Speeches by Sackman.

“I am going to respond to amendment 52. I will then turn to clause 5 and then to amendment 58. These provisions relate to the production of judgments. I have heard that there is a challenge around the time that may be taken to produce these judgments and at what point in the process such judgments are produced. I will m…”

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“Clause 4 is deliberately drafted so that jury trial remains the default mode of trial. Judges will be required to apply the statutory test carefully and under the proper safeguards set out in the clause, considering suitability and the public interest in each individual case. I recognise the concerns raised by amendmen…”

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“Amendment 31 would add additional offences involving death to the list of homicide offences that are specifically excluded from the judge-alone framework for complex and lengthy cases under clause 4. I say at the outset that I understand the intent behind the amendment, and I certainly do not underestimate the impact o…”

“Mode of trial decisions of that kind are procedural in nature—they are case-management decisions—and are intended to ensure that cases are tried efficiently and fairly and managed proportionately. The absence of a route of appeal in that context is designed precisely to promote procedural finality and to avoid delay in…”

“I also thank my hon. Friend for tabling amendment 30, which would introduce a new right of appeal against a decision to order a judge-only trial. The Government do not consider that to be either necessary or appropriate, for many of the same reasons that we do not afford a route of appeal in allocation decisions to the…”

“Placing control of eligibility for judge-only trials into the hands of the parties, rather than the judge, runs counter to the objectives of this reform package and fails to support fair and effective trial management. For those reasons, I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden not to press the ame…”

“Against that reality, I cannot see how a rigid threshold of five months could capture all the cases that would most appropriately benefit from the treatment this policy affords of having a judge-only trial in certain categories of offence prescribed under the Bill.”

“I will address amendments 50 and 48 together. The cases that we are considering in the context of clause 4, which involve fraud and serious financial crime, are, as I have said, among the longest and most demanding trials in the Crown court, routinely running for many weeks and often months. Cases can, and sometimes do…”

““problems can arise when trials unexpectedly go beyond their predicted trial time”.”

“We regard five months as an artificial and overly rigid threshold. We consider that the way in which the test is currently drafted affords the court greater discretion and flexibility. As Sir Brian rightly makes clear in his report, there can be no absolutely precise way of predicting, at the outset of a case, exactly …”

“I refer the hon. Gentleman to pages 243 and 245 of the independent review. If we want to come back on the detail, we can, but I am going to make progress. I have dealt with retrospectivity. I want to spend a bit of time on new clause 29, which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Erdington spoke powerfully about. S…”

“I was about to get to the essential position, which is that what I said on Thursday is twofold. What we were debating was in the context of whether there was an appeal route in relation to the mode of trial decision—the allocation decision. I have been absolutely clear that nowhere in this Bill is there any specific ro…”

“An important point was discussed in earlier exchanges with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East. While I absolutely accept that marginalised communities experience lower confidence in the criminal justice system, the current data, certainly as regards triable either-way offences and conviction rates—both for men and …”

“A number of the points just made were covered in earlier debates. I do not intend to rehearse the Government’s case for why the reforms we are introducing, based on the recommendations of the independent review of the criminal courts, are needed, but we think that they are. The central insight of the independent review…”

“Finally, let me address amendment 46. As Members will get sick of hearing me say, the courts are facing an unprecedented challenge. Although relatively few in number, cases involving fraud and serious financial crime are some of the longest and most demanding trials in the Crown court. In that context, and in line with…”

“Since the Secretary of State’s words were written, progress has been achieved. The criminal justice datasets include the equalities data published by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Judicial Appointments Commission, and all that rightly shines a light on the disparities…”

“Forgive me, Ms Butler, is it possible that I have not addressed the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle?”

“That is what we are doing here. Bringing decisions out into the open achieves two things at once: first, it encourages individuals to check their own biases, and secondly, it helps to identify and correct them. In practice, that can mean different things in different settings, from publishing more data to allowing outs…”