Burnham scraps the plan to curb jury trials. Judges would sit alone only in some fraud cases
The U-turn reverses a Starmer-era reform meant to cut the court backlog. Lawyers cheered, but they say a "severe threat" to jury trial remains because magistrates' sentencing powers would still double.
The government has dropped its plan to take juries out of many Crown Court trials. Announced over the weekend, the change reverses a reform drawn up under the previous prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and first set out by David Lammy as Justice Secretary. That plan would have kept juries for the most serious offences and for those either-way offences likely to bring a sentence of more than three years, and sent everything else to a single judge. Under the revised approach, judge-alone trials would apply only to some fraud and financial cases, the Ministry of Justice told the BBC. Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Alex Norris, who took the post when Andy Burnham became prime minister in July, said he had "changed course" after hearing the strength of feeling against the idea. Reports said Mr Burnham had come to power facing a possible rebellion of dozens of Labour backbenchers on the issue, and the barrister-MP Karl Turner, whose Labour whip was suspended after he criticised the plan, welcomed the reversal. It was not a surprise to close followers: the Law Gazette had reported that Mr Burnham was hinting at dumping the curbs, and City AM that he was under pressure from the legal profession to safeguard jury trials. Several outlets described the decision as another reversal of a Starmer-era policy. Mr Norris insisted that the court backlog, which stood at 80,829 cases at the end of June, would still start to fall "in this Parliament", though he would not put a figure on it. He argued that legislating for judge-alone trials was the hardest part of the package to deliver and would have slowed the rest of it. Over the next decade, he said, the queue would fall significantly. The campaign group Defend Our Juries called the reversal "a step in the right direction".
Lawyers welcomed it too, but not the whole package. The courts Bill still removes a defendant's right to choose a Crown Court trial in some cases and doubles magistrates' maximum sentencing power to two years. The Criminal Bar Association says that could move around 25,000 cases a year, among them assaults and sexual offences, to volunteer magistrates it calls "completely unequipped" to try them. Its chair, Andrew Thomas KC, said barristers were "delighted" but that a "severe threat" to trial by jury remains in the Bill. The Law Society called the new position "common-sense", yet warned that magistrates' courts also face record backlogs and need more capacity. The Bar Council's chair, Kirsty Brimelow KC, called it "a significant and welcome move". One number is still missing: ministers will set the sentencing limit only once the Bill is enacted, and that figure will decide how many cases leave the jury system.