Speeches by Robertson.

“I am not shocked by anything a Labour Government do.”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Obviously judges are not infallible. That is not a criticism of judges—judges know that they can make mistakes. On the mindset of the person, I am unclear as to whether the Government or indeed anyone on the Committee, regardless of party, thinks that there is anything more complex t…”

“I wish to address a number of issues in relation to this grouping. First, I will say something about the figures that have been quoted at length today and in previous sittings. Secondly, I will say something about the reasons given by the Government for curtailing jury trials in this way. Then I want to go on to say so…”

“I support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the shadow Minister, which would ensure the right of appeal to a decision whether a trial should be heard by a jury. The Government’s reason for not accepting the amendment, as they have put forward on a number of previous amendments, is the principle of efficiency—that …”

“On the figures that are being presented, on the one hand, the Government say that only 3% of criminal trials go to a jury, so this is not a significant change to the criminal courts and jury system in this country. On the other hand, they say that this is so essential, and the situation that we find ourselves in is so …”

“That is entirely right but, of course, we do not know, because the assessments in respect of the Bill are so light—there is not one on that point. It may or may not at all mean more spending. So many times, the argument on this issue, and on many others, is, “Oh, it doesn’t affect that many cases,” or, “Don’t worry.” W…”

“The higher the expertise in our appeals system, the more judges we have sitting, yet under these changes, for the complexity of cases in the Crown court system—currently either-way offences—we are going from multiple decision makers, juries, down not even to two or three decision makers, magistrates, but right down to …”

“The way my hon. Friend articulates the point suggests that the rules are effectively stripping people of the right to legal aid by pushing them down from a court where they currently qualify into a court where they do not. Is that a fair way to characterise it?”

“As my hon. Friend the shadow Minister pointed out, there are a number of problems that not only arise with what clauses 3 and 4 try to do, but carry over to clause 5, which tries to replicate aspects of jury trials in trials that will not be heard by a jury because a judge has made an allocation decision. The problems …”

“The central issue here, as with so much of this, is the impact that a single provision, or a single intention—in this case clause 6—has on other areas of the criminal justice system, and indeed provisions in the Bill. There is a lot of interplay between clauses 6 and 7—we are about to discuss clause 7, so I will save m…”

“How long is a piece of string? The unanswerable question. I could ask another question: is a 2-metre piece of string a long piece of string? If I asked you that question, Ms Butler, you would have a lot of questions for me before you gave your answer, yet the Minister thinks it is easy to answer the question, “Is a two…”

“I agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, the Bill will basically lead to a complete lottery in decision making, depending on the judge a person gets on the day. I suspect that judges ordinarily do not like vague law or having to provide their own interpretation. They are usually more comfortable if the statute is more prec…”

“I do not understand why the Government would resist having a review and assessment of the real impact on the ground—not a theoretical, projected impact assessment—of the changes. If the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington is minded to move her new clause, I suspect she would find some support for it.”

“A lot has been said about the professionalism of judges in this country, and I wholeheartedly agree, as I have said in previous sittings, but to criticise a judge trial rather than a jury trial is not to criticise judges. Jury trials exist because there is something inherently safer and fairer about 12 men and women of…”

“The Government have said that this is a matter of thresholds and they have cited other democracies and other countries—indeed, other common-law countries that take their legal system from England and Wales. They have said, “If those countries can do without jury trials at this threshold, so can we.” I am not against ha…”

“Indeed. Might a judge, halfway through a trial, decide that it has suddenly become inappropriate, having heard whatever formal or informal representations are made on that point? Even if there is some objective consensus about how long an ordinary person in this country should be prepared to set aside to serve on a jur…”

“This is a strange venue to ask for an apology for previous Government legislation from an MP who, like me, has been in this place for less than two years. The hon. Gentleman and I were on broadcast media yesterday; that might have been a better venue for him to ask me to apologise, but I would have rejected his invitat…”

“Indeed, it is quite interesting that the Government’s benchmark is the previous Government. I do not recall them making that clear at the last election. I will leave it there.”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are a number of personal and professional circumstances that can enable people to make that argument and get exempted from jury trial or, indeed, not have to sit on the jury in the original case but have it deferred to a more convenient time. She is absolutely right that flexib…”

“Again, I invite a Tea Room conversation —although we may have to meet somewhere geographically in the middle of the Tea Room. Any measure that materially and detrimentally alters the regime to which a defendant is subject in a way not foreseeable at the relevant time engages article 7. The Government’s own ECHR memoran…”