Live: Courts and Tribunals Bill — Commons Report stage

Don't let them put out the lamp of freedom.

The Government's Courts and Tribunals Bill would take away the right to trial by jury for many criminal offences in England and Wales — handing the verdict to a single judge instead of twelve of your fellow citizens. The evidence says it won't even clear the backlog. Here is the case for the jury, and how to act.

Email your MP See the evidence

◆The Bar Council◆The Criminal Bar Association◆The Law Society◆JUSTICE◆3,236 lawyers◆22 retired judges◆A former Director of Public Prosecutions◆300+ KCs◆All six Circuit Leaders◆The Criminal Law Solicitors' Association◆The Bar Council◆The Criminal Bar Association◆The Law Society◆JUSTICE◆3,236 lawyers◆22 retired judges◆A former Director of Public Prosecutions◆300+ KCs◆All six Circuit Leaders◆The Criminal Law Solicitors' Association

What is happening right now

A Bill to remove the right to a jury is moving through Parliament

Where the Bill has reached

Report stage· Commons

Where the Bill is now (as at 15 May 2026). MPs can still amend it — your MP's voice counts.

What the Bill would do

01
Removes a defendant's right to elect trial by jury for triable-either-way offences — the court alone decides where a case is heard.^4,1
02
Creates a new Crown Court “Bench Division” where a judge sits alone — no jury — to try either-way cases with a likely sentence of three years or less.^4,1
03
Allows judge-alone trials in certain complex fraud and financial-crime cases.⁴
04
Raises magistrates' maximum custodial sentencing powers to 18 or 24 months.^4,1
05
Replaces the automatic right of appeal from the magistrates' courts with a permission stage.^4,1

In plain terms: The three-year figure decides where a case is heard, not the sentence: a judge in the Bench Division keeps the Crown Court's full sentencing powers.⁴

What is at stake

Twelve of your peers — or one official?

Twelve citizens decide.

Today, twelve of your fellow citizens — drawn at random, answerable to no one — must agree before you can be convicted.

“Trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice and more than one wheel of the constitution: it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.”

Sir Patrick Devlin — Trial by Jury, 1956

Why it matters

Imagine it is you in the dock

You are accused of something you did not do. Your livelihood, your name, your liberty — all of it now turns on one question: who decides whether you are guilty?

For more than 800 years the answer in England and Wales has been your equals: twelve ordinary people, drawn at random, who must listen to all the evidence and agree before they can condemn you. They owe nothing to the Government. They cannot be punished for their verdict. They bring the common sense — and the conscience — of the community into the courtroom.

This Bill would replace them, in tens of thousands of cases, with a single judge sitting alone. The cases affected are not trivial: the Criminal Bar Association points out that they carry likely sentences of 18 months to three years in prison. As they put it, “That is life changing.”¹³

The case for the jury

Six reasons this Bill is the wrong answer

Every point is referenced to a primary source. The small numbers are footnotes — follow them to the original.

A democratic safeguard

Twelve citizens, not one official

A jury shares the power to convict among twelve ordinary people, chosen at random, who answer to no one and cannot be punished for their verdict. It is one of the oldest checks on the power of the State.

Magna Carta promised judgment “by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.”²⁵
Lord Devlin called trial by jury “the lamp that shows that freedom lives.”²⁴
The Criminal Bar Association: “Juries are a safeguard against prejudice. Power is not concentrated in the hands of one person. The process of deliberation ensures that bias is exposed.”¹³

It will not clear the backlog

The numbers do not add up

The plan is sold as faster justice for victims. But independent analysis and the Government's own Impact Assessment show the saving in total court time is tiny — while the backlog keeps climbing.

On the Government's own Impact Assessment the overall saving in Crown Court workload is about 3.5%; the Institute for Government puts it at 1–2%.^13,8
The IFG finds the plans “would save less than 10% of crown court time,” while around a third of trials would be pushed onto magistrates' courts that “may be just as unable to deal with this demand.”⁸
Crown Court productivity has fallen — the number of cases dealt with per sitting day is “down almost 10% since 2016.”⁹

A distraction from the real cause

Juries did not cause this crisis

The backlog is the product of years of under-investment — too few sitting days, too few advocates, broken technology, failing prisoner transport. Removing juries treats the symptom and ignores the disease.

