Speeches by Wright.

“Order. I am afraid that we will now need to suspend as the Division is active. I will suspend the sitting for 15 minutes for the first Division and for 10 minutes for any subsequent Divisions. I gather that there may be several Divisions, so I apologise to the Minister and all other Members who will have to wait.”

“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for opening the debate. I say this mostly for the benefit of those in the Public Gallery, but we are expecting votes in the main Chamber soon. If that happens, I will suspend the sitting and we will reconvene when the votes are complete. I call Jim Shannon.”

“I will call Dr Allison Gardner to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members who are present that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of both the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister; subject to the discretion of the Minister and the Member in charg…”

“The Government deserve credit for taking seriously a serious report into a serious problem, but is it the Justice Secretary’s preference that the changes he has outlined to jury trial will be permanent or that they will recede when the problem of backlogs recedes? In relation to judges alone deciding either-way cases, …”

“I welcome a great deal of what the Minister said in his statement. As I am sure he agrees, just as we know that China can simultaneously represent a national security threat and economic opportunity, China knows it too. That means that—even if it were not the right thing to do in and of itself, which of course it is—st…”

“I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way, especially so early in his remarks. I apologise to him and to the House for not being here for his opening remarks, which he has just mentioned. In them, he talked a little about Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu of Lords amendment 31. I am grateful to him…”

“I do not have much to add. Inevitably, the exercise of discretion is a balancing exercise. You have to decide which risk outweighs all the others. I think the point here is that there is still a risk of prejudicing proceedings even at the sentencing stage, but it is a much lower risk, so it is quite likely that the Spe…”

“I agree with that. I think it could be very helpful. There is an eternal conflict between clarity on the one hand and flexibility on the other. We all encounter it every time we try to make law. If you want to be able to deal with circumstances as they arise, you obviously want flexibility, but you also want people to …”

“They can be, but I think with sufficient guidance we can all understand what we can say and what we cannot. As I said, the majority of Members of Parliament—I know you are one of them, Sir Gavin—would not wish to prejudice criminal proceedings. I think people want guidance so that they can understand how far they can g…”

“It is a fair question. We have talked about why there is a sub judice resolution. It is not just to be irritating to Members of Parliament; it is because there is good reason for protecting the integrity of criminal process. That is largely because, as I said earlier, I think we would all want to see those responsible …”

“My answer is no. The only circumstance in which they would have done so is if something had been said in Parliament that they believed would prejudice a prosecution, and I think we are of the view that there have not been cases that have got to that level of concern. I cannot think of one, no.”

“There cannot be any harm in making Members of Parliament more aware than they are now of what the sub judice resolution actually says. There is no downside to greater education. By all means, let us find a way of making sure everybody understands clearly what it says, but, as Dominic said, that is a very different thin…”

“It is probably worth restating Dominic’s earlier point about comity. There is a reason that judges are undoubtedly more robust than juries. It is not about judges being clever and juries not; it is about their experience of determining what evidence is relevant and what is not. That is what we train judges to do; they …”

“One is worse than the other.”

“Again, I think I can say I do not think it did happen, and I do not think it even came close to happening in my time. There is a distinction to be made between the application of the sub judice rule and contempt of court proceedings, where certainly things did happen that required our intervention—sometimes by way of w…”

“Again, the same would apply. Essentially, the thing about the Attorney General’s Office is that it is broadly a reactive department, not a proactive one. If somebody came to us with an issue, we would absolutely have been engaged as Attorneys General, but we would also have engaged our staff in the Attorney General’s O…”

“As we indicated earlier, I think the answer to that is very little. It is very different when you are talking about contempt of court more broadly, but if you are asking about the specific workings of the sub judice resolution in the House of Commons, I do not think I had a single occasion where I was obliged, as Attor…”

“Just to follow on from that, it is absolutely a judge’s responsibility to decide whether, in a case they are trying, a fair trial is possible. If a fair trial has been prejudiced by something that someone, even a Member of Parliament, has said, then it is absolutely not just the opportunity but the responsibility of th…”

“That is true, but I suppose it is conceivable that somebody would none the less, in the course of debate, choose to talk about a case that is sub judice.”

“I do not have much to add. The reality of this job is that you subject yourself to the judgments of the Chair. Control is in the hands of the Speaker or of the Chair of whichever Committee the proceedings are taking place in. It is up to them to decide whether the sub judice rule applies and, generally speaking, to say…”