Speeches by Sackman.

“It is a good question and one that we touched on in our earlier debate in the context of clause 1, where we were discussing the proposal to remove the defendant’s right to insist on their choice. When we step back and look at the entirety of the system, if a person is charged with a summary-only offence that will be co…”

“I do not accept the premise or assumption that everybody has a positive experience of the criminal justice system when they participate in a jury. As the Minister for Courts, I do thank all of those who perform their civic duty. However, when asking people to do that, we must ask them to do it in a way that is fair and…”

“The premise of not just these amendments, but amendments that we have already debated, is that other tiers of the system, whether that be the magistrates court or the proposed Crown court bench division, somehow offend the principles of natural justice. The principles of natural justice are essential; they are foundati…”

“I do not want to labour the analogy—forgive the pun—but in many senses, we do allow that. Under this system and the reformed system, we preserve the right of the defendant to appeal. Having allocated the trial to the venue, be it judge-only or the magistrates court, if the outcome is perverse in some way or the defenda…”

“The hon. Member started with a long digression into trial by ordeal. I hope this Committee will not become a trial by ordeal, but I find the brass neck approach to this from the Opposition surprising, given that they cut the Department’s budget in real terms, while we have invested in record levels of sitting days and …”

“Let me begin by saying that the Bill has been prepared with precisely the people and communities who elected us and gave us our mandate in mind. The Labour party manifesto contained one word on the front cover: “Change”. It was not an acceptance of the status quo—a brittle criminal justice system with record and rising…”

“I will not take any more interventions; I want to make progress. The point is that we are already beginning to see the investment aspect of this. The second pillar of how we address the backlog, which many have commented on, is efficiencies, and we have part 2 of Sir Brian’s report. In his speech on his vision for the …”

“I have visited lots and lots of courts.”

“I will give way to my hon. Friend.”

“The hon. Lady will have seen that with the presentation of the Bill, as is right and appropriate, a suite of documents and material was made available to Members of this House and the wider public. The factsheet that accompanies the Bill includes a series of scenarios, one of which is literally to do nothing, and looks…”

“I will just conclude this point. The central insight of the independent review of the criminal courts, in direct answer to the hon. Member for Reigate, borne out by the modelling, which has been externally verified and which we presented in the impact assessment, is that efficiency—however optimistic we are about it—an…”

“Of course that is right. No one is talking about the abolition of jury trials. We have said, and I will say repeatedly, that juries are a cornerstone of the British legal system and of our legal culture. We are preserving jury trials for the most serious cases. By seeking to tackle the shameful delays in our criminal j…”

“What clause 1 does is remove the ability of a defendant to choose where they are tried, which, at the moment, they have a right to insist on. So we have—”

“For those watching on TV—which is probably my mum—I will be absolutely clear: the Government are not abolishing jury trials. The Government are preserving jury trials for the most serious cases, and we are working in this way to ensure that those trials are fair and timely.”

“Let me finish my sentence; you asked me the question. We are removing the right to elect, and removing it completely. The right to elect means, notwithstanding the fact that under our current system—by the way, the right to elect does not exist in Scotland. I do not think any of us here would suggest for one minute tha…”

“The hon. Member is right. Where currently a defendant charged with a triable either-way offence has the ability to choose trial by jury in the Crown court, even in a scenario in which a magistrates court has accepted jurisdiction over their case, that ability to choose is removed by clause 1. Currently, defendants do n…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We often use the old adage about justice needing not just to be done, but to be seen to be done. That is vital, and again comes back to the language that people use about our courts. The suggestion that a person gets a rougher justice in the magistrates court is inaccurate, and we ha…”

“I am not sure who to give way to, but I will give way first to the hon. Lady—I will try to be as fair as I can.”

“I was coming to that point, but as the hon. Member has raised it, I will address it now. First, I put it on record that any suggestion that the Ministry of Justice or I have sought to bury good news is totally false. I would be the first person to be screaming it from the rooftops if our measures and our investment, wh…”

“Just to be absolutely clear, I have not accepted the CBA figures. What I have told you, and everyone here, is that on the last published figures, the backlog continued to rise between September 2025 and December 2025. I accepted that it may be that in some courts there are signs of improvement—”