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Jubilee Line Case Review

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his courteous reply, and particularly for what he said about the statement—or lack of it—yesterday. Let me deal first with his final point, about which he is quite right: we should improve the quality of our treatment of jurors. I have spoken to some people who have served on juries who were particularly concerned about the way in which they were dealt with. If we can find ways of making that experience a little easier for jurors, that would be very desirable. When a juror is dealing with an extremely long case, it is all the more important that any family and work-related issues that might arise are taken account of. That will always prove very difficult in long cases, and there will always be trials that last a long time, even if we bring into play section 43 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. It is right that, in those circumstances, we should make sure that we do the best by those citizens who have given up their time to deal with such cases. Let me deal with what the hon. Gentleman said about jury trials. Mr. Justice Auld, in his report of 2001, made his views on this issue very clear:"““If I had to pick two of the most compelling factors in favour of reform, I would settle on the burdensome length and increasing speciality and complexity of these cases, with which jurors, largely or wholly strangers to the subject…are expected to cope. Both put justice at risk.””" He went on to say:"““I am firmly of the view that we should wait no longer before introducing a more just and efficient form of trial in serious and complex fraud cases.””" Mr. Justice McKinnon, who had to deal with the Blue Arrow case, said:"““No jury should be asked to cope with what this jury… had to endure””" in terms of a very long trial. The Court of Appeal said that, in that case,"““there was a significant risk of a miscarriage of justice resulting from the volume and complexity of the evidence.””" I have gone through the arguments about the way in which prosecutors ensure that cases can go on, and I shall not rehearse them. What we need to do now is to look seriously at how we can get a just outcome from these trials. I invite the hon. Gentleman—and, indeed, all the Opposition parties—to engage in serious discussions on how we can best deal with these cases. The Government want, in due course, to find circumstances in which we can repeal the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We want to review that, probably in 2009—we said that we will do so three years after the passage of the Fraud Bill, which, I assume, will go through this year—so that is the time scale that we are looking at. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the fraud prosecution service, which has indeed come into existence. It is a new fraud unit that will harness the skills and experience of specialist fraud prosecutors, and Mr. David Kirk, a top private sector lawyer, has been appointed as its head. I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman how many cases it has dealt with up to now. Given that its remit was established only recently, I suspect that it has yet to get many cases to trial; however, it will doubtless be investigating a number of such cases. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman, if he will allow me, with that information.