Robert Jenrick has accused David Lammy of “ripping up this ancient part of our constitution” after unveiling plans to scrap jury trials.
Speaking to GB News, the Shadow Justice Secretary hit out at Mr Lammy for his attempt to fix an “abject failure in the administration of the courts”.
The dramatic overhaul of the criminal justice system has been revealed through a confidential memorandum from the Justice Secretary in documents marked “sensitive and official”, which outline the most significant changes to trial procedures in decades.
Under the proposed reforms, all remaining criminal offences would be determined by judges sitting without juries, fundamentally altering how crime and punishment is administered in England and Wales.
Delivering his verdict on the plans, Mr Jenrick told host Patrick Christys: “Firstly, David Lammy used to be a strong proponent of jury trials, and now he’s in office, he’s scrapping them all bar the most rarest cases, all for fixing an abject failure in the administration of the courts that’s led to this massive backlog.
“There is a different way to handle this situation without getting rid of our most ancient liberties, a pillar of our constitution.”
He suggested: “Get the court sitting around the clock, as David Lammy himself used to advocate. And as it happens, the Lady Chief Justice, the most senior person in our judiciary, was actually in Parliament today telling MPs that there are more courts that could be sitting, there are more sitting days.
“And she’s offered the Government this solution, they’ve rejected it on cost ground. And instead of actually doing that, getting on with the hard yards of governing, David Lammy is ripping up this ancient part of our constitution.”
Robert Jenrick has hit out at David Lammy’s plans to scrap jury trials for the majority of criminal cases
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GB NEWS / PA
Criticising Mr Lammy for his apparent U-turn on jury trials, which he once said were a “fundamental part of our democratic settlement”, the Shadow Justice Secretary explained: “Well, it’s not often that I agree with David Lammy, but I agree with the old David Lammy.
“He was absolutely right to say that when there’s an administrative failure, you don’t reach in the first instance for ripping up something that’s existed for hundreds and hundreds of years in our country.
“That’s a gift that we’ve given to the rest of the world.”
He added: “Instead, you actually do the hard yards, get the court sitting round the clock.
“Today, there are actually dozens of courthouses across the country that are either not sitting at all or half of the courtrooms are empty.
“There is a better route for this, which is just to tackle the administrative failure of the system, not to RIP up our ancient liberties.”
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Asked by Patrick what his “main concerns” are for the plans to scrap jury trials, Mr Jenrick told GB News: “I believe in people who are being charged with very serious offences being able to go before their peers and ultimately submitting themselves to the common sense of British men and women, as has happened for generations.
“I think the Labour Party, Keir Starmer and now it seems David Lammy as well, ultimately believe that the rule of law means rule by lawyers and judges, and that is a fundamental difference of opinion.”
He continued: “We in this country for a very long time, arguably since Magna Carta, have believed that for many offences, the most serious crimes, you should be able to go before a group of your own peers and ask them to decide your guilt or otherwise.”
Highlighting that the move goes “much further” than the recommendations made by Lord Leveson, the Shadow Justice Secretary said: “I find it very strange indeed.
“The senior judge, Lord Leveson, made this recommendation. I didn’t agree with him at the time, nor did many other people who wanted to defend jury trials.
Mr Jenrick told GB News that the solution is to ‘get the courts sitting around the clock’
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GB NEWS
“But it seemed like Leveson and Shabana Mahmood, the then Justice Secretary, wanted this more limited intervention and Lammy has decided to go much further.
“So now it will be very rare that you’ll get a jury trial. It’s only for the most serious cases like murder or rape.”
Declaring the situation under Labour “out of control”, Mr Jenrick concluded: “Under Labour, the backlog, it was already bad under the last Government, has just got much, much worse. It’s growing by 500 cases every month and it’s completely out of control.
“They don’t know the solution, so to fix that they’re scrapping jury trials. I don’t pretend that everything was perfect under the last Government, the main factor that led to this backlog in the courts was actually Covid, because during the pandemic, courts weren’t able to sit.
“There were people at the time saying scrap jury trials. The Conservative Government said no, supported by David Lammy and many others, because we felt it was just too important to scrap, even if it led to a backlog in the courts.
“But it’s just getting higher and higher. It’s now 500 cases a month and growing more and more. The answer to this though is to get the court sitting around the clock.”