Speeches by Qureshi.

“I thank the Minister for her response. My amendments are short and easily identifiable. I think the offences I have suggested should be included within the categories of certain murders and homicides, but as I said earlier, I will not press the amendments to a vote.”

“I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I could go on and on explaining how evidence is presented, but all I will say from my years of experience—not just in the CPS, but in the independent Bar as well—is that I have gone through thousands of pages of documents, and juries have reacted to that and been able to dea…”

“Amendment 29 would insert into subsection (3) an additional ground for a lengthy or complex case to be tried without a jury in England or Wales, to require agreement by the defence and the prosecution that the trial is likely to exceed five months. Amendment 30 is almost self-explanatory: it would provide a right of ap…”

“I want to comment on two points. First, I agree entirely with the speech of the hon. Member for Chichester on the problem with clause 3 and jury allocation, and I especially agree with her point about the retrospective reallocation of cases, whereby people waiting for trial by jury will suddenly find that their case wi…”

“My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley mentioned that the youth court can sentence someone to up to two years’ imprisonment. There is one big difference: youth courts often deal with indictable offences. Some of those youngsters are charged with really serious offences that would go straight to the Crown court if a…”

“There are enough solicitors, barristers and judges available. Some of my former colleagues, who are now assistant recorders and recorders, were told that they could do x number of jury trials in a year, then the night before they would be due to sit in a particular Crown court, their session would get cancelled. The on…”

“I agree with the hon. Member. I want to set out why we have a backlog and what we can do. Everybody has talked about various things that we could do, such as triaging the cases more effectively and more routinely, like Liverpool Crown court and some of the others that have seen a considerable reduction. There are the i…”

“No, because let’s face it: in the jury trials we are talking about, people are not getting sentences of more than three years. There is hardly going to be a King’s counsel dealing with those cases—it is not even going to be a leading junior who will deal with those cases. A lot of the barristers will be middle ranking;…”

“When we were having all the various debates about legislation as we were exiting the European Union, we in the Opposition, among others, argued that the Government should not use Henry VIII provisions to essentially sweep changes along and make laws without proper debate. The then-Government were rolling up a whole lot…”

“Recently, we heard about a certain politician from a certain party naming immigration judges. That has led to one particular immigration judge being scared, and many others are terrified about what is happening. Again, if these things are left to the judge, we can imagine what might happen in a case where there is a lo…”

“I will, but first let me explain. We have enough time to get those people in, so that we can increase the sitting days and reduce the backlog.”

“I entirely agree. The state of some of the courts in this country is sad. They are completely neglected, which creates a lot of challenges.”

“The Institute for Government also said that juries do not take up that much time—they save more time. The point is that, without too much difficulty, we could get the courts up and running and working for extra sitting days. Essentially, if we had more court sitting days, we would not have the backlog; it is not the ju…”

“To conclude, the question is not whether juries can handle complex cases, but whether we are prepared to remove a fundamental safeguard instead of fixing the system. These clauses do not address the cause of delays or solve the backlog, but they do risk undermining confidence in our justice system, while offering at be…”

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“Sir Brian Leveson recommended that a case should be heard by the Crown court bench division, with no right to a jury trial, only if it carried a potential sentence of 24 months or more. To change the maximum sentencing period in the magistrates court without proper consultation and debate in Parliament is a fundamental…”

“In a moment. The main reason why the Government have cited is the backlog. What I am trying to say is that it is not the juries that cause the backlog. It is quite clearly the case that, with investment in court structures and court personnel, the courts could be fully up and running, and we could probably get rid of t…”

“The Government’s case is that judge-alone trials will be faster, but that claim has no reliable evidential foundation. The Criminal Bar Association highlighted that the estimate relied upon—that judge-only trials may be 20% quicker—was itself described as being subject to”

“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. Amendment 34 would ensure that the negative procedure—what I call the back route—cannot be used to allow magistrates courts to take away people’s rights for up to 24 months; it would require a proper debate and a vote in Parliament.”

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