Speeches by Mullan.

“Will the Minister give way?”

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“indicated assent.”

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“Question put, That the amendment be made.”

“I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 4, page 11, line 1, leave out from “is” to end of line 2, and insert “a right of appeal against a decision to make an order under this section on the grounds of natural justice. (5A) where an appeal is made under subsection (5), it must not be heard by the judge who made the origin…”

“I am in danger of not knowing my figures, but I think the impact assessment suggests that 25% of cases in the list of offences will be included, so I am not sure whether it is reasonable to describe that as a small proportion—I do not know whether the Minister said “proportion” or “number”. How many cases does she thin…”

“rose—”

“I will not speak at length—much to the delight, I am sure, of Government Members—but I want to pick up on a few key points that have been raised. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Reigate and for Isle of Wight East for their extensive review of clause 3, and also the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden, who …”

“I rise to speak in support of amendments 58 and 52; I will start with amendment 58. We find ourselves at a significant juncture in the history of our legal system, and the Government have presented us with a Bill framed primarily as a pragmatic response to the current record-breaking backlog of nearly 80,000 cases in o…”

“In summary, the proposal for a Crown court bench division in complex and lengthy trials requires a robust mechanism for appeal on allocation if it is to be fair and effective. By including a right of appeal now, we would prevent the waste of resources associated with post-trial retrials, close the legal black hole crea…”

“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 …”

“As we are touching on these issues, those of us on the Opposition Benches are happy to say that we have to work harder on judicial accountability and decision making, and we are not afraid to say that we think it is better that juries do these things, because judges err. There is an irony really, because at the heart o…”

“A right of appeal also acts as a check against case hardening. Although our judiciary has many positives, an appeal mechanism ensures that the pressure of the backlog does not subtly influence the application of the law in these circumstances. The right to challenge the forum of one’s trial is a fundamental safeguard a…”

“If the schedule said complex and lengthy fraud cases, then the Minister might be able to argue that it is constrained, but the schedule is just “Trial on indictment without a jury: complex or lengthy cases”. It actually opens the door to any number of types of offence being added purely because they are complex and len…”

“I rise to speak in opposition to clause 4 and in support of amendment 51 in my name. I remind the Committee that this is not a new debate. As the Minister touched on, it is an idea that has been postponed, debated and largely rejected several times over the last few decades. Each time, the conclusion has been that the …”

“I rise to speak to my amendment 53 and to amendment 13, tabled by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester. Clause 6 includes a provision that seeks to expand the Secretary of State’s power to vary the maximum custodial sentence that may be imposed by magistrates courts for triable either-way o…”

“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…”

“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 …”