousands of serious violent sexual offenders will be getting reductions in their prison time. For example, two thirds of those sent to prison every year for rape will have their prison time reduced, and more than 90% of those sentenced for child grooming offences and similar offences will have their prison time reduced to one third. We are already seeing appalling erosions of the punitive element of the justice system by the Labour Government; I would be wary about doing anything that adds to that.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Sir John. I just want to make a simple point. The Minister said that what the Government want to do does not require primary legislation, but in the same speech referred to primary legislation that we are considering today as part of introducing specialist rape courts. It is obvious to anybody that there is a requirement for primary legislation. We waited a year for Brian Leveson and we are two years into the Parliament. There are uncontroversial clauses that we have not opposed; the Government could have got on with those and passed them within six months, and they would be operating right now. I just do not think the Minister’s argument that nothing has been lost from progress on these issues because of the jury trial reforms stands up to scrutiny.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I rise to speak in support of amendments 59, 35 and 36 tabled in my name, and the amendments outlined by the hon. Member for Chichester, all of which enjoy our support. Our amendments seek to ensure that efficiencies and improvements to the system are made, increasing the maximum of sitting days to 130,000 and, in a different way, addressing the issue of sitting hours. We are debating the fundamental restructuring of our criminal justice system, and the Government’s central argument—the Minister has admitted that it is not the sole argument; even though most of the rest of the Government talk about this as a necessity, she thinks it should be done anyway—is that the Crown court is in a state of emergency with the backlog that we all agree is causing much distress to victims and innocent defendants alike. Amendment 59 asks the Government to take all reasonable steps to increase Crown court sitting days and address the other challenges in the system that are limiting our ability to tackle the backlog—the avoidable operational failures currently crippling our courts. We must remember that Sir Brian Leveson acknowledged that jury trials are the gold standard of our justice system. The Minister herself accepted that there was something special about them. Juries are not just a step in a trial; they are a democratic barrier between the individual and the overreach of authority. They are an important way in which citizens participate in our justice system. The Deputy Prime Minister has been one of the biggest cheerleaders of the value and importance of jury trials, describing them as a “success story” and comparing them less favourably with the magistrates courts—although I am sure he respects and understands the benefit of magistrates courts—because of the ability of 12 citizens to look at a case uniquely and without prejudice. Productivity in the Crown court has fallen significantly, and analysis shows that courts are hearing approximately 20% fewer hours per sitting day than they were less than a decade ago. In evidence to us, the Bar Council shared analysis showing that the average for which each Crown court judge sits in court each day has fallen to 3.2 hours. That is due to inefficiencies such as technological breakdown, prisoner transport delays and difficulties with interpreter services. Just getting back to the 2016-17 level of 3.8 hours would be an 18% improvement, far outstripping the much debated, but we think much fairer, figure of a 1% to 2% improvement in relation to the reforms to jury trials. If the Government were serious about efficiency, they would start by addressing the low-hanging fruit in respect of the logistical problems. Members will remember the evidence from the HMCTS civil servant tasked with running the system, asking for it to operate efficiently. He talked about listing, prison transport and sitting days as his priorities, and none of the things that he felt would make a significant impact required any changes to jury trials. Prisoner escort and custody services, as they are known, have been a strong theme of concern from a wide variety of witnesses. The figures that I have show that there were 713 ineffective trials in 2023 solely because the prison escort service failed to deliver a defendant to court on time. Reports from barristers indicate that, in a quarter of cases, their clients were brought to court more than five hours late, meaning that the trial day could not start on time or was lost entirely. That grit in the system causes thousands of hours of delays across our courts, yet the Government’s priority is to remove the jury trial rather than fix the transport contract. Another major drain on efficiency is the timing of guilty pleas. Sir Brian Leveson noted that defendants used to plead guilty at their first or second appearance, but we now see many examples of guilty pleas occurring at the fifth or sixth occasion. The Minister is right to raise that, and we accept that one element is delays in the court system that reduce the incentive for a guilty plea. We have heard evidence that defendants would say, “I just want to hold off my guilty plea until I have a last Christmas,” but that has now become, “I want another two Christmases.” So we understand the delays, but they are not the only reason and are not an insurmountable problem. Instead of removing the right to a jury, the Government should focus on improving access to early legal advice, which we know can make a big difference. We can also learn from courts such as Liverpool Crown court that have a laser focus on an approach to listing, which encourages early engagement by defendants and legal representatives alike. That has produced results with their Crown court backlogs that are nothing like the national figure. They are not alone in showing what can be done without the need to erode our jury trial rights. The Bar Council points to other successes in the system and says that blitz courts, established by Crown courts such as Preston, Liverpool, Nottingham