Speeches by Mullan.

“”

“Question put, That the amendment be made.”

“This amendment prevents the Lord Chancellor adding further offences to the list in Schedule 1 by regulations.”

“Amendment proposed: 51, in schedule 1, page 38, line 3, leave out paragraph 20.—(Dr Mullan.)”

“The hon. Member for Gloucester pointed to what the Bar Council said, but let us be fair and talk about what it said in its completeness. It may well have said that the people currently practising dropped out, but the Minister quite directly asked how it was going to train these people up and get back to that point, and…”

“New Schedule 3ZA to the Criminal Justice Act 2003”

“Schedule 1”

“We are leaning heavily on the points made by the Criminal Bar Association. The Government seem quite rightly to be extremely concerned about the training of future barristers, but the Criminal Bar Association has made the point that that training often takes place in what the Government are describing as less serious c…”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.”

“The test for complexity is too subjective. The procedural safeguards are non-existent. The evidence for efficiency is weak, and the power to expand these measures through secondary legislation is constitutional overreach. If the Government are truly concerned about the backlog, let them invest in the mechanics of the c…”

“I am sure we will get to hear from the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington shortly. The proposal in clause 3 is being framed as a mere administrative adjustment—a common-sense fix for a system under strain. The Government’s plan to introduce a Crown court bench division, where a judge sits alone without magistrates to…”

“The Minister asked us to reflect on the fact that the Auld review also recommended similar measures around complex and lengthy cases, as the Leveson review has, but I remind the Committee that the Minister is in a pick-and-choose mode when it comes to listening to Leveson and Lord Justice Auld, because both recommended…”

“The tell, so to speak, that the Minister recognises that this is not quite as simple as she makes out is that she was unwilling to make any attempt to give some examples and define it more clearly. I think she knows that if she did so, she would probably become unstuck. The Minister also accepted that there will be a w…”

“Trial on indictment without a jury: complex or lengthy cases”

“I rise to speak in opposition to clause 4 and in support of amendment 51 in my name. I remind the Committee that this is not a new debate. As the Minister touched on, it is an idea that has been postponed, debated and largely rejected several times over the last few decades. Each time, the conclusion has been that the …”

“It is another example of what we have talked about: the move away from what we would consider to be natural justice. The scenario the hon. Member points to is not bizarre; there are offenders who target elderly women, for example, and will use all sorts of different methods to abuse them, from financial to sexual. I ha…”

“I beg to move, That the debate be now adjourned. We have had some discussion in private, and I think it will be helpful, while not revealing what was said in private, to illustrate the Opposition’s thinking on the matter. As I explained during our previous sitting on Thursday—there has been a significant length of time…”

“The proposal to remove juries from complex fraud trials is a solution in search of a problem. The Minister contested that the tests are legally defined, and then consistently used examples of trials of several months. It is fair to recognise that that is not typical; it is trials of weeks that are more likely to be cau…”

“In opposition to our amendment, the Minister argued that the Government need to remain nimble to the evolving nature of crime and offences. If the Government are creating new offences in primary legislation that respond to a need to change the law, they can use that opportunity, if they see fit, to amend schedule 1 thr…”