The Bar Council: “Juries have not caused this crisis, and we have seen no evidence which validates curtailing them.”¹²
The CBA's alternative: “increased sitting days; ‘blitz’ courts; robust triage and case review; increased credit for guilty pleas; … fixing broken technology and the flawed prisoner transport system.”¹³
The IFG: investment, case management and functioning buildings improve performance — not the removal of juries.⁸

Juries are fairer

The one place bias does not show up

Research commissioned by the Ministry of Justice found that juries do not show the racial disproportionality found elsewhere in the justice system. A single judge cannot reproduce the diversity of twelve randomly-chosen citizens.

JUSTICE: “jury decision making is the one place in the system where racial disproportionality does not show up.”¹⁵
Prof Cheryl Thomas, Are Juries Fair? (MoJ, 2010): no tendency for all-White juries to convict Black or Asian defendants more than White defendants.¹⁸
Her 2017 UCL study of eight years of verdicts: across offences making up three-quarters of all jury verdicts, conviction rates were similar for White and ethnic-minority defendants — or White defendants were convicted more often.¹⁹

The profession stands united

Those who know the courts best say no

The Bar Council, the Criminal Bar Association, the Law Society and JUSTICE all oppose the plan — joined by thousands of practitioners, retired judges and a former Director of Public Prosecutions.

3,236 legal professionals — including 22 retired judges and former DPP Sir David Calvert-Smith — wrote to the Prime Minister to stop the proposal.¹¹
Law Society: the plans “go too far in eroding the longstanding right to be judged by a jury of our own peers.”^17,16
JUSTICE “strongly opposes the plan to cut jury trials” and urges the Government to withdraw it.¹⁵

Tried before, rejected before

A line Parliament has refused to cross

This is not a new idea. Every recent attempt to curtail the right to a jury has been defeated or quietly repealed — and applying this change to cases already in the system would be challenged in the courts.

The Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bills of 1999–2000, which would have removed the right to elect Crown Court trial, were defeated in the House of Lords and withdrawn.²¹
Judge-only complex-fraud trials (Criminal Justice Act 2003, s.43) were never brought into force and were repealed in 2012.²²
The Bar Council warns that applying the change retrospectively would be “extraordinarily unfair to those who have already elected the Crown Court” and “inevitably will face a constitutional challenge” — the CBA estimates 30,000 cases affected.¹²

The real problem

The backlog is real — removing juries does not fix it

The claim vs the reality

“Swifter justice for victims”?

The Government says a judge-alone trial is 0% quicker — but that is per trial.⁴ Across the whole Crown Court, the saving in total time is far smaller:

Total Crown Court time0.0% saved

The Institute for Government puts it lower still, at 1–2%.^8,13

Crown Court cases open in September 2025⁴

cases projected by 2035 if nothing changes — the crisis is capacity, not juries⁴

of appeals from the magistrates' courts succeed — a safeguard this Bill curtails¹³

lawyers — including 22 retired judges and a former Director of Public Prosecutions — wrote to the Prime Minister to stop the plan.¹¹

Myth vs fact

What you're told, and what the evidence shows

Tap a card to flip it.

The evidence

A fifth off the length of some trials is a tiny dent in total delay. On the Government's own Impact Assessment the saving in overall Crown Court workload is about 3.5% (the IFG says 1–2%) — a complainant waiting a year might see “about a week” off.^4,13,8

The evidence

The CBA: “The cases in scope are not minor offences. These are cases where the likely sentence is 18 months to 3 years imprisonment. That is life changing.”¹³

The evidence

The Impact Assessment assumes work that occupies 24,000 sitting days in the Crown Court can be done in 8,500 days in the magistrates' courts. As the CBA puts it: “We are shifting the problem to another court, not solving it.”^13,8

The evidence

Research for the Ministry of Justice finds juries are the one part of the system where racial disproportionality does not appear. The CBA: “Juries reflect our modern society. Judges do not.”^18,19,13

Respecting victims & witnesses

This is also about victims and witnesses

Delay is cruel to everyone who waits for a trial — complainants, witnesses and defendants alike. Faster justice is a goal we share.

But removing juries does not deliver it. It asks victims to give up the safeguard of a verdict by the community without producing the swifter justice they are promised.

And there is a real cost to victims in the plan itself: in the magistrates' courts, the CBA warns, “Victims and witnesses will be cross-examined by the alleged perpetrator,” because legal aid there is more limited.^13,8

Take action

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