and others, are effective. Preston Crown court’s listing of domestic abuse cases from the autumn of 2024 until this year has reduced the time between plea and trial preparation hearing, listing and trial by 16%. Ipswich Crown court’s backlog is down 28% since January 2024, and Derby Crown court’s fast-track courts are being run with a specific focus on cases with allegations of domestic abuse. That scheme has been successful, with those cases now being listed for trial sooner than when they might have been otherwise. We also received evidence that the circuit in Wales does not have a backlog that is anything like the rest of the country, which shows what can be done. The Government promise that judge-only trials will be 20% faster, but that figure is based on highly uncertain assumptions and anecdotal evidence. We have made the argument in Committee that there might be savings up front, but we could lose those savings in the time taken by judges to deliberate and provide their summation, which we should also weigh up. Amendment 59 relates to all the things that could be done to improve efficiency without necessarily having an increase in sitting days, but we cannot support the removal of constitutional rights while we have not even hit the maximum sitting days target that Sir Brian Leveson recommended. Amendment 35 would require the Government to demonstrate that they have funded at least 130,000 Crown court sitting days before they can commence their reforms. That figure is the target number that Sir Brian says the Government should seek to achieve if they want to bring down the backlog. Our amendment would require HMCTS to assess that those sitting days have, as far as possible, been fully utilised, and that ties in with amendment 59. It is no good the Government funding, in theory, a maximum number of sitting days if they are not able to utilise them for various reasons, some of which I have covered. Amendment 35 would also require the Lord Chancellor to make a statement to the House confirming that, even after those steps have been taken, the number of cases pending trial has not been reduced compared with the start of the financial year. We are essentially putting forward a litmus test. If the Government want to say that they have no other options and that there is no other way to do this, they should at least take the steps recommended by Sir Brian in terms of efficiencies, reforming how the system operates and having the maximum number of sitting days, which they have to get to at some point anyway if they want to argue in support of Sir Brian Leveson’s report as a litmus test for what is sufficient. If the Government are confident in their analysis, they should have no difficulty meeting that test. I know the Minister will talk about the time it will take to reach that point, but the dial can be pushed both ways. I do not think the Government are seriously suggesting that the jury trial element of the reforms will make a drastic difference to the backlog in the next one or two years. As we have discussed, the time saving of the jury trial element on its own is not that significant. Amendment 36 has a different approach, but seeks to make the same point as new clause 4, tabled the hon. Member for Chichester, which relates to having two court sittings a day. Our amendment 36 asks the Government to approach another possible alternative reform of the operating hours of our courts—specifically, the potential for extending court sitting hours and introducing weekend sittings. If we are in a state of emergency, as the Government claim, our response should focus on maximising the use of our existing infrastructure, rather than dismantling the rights of the citizen. At present, our Crown courts often operate typically between 10 am and 4.30 pm. It is difficult to justify a policy that removes the right to a jury trial—a move estimated to save perhaps as little as 1.5% to 2.5% of court time—when we are leaving so many hours of the working day and the entirety of the weekend completely unutilised. Working normal business hours such as 9 to 5, or even utilising Saturdays for specific types of hearings, could provide a far more substantial reduction in the backlog than the structural reforms proposed in the Bill. We recognise that a possible move towards extended or weekend hours must be handled with extreme care. That is why we proposed amendment 36, which would require the Lord Chancellor to undertake a comprehensive consultation on the potential introduction of extended sitting hours before the reforms can commence. Operational changes of this magnitude cannot be mandated from a desk in Whitehall without understanding the impact on the human beings who keep the system running. The consultation would address the practical realities that will determine whether such a system is viable and sustainable, including the availability and wellbeing of HMCTS staff, who are already under significant pressure; the level of fees and remuneration required for legal professionals and court staff to work non-standard hours; and the impact on legal aid practitioners, many of whom, as we have discussed, find the challenges of working in criminal legal aid difficult. We must ensure that those who would be asked to work in this way—judges, barristers, solicitors and court staff—believe that any such plans are appropriate and supported by proper resourcing. To impose extended hours without their consent and without addressing the current crisis in retention and recruitment would potentially be counterproductive, rather than a benefit. Where could we look for an example of how this can be done in a way that is welcomed by staff who want to increase their income in a fair way? I was glad that the Minister raised the example of the NHS, which has an equivalent issue with waiting lists as we do with Crown court waiting times. The NHS uses weekend operating as a core part of its elective recovery strategy. To be clear, the NHS has always been a 24 hours a day, seven days a week service for urgent and emergency care, but it specifically uses additional, elective, planned operations. By opening facilities 7 days a week, the health service aims to maximise the use of expensive equipment and theatre space that would otherwise sit idle. I am sure that every Committee member can see the direct read-across. The