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Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

I am not sure whether that was left out of the Solicitor-General’s speech or was to form part of the concluding remarks, but I disagree with it. Juries are capable of understanding complex evidence. Because of the random nature of their selection they mutually reinforce and even out disparities of education. In my experience, the evidence is overwhelming that they can return true verdicts according to the evidence and ensure fairness towards those who are accused, quite apart from taking into account the wider need to suppress crime in our society. We have not heard about the procedure. Judges who are trying these cases will be judges of both law and fact. They will have material placed before them for their consideration that they may subsequently have to rule out of the evidence. They will receive representations and submissions in the course of the trial that jurors would not normally hear, and they will have to handle all those complexities in the course of the trial process. That is not a slight issue, and I am a little puzzled that the Solicitor-General has not provided us with greater detail about how the system would work in practice. I suspect that it will be time consuming and, indeed, he has already conceded that time-saving is not part of the picture. If that is the case, it brings me back to the Government’s propaganda document, which states:"““At times these trials collapse, wasting millions of pounds and failing to ensure justice for victims.””" I repeat, what has that got to do with juries? I always listen carefully to the Solicitor-General and the Attorney-General, but there is a big difference between what the Law Officers say and what the Government’s Home Office propaganda department churns out for the benefit of the press. That is why the House should be so wary of these proposals. I do not know where the force behind them comes from, but the evidence has been overwhelming in the past 10 years that this Government do not like juries or our present criminal justice system; believe in forms of parallel administrative justice; and are ready to cut corners with our civil liberties and the rights of defendants in order to achieve what they believe to be socially desirable objectives. The risk that the House runs is that supporting this measure will not reduce crime—which we should prioritise—but will undermine the criminal justice system and confidence in it. We would also open the door to getting rid of the jury system that, I and many other hon. Members profoundly believe, is one of the absolute underpinnings of our civil liberties. On that basis, there is no possibility of our supporting the measure and we will vote against it.