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Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

If I understand my hon. Friend correctly, he wants to know if there is any wish by the Government to extend the provision to a range of other cases, and the answer is that there are no plans to do so. It is our view that there is a long history of problems in this area of law. For many years, there have been calls for serious and complex fraud trials to be conducted by judges. Back in 1986, the influential Roskill report recommended that these cases should be tried by a special fraud tribunal, consisting of a judge and a small number of specially qualified lay members instead of a jury. In 1998, most respondents to a consultation paper, ““Juries and serious fraud trials””, broadly supported replacing the jury in serious and complex fraud trials. In October 2001, Lord Justice Auld considered the issue in his review of the criminal justice courts in England and Wales. He recognised the benefits of trial by a single judge but suggested instead a tribunal that included people with business and financial experience. The Government sought views on the issue in a general consultation on the Auld report following the publication of our White Paper ““Justice for All””, and after taking account of comments decided in favour of judge-alone trials.