---

Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

With great respect, I have to point out that the Solicitor-General does not listen to what I say, if he suggests that I am saying that as the result of the Bill, we would have corrupt judges. I said that one of the reasons why criminal judges rightly, and uniquely, maintain a reputation for being incorruptible is the existence of the jury system. It has always been implicit in our law and legal learning that one of the advantages of a jury system is that it acts as a buffer between the citizen and the judge. That is one of the reasons why it has been possible to maintain over centuries—not weeks or months—a reputation for a rigorously and ruthlessly incorruptible judiciary. I hope that the Solicitor-General now understands the point I was making. It is not a new point; it has been made for centuries and is one of the reasons for the existence of jury trial. May I now deal with the erosion argument? The Solicitor-General has given me little confidence that the measure is not part of a general erosion. One of the reasons for that—to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve)—is the repetition of the fact that nothing implicit in fraud or juries makes the Bill necessary. What makes it necessary, as has been repeated time and again, is the length of time that a trial will take. And as the hon. Gentleman points out, it is not simply fraud cases that take longer than the two weeks of jury trial. I suppose, but I do not have statistical evidence for it, that the average length of a murder case in the Old Bailey is six weeks. That is not because it is complex; it is because often there are several defendants to try. That is one reason why fraud cases take a considerable time—not because they are complex, but because often there are quite a few defendants to try. And if it takes 12 weeks to try six defendants, it is two weeks per defendant. That is why such cases last as long as they do. If there is going to be an ex cathedra statement that juries as a matter of fact should not be put to the inconvenience of sitting for more than six weeks on any trial, we are into the borderland and the hinterland of very many other cases in addition to fraud cases. If that is what is motivating the Government—and it is what the Solicitor-General says is motivating the Government—we are not simply on a slippery slope, we are on a glacial path towards the Government bringing forward legislation in respect of terrorism, in respect of long murder trials, and in respect of all trials anticipated to last for more than six weeks, all to be tried for three weeks by judge alone, with all the difficulties and problems that are implicit in that.