Criminal justice backlogs are forcing some victims to wait until 2028, 2029, or even 2030 to have their day in court. This has prompted a government proposal to cut trial by jury in most cases.
Ministers say the plans are rooted in the Leveson review, though critics argue the proposals go further — and are harsher — than Leveson himself recommended. On Wednesday 7 January 2026, the Commons debated those proposals. The justice secretary, David Lammy, did not speak. His junior minister, Sarah Sackman, led the government response.
Getting rid of jury trials would be ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’
MP Jess Brown-Fuller told Sackman that victims and defendants were being given court dates “for the end of the decade”. She warned that targeting jury trials would amount to “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”.
Fellow MP Danny Chambers asked why ministers were curbing a fundamental right before fixing crumbling court buildings, limits on sitting days, and prisoner transport that routinely fails to bring defendants to court on time.
Matilda Robinson Murphy of the Criminal Bar Association told theCanary what she believes is at stake. Jury trial, she said, is “a fundamental part of the history of this country”, preserved even during the Second World War because it places ordinary citizens between the state and the accused.
She also stressed representation. What matters, she said, is a diverse jury, drawn from across society rather than selected from a narrow professional group.
Robinson Murphy also said that moment mattered beyond Parliament. She urged people to act now, calling on the public to contact their MP and recognise that jury trial has survived precisely because people defended it when it came under threat.
What is actually slowing the courts
MPs across the debate described a justice system jammed by breakdowns that have nothing to do with juries.
Several pointed to privatisation as a common thread. Key parts of the criminal justice system — from prisoner transport to court maintenance and digital case systems — are delivered through private contracts.
Brown-Fuller pointed to wasted court time rooted in under-investment. She said ministers were focusing on jury trial while ignoring the real causes of delay.
Chambers listed the same basics: courtrooms sitting empty, limits on how often courts can sit, and the failure of privatised prisoner transport.
Robinson Murphy described the same failures from practice. Defendants arrive late in the afternoon. Disclosure — the legal duty on prosecutors to hand over all relevant evidence to the defence, now managed through digital systems — is often incomplete on day one. Hearings stop because court buildings are cold or unsafe. None of this, she said, is caused by juries.
Speed, care, and democratic justice
Outside Parliament, criticism has been sharper.
In media interviews and government statements in the weeks before the debate, Lammy said the reforms were needed to speed up justice for victims, citing the long waits faced by rape victims and others.
However, Labour MP John McDonnell told theCanary:
The government needs to listen to the voices of legal practitioners who are overwhelmingly saying that there are numerous administrative measures that could be introduced to tackle the delays in court proceedings. Removal of jury trial is the least effective and compounds the creeping erosion of our civil liberties. This looks like another U turn in the making.
Zarah Sultana told theCanary the plans had nothing to do with efficiency and linked them to jury acquittals of Palestine Action activists:
This Labour government’s plans to limit trial by jury have nothing to do with efficiency – they’ve provided zero evidence it would help clear the court backlog.
They’re frustrated juries have repeatedly failed to convict Palestine Action activists, and have recognised that preventing genocide can constitute a lawful justification for property damage.
It’s despicable that Keir Starmer’s government is attempting to use sexual violence victims as a figleaf for its authoritarian agenda.
Jeremy Corbyn told theCanary that trial by jury is a fundamental democratic right that must not be destroyed:
The right to a jury trial is a fundamental principle of democracy and justice. We cannot let it be destroyed.
From eroding trial by jury to introducing digital ID, the government is cementing its legacy as a bulldozer of our civil liberties.
We have defeated these kinds of policies before — and we must do so again.
A Green Party spokesperson said the justice system must be funded properly, not reshaped by stripping away rights:
These proposals are yet another assault on our rights from an increasingly authoritarian government. This proposal would scrap a fundamental cornerstone of our justice system which has been in place for 800 years.
The Government must fund our justice system properly – not make people pay for Labour and Conservative austerity with their fundamental rights. The Green Party will fight these proposals all the way.
Robinson Murphy’s conclusion echoed what several MPs implied. “The solution can be summed up in one word,” she said:
Investment.
Featured image via the Canary
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