Speeches by Mullan.

“In earlier sittings, I mentioned that my first encounter with this issue as an MP was an adopted mother who brought to my attention that she had been fostering a young girl, and she had concerns about the young girl going back to her birth family. Wider family members in the birth family and social services also had co…”

“In the previous session, the Minister mentioned that she thought, for example, that the test of whether to allocate a trial would be subject to legal interpretation. That was an admission that the Minister made—which is probably self-evident.”

““the ability to appeal a decision to order a judge-alone trial as an important procedural safeguard that ensures that judge-alone trials are only ordered in appropriate circumstances and in line with statutory criteria. A significant problem with not permitting appeals on decisions to order judge-alone trials is that i…”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“In their submission to the independent review of criminal courts itself, they identified that”

““opposite to the approach taken in other jurisdictions, where such a decision can be appealed.””

“The hon. Member for Gloucester pointed to what the Bar Council said, but let us be fair and talk about what it said in its completeness. It may well have said that the people currently practising dropped out, but the Minister quite directly asked how it was going to train these people up and get back to that point, and…”

“I am sure we will get to hear from the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington shortly. The proposal in clause 3 is being framed as a mere administrative adjustment—a common-sense fix for a system under strain. The Government’s plan to introduce a Crown court bench division, where a judge sits alone without magistrates to…”

“Again, I draw the Committee’s attention to the written evidence submitted by Dr Natalie Hodgson and Dr Matt Thomason, who say this approach is”

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“I beg to move amendment 52, in clause 5, page 14, line 36, leave out subsection (5) and insert— “(5) The judgment must be given at the time of conviction, except where an adjournment is necessary for preparing— (a) pre-sentence reports, (b) psychiatric or medical reports, (c) victim personal statements, or (d) further …”

“Increase in maximum custodial sentence in magistrates’ court”

“Clause 6”

“Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.”

“Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”

“We are leaning heavily on the points made by the Criminal Bar Association. The Government seem quite rightly to be extremely concerned about the training of future barristers, but the Criminal Bar Association has made the point that that training often takes place in what the Government are describing as less serious c…”

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“Thank you, Ms Jardine, for taking the Chair as we continue this later sitting. Before we suspended, we were debating my amendment 53 to clause 6 in relation to the use of the negative procedure rather than the affirmative procedure to change sentencing powers. I was talking about the importance of considering the natur…”

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