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Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

I cannot think of a reason why we should not. Indeed, if anyone asks for my view, I shall say that we should. I hope that gives some indication of my thinking on the matter. It is true that stand-alone legislation can be removed from the statute book fairly easily. The Solicitor-General comes to the Dispatch Box with all sorts of honeyed assurances that we should not consider the Bill to be part of a general attack on the jury system. The history of the past 10 years suggests, however, that the system has come under repeated attack from the Government, that on numerous occasions we have had to stand up to the Government’s attack—not always with complete success—and that there has been a progressive erosion that goes beyond that of the jury system. The Solicitor-General mentioned district judges in magistrates courts. I am a firm believer in district judges in magistrates courts—a deputy district judge who sits in magistrates courts is sitting behind me now—but there is no doubt that, over the past 10 years, the Government have shown themselves to be highly inimical to the lay magistracy. Indeed, they wanted to reduce its work to nothing more than road traffic cases until the cost was revealed. In summary jurisdiction courts, lay magistrates perform exactly the same role of representing the community independently as juries, and the Government do not like juries. If they did, it would be inexplicable that they proposed in the Bill that became the Criminal Justice Act 2003—until we stopped them—to allow people to elect for trial by judge alone if they were so minded. We had to oppose that proposal, and it was in the final stand-off that we ended up with a double-lock mechanism in section 43. I must tell the Solicitor-General that I had no doubt—and I am sure the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) had no doubt—that that was a face-saving device, because we had told the Government in the clearest and most unequivocal terms that in no circumstances, either here or in the other place, would any of the Opposition parties vote to allow the implementation of the proposal. To suggest otherwise is a rewriting of history that causes me even more anxiety when I consider it. The right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) mentioned consultation. The Government promised consultation after the 2003 Act: it took the form of a morning seminar, with none of those invited realising that it was the only formal consultation. I could not attend, but my noble Friend Lord Kingsland went along, and was not aware even while attending the seminar that it was in fact the formal consultation. I think the Solicitor-General would have to confirm that there has been no further formal consultation whatever since then—certainly I am not aware of any. I acknowledge, and place on record, that on a number of occasions I have met the Attorney-General, and indeed the Solicitor-General, for amiable discussions about possible ways of changing the current jury system in fraud trials. However, none of the suggestions made by me or by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey was accepted, and it was clear that there was no meeting of minds. We should ask ourselves what the Bill is really trying to do. I always listen carefully to the Solicitor-General, but I have to say that the first thing I look at when the Government propose legislation is the Home Office propaganda statement released to the press, in which the form of words and the nuances are often rather different. This Home Office statement begins with a little preamble about the new legislation. It states"““The Government is committed to rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of … the law-abiding majority.””" How often have we heard that statement used in the House to justify authoritarian, draconian, unfair measures to interfere with the criminal justice system, without there being a shred of evidence that they will rebalance the system in favour of the law-abiding majority? Apart from anything else, I think the Solicitor-General must accept that if he is telling us the truth, the impact of his proposals on criminality in the United Kingdom will be so minimal as to go totally unnoticed. I believe that 99.9 per cent. of trials will still take place before juries, with possibly half a dozen a year taking place without them. If this is really the Government’s answer to how we are to reduce crime and the fear of crime in our country, they are going about it in a very strange way.