Speeches by Mullan.

“The Minister can probably anticipate what I am going to say: this situation is highly unsatisfactory, considering that we will again be asked to vote—not have a view or give an opinion, but be asked to vote—on the system of allocation and reallocation in relation to complex and lengthy trials. Members may have seen the…”

“The Minister asked us to reflect on the fact that the Auld review also recommended similar measures around complex and lengthy cases, as the Leveson review has, but I remind the Committee that the Minister is in a pick-and-choose mode when it comes to listening to Leveson and Lord Justice Auld, because both recommended…”

“The tell, so to speak, that the Minister recognises that this is not quite as simple as she makes out is that she was unwilling to make any attempt to give some examples and define it more clearly. I think she knows that if she did so, she would probably become unstuck. The Minister also accepted that there will be a w…”

“I just want to pick up on some points. The point about the scale of the issue was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate, who pointed to 200 sitting days. She highlighted the criticism from others suggesting that the list of offences was “the work of a moment”, which is probably a fair description of what i…”

“The proposal to remove juries from complex fraud trials is a solution in search of a problem. The Minister contested that the tests are legally defined, and then consistently used examples of trials of several months. It is fair to recognise that that is not typical; it is trials of weeks that are more likely to be cau…”

“In opposition to our amendment, the Minister argued that the Government need to remain nimble to the evolving nature of crime and offences. If the Government are creating new offences in primary legislation that respond to a need to change the law, they can use that opportunity, if they see fit, to amend schedule 1 thr…”

“I want to pick up on a couple of points the Minister made, particularly the one that our amendment, in relation to a study, would require primary legislation. That is simply not the case. We specifically identified an element that could be studied without a need to change the law. No law would need to be changed to all…”

“To make it really clear, what is the minimum length that the Minister thinks would constitute a lengthy case?”

“In a previous sitting, it was argued that the right to a jury trial is too fundamental to be left to the whim of a Minister’s pen. If we accept that fraud can be tried without a jury via primary legislation today, we are setting a precedent that the rest of our other either-way offences could be moved to the bench divi…”

“Perhaps the most constitutionally alarming part of these provisions is that they allow the Secretary of State to expand the list of offences that they consider to be fraud and that will lead to complex and potentially lengthy trials, which are thus eligible to be judge-only, through secondary legislation via statutory …”

“If we are serious about efficiency, we should look at where the system is actually failing. The Bar Council’s paper points to the low-hanging fruit of court logistics. One of the single greatest causes of wasted court time is the failure of prison transport. When a defendant is not brought from prison to the dock on ti…”

“Without a right of appeal, the allocation decision is functionally unreviewable. That is particularly egregious when compared with the magistrates court, where allocation decisions are subject to judicial review. The Bill as drafted, particularly as the Government have rejected our amendments, creates a lower standard …”

“My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate has given one example, but another, with which I expect people will be familiar, is the LIBOR trials. They were very complicated and sophisticated, and the appeals were successful because of a judge. It was the judge’s misdirection to the jury that led to the LIBOR trials becoming …”

“A significant concern regarding this proposal, which we covered in the debate on an amendment that was not passed, is the lack of a robust mechanism for a defendant to challenge the allocation to a judge-only trial. As it stands, the decision of a Crown court judge to sit without a jury is an interlocutory decision wit…”

“As I mentioned, the Government have chosen to exclude all sexual offences. If that is the logic that the Government seek to apply, why have they chosen to not apply it to an adjoined offence that is a sexual offence?”

“The Minister pointed to measures that made it on to the statute book under a previous Government. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 allowed for the prosecution to make an application for trial without jury in serious and complex fraud cases, although it is important to note that this was never enacted. There is obviously a…”

“I want to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley. She has engaged sincerely throughout this debate, so I do not think her comment was a deliberate. We are not saying that someone has to be charged with everything to be eligible; we are saying that anything that they are charged for on that basis …”

“Absolutely, and there is not even anything in the Bill about proportionality. There is nothing. If someone is charged with one of the offences and the trial will be complex and lengthy—which is different to it being serious—that is it. Whatever else someone is charged with, they have already lost their right to a jury …”

“The society also points to the City of London fraud court, which is due to open, and will likely have a positive impact on the case backlog, opening up more capacity in the system to hear economic and cyber-crime cases. It would be good to understand, considering the small volumes that the Minister has talked about and…”

“Importantly, the City of London Law Society has put forward alternatives, which are something that the Minister often presses critics of her reforms for. It suggests that we go further on written direction and aide-mémoire, and improve visual presentations and timelines for juries and provide them with glossaries of te…”