Crown court is an expensive space with expensive equipment that sits empty and unutilised in what the Government describes as a crisis. A national programme in 50 hospitals runs what is called a weekend hitlist once a month. That approach focuses on one type of procedure a day, such as 24 endometriosis surgeries in a single weekend. It was pioneered by Guy’s and St Thomas’ foundation trust—the trust that looks after many of us when we are not well—and it is now being scaled up nationwide. The approach uses high staffing levels, rigorous pre-op assessment and enhanced theatre utilisation. Again, the read-across could not be more direct. We could have courts with trained staff to consider particular types of cases that had been assessed in advance as suitable for such sessions. Those courts could be set up to make the most of that, whether it is a Saturday or an evening. It is not just in those approaches that we see the Government and the NHS thinking more innovatively about how to make use of resources. Many of us now have community diagnostic centres in our constituencies. I know from when I was a junior doctor that, previously, it was extremely difficult to organise certain types of scans out of hours. The NHS have reformed the whole approach so that such tests, which had typically been restricted to just the working day, can now take place seven days a week to maximise capacity.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. We are all here because we recognise that the current state of our criminal courts is untenable. Complainants and defendants alike are facing unacceptable delays, and victims and innocent defendants are suffering as a result. The Government’s response, as set out in the Bill, is a radical restructuring of our trial processes, most notably in the removal of the right to a jury in a vast number of cases—around half, in fact. We believe there is a strong obligation on the Government to institute a more targeted, and potentially more effective, way to address the specific delays that they most frequently cite, through the establishment of specialist courts for rape and serious sexual offences. The Minister herself raised this issue in the Chamber on 7 January. When talking about jury trial reforms, she said: “Does it make sense that the queue of the victim of rape or of a homicide is shared with someone who has stolen a bottle of whisky”? —[ Official Report , 7 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 278.] In December, the Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor said: “if someone is charged with an offence such as theft of a bicycle, theft from a vehicle or employee theft, they can opt for a trial that, by necessity, goes into the system and will delay a rape trial”. —[ Official Report , 2 December 2025; Vol. 776, c. 807.] That point has been made by a number of Labour MPs, including the hon. Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet). The Opposition have been clear that that is an oversimplification of how the listing process works, and that some of those examples are extremely unlikely to be in the queue in the Crown court, except for in specific circumstances. Nevertheless, the Government have been advancing that case. A commitment to introduce specialist courts was actually in the Government’s manifesto. By fulfilling the promises made to the electorate, the Government can deliver swifter justice for a group of victims they have centred in the debate, without dismantling the constitutional right to elect for jury trial. The Government’s proposals to halve the number of jury trials was not in the Labour party manifesto, but on page 67 there was a commitment to “fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.” It could therefore be argued that—as much as we can debate what in an entire manifesto the public vote for—the public voted for a system that would prioritise these types of cases through specialisation and resourcing, and did not vote for a system that would instead prioritise administrative throughput by removing the right to elect to be judged by one’s peers. Sometimes, Governments do things that were not in their manifesto one way or another, or were not touched on in any way, but it would be difficult for people to argue that the public had a specific idea that they were not going to get certain things. However, if a Government put in their manifesto a particular element of direct relevance, as they did in relation to specialist courts, the public would have every right to be aggrieved if something entirely different, and significantly so, appeared as Government policy instead of what was in the manifesto. Opposition new clause 25 asks the Government to return to their original vision. It is similar to the other new clauses tabled by the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester, and by the hon. Member for Warrington North. They are crafted in different ways—for example, new clause 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Warrington North, is more prescriptive about how the courts would operate—but the intention and outcome are essentially the same. Specialist courts equipped with trauma-informed training and access to independent sexual violence advisers would recognise the unique complexity of these cases in a way that a simple bench division cannot. As I have said, the Government frequently refer to the experience of rape victims waiting years for justice as a significant justification for restricting jury trials. They argue that moving towards judge-led trials in 50% of cases will streamline the process and reduce the backlog, but the evidence for the broader claims of efficiency is highly contested. Independent analysis by the Institute for Government suggests that judge-only trials in the Crown court might save as little as 1.5% to 2.5%— [ Interruption. ] The Minister is right to say, and I do not mind accepting, that the saving is higher for the broader package—that has never been a point of dispute—but we are less concerned about the broader package, and there are things in it that we agree with. We are concerned about the much smaller saving that the IFG has pointed out. The Criminal Bar Association has pointed out that the Government’s modelling assumes that the trials will be completed twice as fast as is realistic. We must ask whether the trade-off is proportionate, especially when there is another option.