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Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

I can understand that argument, but I do not think that the prerequisite is to move from jury to judge-only trial. I think that the prerequisite for achieving what the Solicitor-General wants is to change procedures along the lines of the changes already made. My strongest argument against the Government on the procedure is to say that we have had three years of reviewing procedures and a year and a half since the new criminal procedures were introduced and the protocol was announced by the Lord Chief Justice. We have just enacted the Fraud Act 2006, though it is not yet fully in place. As the hon. Member for Beaconsfield said, we enacted the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004—to give it its full name—in which there is a different process. There is a procedure for dealing with certain parts of someone’s alleged criminality, such as severing or taking sample counts, at one stage and getting the rest dealt with later. It must be logical to let those changes work through the system. It must be logical to let the Fraud Act 2006 come into place. It must be logical for the Government to announce the results of the inter-governmental review, which might produce a proposal for a financial court. It would then be possible for what the Solicitor-General reasonably argues should happen to happen—for other defendants or other charges to be added to what can be presented to the court. It has never been the case that in non-fraud criminal trials, every single count has gone on the indictment. The reality, as assessed, is that many charges have been put to one side and there has been a conviction on the substantive charges. Pleas or other considerations can then either be taken into consideration or not. It is the same with serious predatory sexual offenders. They are not fully charged, in order to avoid the horror of bringing everybody to court to give evidence. One selectively charges, and convicts. That is enough to give a jury the evidence and to give the person a serious sentence at the end of it. I understand the objective, but the changes already initiated, the changes announced but not yet implemented and the changes yet to be considered will all provide that opportunity.