Speeches by Mullan.

“The same is true in other areas. Private prosecutions are used in intellectual property crime and shoplifting, where cases are not prioritised. In one example, public enforcement spent over £2 million and brought just a handful of charges, while private prosecutions secured over 100 convictions at a lower cost. If we m…”

“We must ensure that the consultation is meaningful, and it must include those who rely on private prosecutions. Crucially, the House will expect to see how the Government respond to the evidence they gather. If this becomes just a paper exercise and the Government continue with what they always intended to do, it will …”

“Although not intentionally, the hon. Member cut me off before I made the point I was going to make, which is that this is unprecedented in cases of this nature, with sentences of this length.”

“I draw the Committee’s attention to my remarks at the outset of our proceedings: our judicial system, victims and defendants and how we manage crime in this country are my personal priorities. That is primarily the reason why I sought to be elected to this place, so I will never disagree that justice should get a highe…”

“I covered that in earlier remarks, when I pointed out that those people are not adults, so it is a different set of circumstances. If the hon. Member is asking me to be ultra-specific—I am happy to be—what is proposed is unprecedented for cases of this nature, with adults, with these sentence lengths. That is, of cours…”

“I accept the first point. If the Minister had said, “Yes, there is a drop in the backlog in those three regions, but we tend to see that because of this,” citing the points the hon. Member made, we would be having a different discussion, but she did not say that; she said there was no drop. On the second point, the hon…”

“To use the word that the hon. Member used at the start of her intervention, it is a balance. We in the Opposition are clear that the Government have that balance wrong, which is why we oppose the measures. As I said, the Government want to have this both ways: on the one hand, when it suits them, they say that it is a …”

“Again, we talked about this before. There are degrees of fairness. Specifically on whether a defendant will get a judge who is as fair as possible in terms of representation, understanding their background and so on, I think it is less fair than a jury system. But I made it clear that other factors are given greater we…”

“Yes, and my hon. Friend did an excellent job of pointing out that although that might have been in some non-statutory documents, we do not know, because we do not have the details. We do not know whether that was included in the impact statement or the modelling that the Government have relied so heavily on to make the…”

“Yes, absolutely. In the NHS, I worked on what we might call change and improvement programmes or quality improvement programmes. We worked hard to replicate the best clinical practice everywhere, but it is simply not possible to directly replicate everything that goes on in every unit, although that is not to say that …”

“Will the Minister give way on that point?”

“The Minister said earlier, and she just said again, that it was the test recommended by the independent review. But if we are being specific, the test that was recommended was two years. The Government have made the test three years, so it is not the test that was recommended. It is important that the Minister does not…”

“I have a background in healthcare. The Minister has talked about triage being led by healthcare professionals, but there is another side of healthcare where people can insist on choice. This Government have introduced Martha’s rule, where the family member can not only insist on choice, but override what the treating c…”

“The hon. Member is doing a good job of highlighting the whole additional set of complexities of the new system. We cannot predict how those are going to pan out. She referenced the separation of what a judge will hear and what a jury will hear, to preserve the fairness of the jury’s sentiment. We are now going to be in…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I rise to speak in support of amendment 43, tabled in my name, and to amendments 25 and 12. Again, on this issue the Opposition and the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden have alighted on the same challenge or issue—the same thing we think is unfair. …”

“The hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden highlighted the Post Office scandal. She talked about those involved in that case as an example of people who supported the defendants feeling that there was a risk of greater miscarriage of justice, so it is not a proposition that my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate has p…”

“Does the Minister accept that there are elements of a jury trial—not necessarily as a whole, but some elements—that are superior to a trial without a jury?”

“As I pointed out, at some point in these proceedings, even the Justice Secretary did not think it necessary. When he was considering these matters, the Justice Secretary agreed that it was perfectly reasonable for it not to be retrospective. We are actually making an argument with which, at one point, the Justice Secre…”

“I beg to move amendment 40, in clause 3, page 5, line 38, at end insert— “(7) Where a court has determined in accordance with this section that a trial is to be conducted without a jury, the defendant may appeal that decision if he can demonstrate that the circumstances of their case are such that trial without a jury …”

“I absolutely think that we should leave the ECHR, because I do not like the mechanism that it operates under, but I absolutely support some of the rights and protections in principle that it advocates. I am struggling to see why there is a contradiction. There are lots of times when we might support elements of proposa…”