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  The Minister is in danger—there is a bit of a pattern here—of wanting to have things both ways. She is suggesting that waiting for Brian Leveson’s review, and the parliamentary time and effort going into the legislation, has had no impact or delay on the measures regarding specialist rape courts, which were in the Government’s manifesto and they could have just got on with from day one. That really stretches credibility. The Government must accept the consequences of their decisions. If they have decided that the erosion of jury trials is the way forward, they should just say that and accept that there has been a negative consequence on their manifesto commitment to introduce rape courts. The Minister cannot say, “We’re pretty much doing what we would have done anyway, and this is all fantastic from both sides of the paper.” It is really not.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Eleventh sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  The Minister is correct. That is the only time I have referred to it more broadly; I have been consistent throughout in saying that it is a system with significantly less access to jury rights than there is at present. There is a third way: to take the path towards operational excellence and better placed resourcing. We should not trade a centuries-old right for a 1.5% efficiency gain on a Government spreadsheet.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  I refer the hon. Member to the words of Mr Speaker earlier. It is the Speaker who decides whether a privilege motion goes ahead. The hon. Member is criticising Mr Speaker for having allowed it.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I wish to speak briefly in support of the principle that different approaches to case management and ways of working are making a difference in a number of areas. The Committee has had extensive back and forth about the fact that backlogs are actually coming down in certain locations. There has been debate about whether that is just a seasonal trend that we see at some points in the year; we will have to wait to see whether that is the case. We have also spoken about the approach to case management in Liverpool, and this morning I read out various statistics from other courts that are bringing the backlogs down. I think new clause 7 drives at the same point; other measures are already showing benefits before the passage of this legislation, and we should prioritise them.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I have just one remark to make. I draw the Committee’s attention to the submission we received from the circuit in Wales. Clause 25 is about the territorial extent of the Bill, and the circuit pointed out that it feels the Welsh system has been unfairly caught up in these reforms, which it does not think are applicable in terms of the need to reduce waiting times. It is important that the Committee makes note of the evidence that was submitted to us. I join the Minister in thanking everybody for their time and deep concentration when listening to the exchanges throughout. I thank the Clerks who have assisted us over the many days, including during a late sitting. I thank the House staff in that regard, and I thank the Minister for the constructive manner in which she has engaged with feedback and proposals from this side of the House.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Interestingly, we have been told all along that this is about the complexity of cases, yet the evidence is that the number of hours that things have been looked at has shrunk. To me, that is a much bigger issue. If we have fewer hours in a day to operate, of course it is going to take longer to get through complex cases.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Courts and Tribunals Bill (Twelfth sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  The Minister opened her remarks by saying that the scheme applies only to certain cases in the Crown court. The point that the Opposition make is that it will no longer apply to some of the cases to which it would apply now. The Minister has given figures. If the scheme is configured in the right way, and sufficiently constrained to just pick up those cases that are moving, it should not necessarily lead to any increase in the number of cases referred, so I do not accept her argument. I would not expect the Minister to know this—she has given a single set of figures—but I would be interested in the historical trend, and the number of applications in the preceding few years. It would be helpful if she could give those figures. I also want to make clear—I have been quite clear about this with other stuff that we have done on the ULS scheme—I think it is unusual that the scheme is available to absolutely anybody. I would be open to any expansion or modification being constrained just to victims and family members. I think that I have made that clear in relation to other reforms. That brings me to the Minister’s point about the Law Commission. That was the answer I was given repeatedly over very many months by the Victims Minister as to why the Government would not make reforms to the scheme, yet they accepted such reforms last week as a result of pressure. If the Minister insists that that is the route forward, I ask her to write to the commission. I point out the reforms that the Minister is making, which will not have been in the terms of reference for the Law Commission. At the point at which it started that work, the reforms were not even on the operating table, so it is important that the Government write to the commission and make clear that they would welcome it expanding the matters that it is considering to include this question, which would have been novel to them at the point of that undertaking. I have learned from our experience with the other element of the ULS that, I am afraid, one should just keep pushing and pushing on such issues, so I will put the new clause to a vote. However, I have given some points on which I ask the Minister to go away and reflect to determine whether there is a way forward that can be satisfactory to both sides of the House at some point in future proceedings. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.