Speeches by Mullan.

“I rise to speak in enthusiastic support of the clause. If we were starting from scratch, would we deal with this issue in primary legislation? I expect not. I do not know the history of why the approach of the time was followed, but it seems that the matter should be addressed flexibly via regulations. Members will hav…”

“As we have heard, clause 15 clarifies the use of pre-recorded evidence for cross-examination and re-examination, which is often referred to as section 28 evidence. Our courts frequently rely on recorded testimony to spare witnesses the trauma of a live trial, so the rules governing the editing and presentation of that …”

“It is a pleasure to have you guiding us through the second part of the proceedings today, Ms Jardine. Clause 9 is part of a rolling set of clauses about the admissibility of evidence. Our task is to ensure that, while we protect complainants from being retraumatised by intrusive lines of questioning, we also maintain a…”

“Let us also remember that in the criminal courts, there is a presumption that those who commit or are accused of committing the most heinous crimes—rape, murder and the abuse of children—are innocent. We start in that area of our legal system with a presumption that guilt must be proven, so the concept of presumption i…”

“I accept the Minister’s point that to insist on that being the remedy is not necessarily what the defendant would want. We absolutely want to support defendants who have been through the process of a trial and a successful appeal. Where they could have had a Crown court trial with a jury, prior to the Government’s refo…”

“On amendment 37, I have talked about the high rate of error and injustice that is being corrected by the current appeal mechanism, and I have talked about the unrepresented defendants who will have to navigate a more complex and subjective system, such as by reviewing transcripts. On the whole, we do not think that we …”

“If the defendant is successful at appeal, we might say that they are doubly aggrieved: they have gone through the process and it has not worked for them. Surely we should want to do everything we can to support that group of people, so that they have a route to the mode of trial that they think is fairest, considering …”

“In summary, clause 7 represents a substantial recasting of appellate rights that prioritises administrative throughput over the correction of error. We should not trade away, without any evidence of abuse and with little evidence of meaningful efficiency savings, a safeguard that is successfully correcting mistakes in …”

“As we have discussed in debates on previous amendments, the grounds of an appeal may very well relate to an allocation decision. Someone could successfully appeal on the basis that their trial should never have been heard by a magistrate and that they should have had a jury instead. Providing the option for a jury retr…”

““power is also never concentrated in the hands of one individual.””

“I understand the Minister’s criticism that the defendant making the appeal may be perfectly content to have their case reheard in the magistrates, and insisting that an appeal be reheard in a jury trial gives no flexibility in that direction—that is a fair point. In response, we will not press amendments 55 to 57 to a …”

“The justice system depends on the belief that mistakes can and will be fixed. By restricting access to appeals and forcing successful cases back into the summary system, we risk creating a parallel system that simply displaces the backlog, while degrading the quality of justice. We must maintain the automatic right to …”

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“We must recognise that we have an adversarial justice system, which includes potentially robust cross-examination; nothing in this provision should stop that. However, the clause moves the practice of witness accompaniment from a patchwork of different local approaches and practices to a clear statutory basis. The clau…”

“We must give great weight to the evidence we have heard, but the Government’s own position is that it is unlikely to materially change outcomes; they are repealing a provision that their own assessment concedes will not make a material difference to what happens.”

“Have the Government committed to, or do they expect to commit to, any additional funding to the organisations that will fulfil this role? If we do not know who these people are, how they will be regulated and whether there are the necessary resources, the clause will have less impact. That is why I think it is importan…”

“I think it is a drafting habit to say “his”, and there is no pejorative element to that.”

“We have heard about the need for judges to receive better training, but I observe that the CAFCASS officers and social workers who advise the courts are already trained. They are the professionals on whose expert reports judges rely. In every one of the cases we have talked about, those trained professionals were invol…”

“I hope that I have demonstrated to the Committee that I have a genuine interest in the suggestion that this element is causing an issue. We are open-minded to that. My instinct is that, at heart, this is about the courts, judges and other professional staff making bad decisions and bad judgments. That is at the heart o…”

“If the answer to those failures is training and systemic reform—and I believe that absolutely has a role—that reform should be directed at the failing institutions. We do not necessarily need a statutory provision that cannot, as we have heard from the Government’s own admission, be consistently shown to be the cause o…”