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Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

Yes indeed, and it is worth bearing it in mind that, under the Lord Chief Justice’s protocol, trials should now last more than six months only in the most exceptional circumstances, and that the reality is that jury service is normally 14 days. Any period of jury service that exceeds 14 days therefore inevitably leads to some jurors being exempt. So when the Solicitor-General starts giving us the extraordinary argument that was repeated in the propaganda—"““It also means that juries are not properly representative as not many people can afford to give up their normal lives for so long.””—" I start to get seriously worried, because that argument could be used in respect of any jury panel that lasts more than 14 days. Indeed, as the Solicitor-General knows, that argument could also be used against the jury system altogether, because there are some people—Members of Parliament, for example—who are quite likely to be summoned to jury service and then released pretty quickly because of their other commitments, even after the changes that we introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. For those reasons, that argument was one of the weakest put forward by the Solicitor-General. I believe that juries can understand and deal with the evidence, that there are plenty of people in the total electorate who are capable of making up a jury panel to serve for 12 or 18 months, and that they do so willingly and cheerfully. If Members read the report to which I referred, they will see how interested the jurors were in that case. Indeed, the comments and feedback were that they took their job seriously and found it rewarding.