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Criminal Justice

My hon. Friend’s commitment to public service appears to know no bounds. We are all, I am sure, duly impressed with that. It is with delight and surprise that I come to the Dispatch Box without my usual riposte to my hon. Friend, which is to distance myself from his suggestions. I hope that it will not go against me in my career, but I agree with him. We ought to carry out a wider public consultation on a number of the measures that we are putting forward here today. The public want to and ought to feel that all of us in this House make decisions after listening to them. Some people mix up populism with listening to the views of ordinary people. Therefore consultation on many of the proposals that we have outlined, which go further than the changes to which we have committed ourselves today, ought to be a good idea. We should go into communities. I hope that other members of the criminal justice system will do that alongside us. Part of that might be to listen to former jury members and, indeed, to my hon. Friend himself.