Speeches by Sackman.

“I will address amendments 50 and 48 together. The cases that we are considering in the context of clause 4, which involve fraud and serious financial crime, are, as I have said, among the longest and most demanding trials in the Crown court, routinely running for many weeks and often months. Cases can, and sometimes do…”

“Since the Secretary of State’s words were written, progress has been achieved. The criminal justice datasets include the equalities data published by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Judicial Appointments Commission, and all that rightly shines a light on the disparities…”

“That is what we are doing here. Bringing decisions out into the open achieves two things at once: first, it encourages individuals to check their own biases, and secondly, it helps to identify and correct them. In practice, that can mean different things in different settings, from publishing more data to allowing outs…”

“The amendment would effectively introduce a new right of appeal against a decision to order a judge-only trial. Once again the Government does not consider that to be necessary in the interests of fairness, or appropriate given the time saving this Bill seeks to achieve. We are seeking, by the process set out in clause…”

“I am not going to give way. For all those reasons, I commend the clause to the Committee. Question put, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.”

““The best way to ensure fair, equal treatment is to subject decision-making to scrutiny”.”

“One of the core messages of the Secretary of State for Justice’s review, colloquially known as the Lammy review, was that openness, transparency and accountability are the best antidotes to bias. He said:”

“Members have asked about the intended impact of the clause. As I explained earlier, the reason why we are making this change is that we have confidence in our magistrates and because it would save a significant number of Crown court sitting days. This is a tried-and-tested approach: the sentencing power of magistrates …”

“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair once again, Ms Jardine. As Members will have heard me say on countless occasions, the pressures on our criminal courts are unprecedented. I do not intend to rehearse arguments that have been made many times in the House. There is a broad consensus that urgent action is required,…”

“My hon. Friend is right. Flexibility is not a weaking of the safeguards; it is what actually allows the statutory test in clause 4 to operate properly and in appropriate scenarios. Judges will already be required to consider the technicality and length of the case when making an order as to whether to allocate to a jud…”

“To be clear, I intend to address amendment 29, albeit that it is not being put to a vote, and amendment 46, which was grouped with it. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden referred to other amendments further ahead, but it may be convenient to deal with those when we get to them, unless you want me to…”

“The Government have deliberately drafted clause 4 in a manner that focuses on the overall nature of the case, rather than applying an artificial count-by-count test. The necessary question that we are asking the court to apply is whether, taken as whole, it justifies an order for a judge-only trial, given the policy in…”

“We consider it to be set out in clause 4 as drafted. It is sufficiently flexible and will no doubt be subjected to interpretation. We think that, as drafted—with all the carefully prescribed exceptions to what could be included, in addition to the public interest exclusion—it is sufficiently clear, and that there is a …”

“I do not have any modelling to hand, but I can certainly take that away. If that work has been done, I will let the hon. Lady have it, but I do not have it to hand so I simply do not know. I do not want to go over old ground, but we heard in oral evidence, particularly from the panel of experienced judges, about the ti…”

“I will make a bit of progress. We also need to be mindful of the burden that lengthy trials place on jurors. In this country, between January 2024 and December 2025, almost 3,000 jurors sat in trials that lasted more than six weeks. We should be mindful that trials for fraud and serious financial crime, which are withi…”

“In that case I will deal with amendments 30 to 32 once I have addressed amendments 29 and 61, because they all touch on similar issues in relation to clause 4. Much has been said about the policy rationale behind this provision, and whether juries are somehow incapable of following complex trials involving fraud or fin…”

“I thank the hon. Member for his amendment, which would require cases to be eligible for an order under proposed new section 42A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 only where all offences listed are schedule offences. We consider that such a method would be overly rigid and would limit the application of clause 4. In real…”

“CTB 35 Both Parents Matter (further evidence)”

“CTB 34 Bar Council (further evidence)”

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