Andy Burnham has reopened the fight over the jury trial plan in England and Wales, saying he has concerns about proposals that would cut access to juries and wants to examine them in detail. The move puts the jury trial plan back at the center of debate over how to handle the country’s crowded courts.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to Sheffield, the prime minister said his instinct was to avoid reducing access to jury trials. He said he wanted to look closely at the proposal before confirming any inherited plans, and suggested changes could still be made. His comments mark a clear shift from simply carrying forward the previous government’s approach.
The proposals were brought forward by former justice secretary David Lammy under Sir Keir Starmer’s government. Lammy argued that trimming the number of jury trials would help deal with the large backlog in Crown Court cases. Under the plan, juries in England and Wales would be replaced by a single judge in cases where a convicted defendant would face a prison term of up to three years.
Supporters of the reforms say the court system needs a faster route through cases that are piling up at record levels. The backlog has reached 80,000 cases, and delays are now so severe that some people charged today may not reach trial until 2030. That pressure has given the government a powerful argument for change, but it has also raised deep concerns about what may be lost if juries are pushed aside.
Those objections have come from across the legal world and from Labour’s own benches. Most barristers and many Labour MPs fear the changes would weaken the justice system. In March, Kirsty Brimelow KC, who heads the Bar Council, said there was very little evidence to support what she called the basic logic of rushing the legislation through and stripping jury trials from thousands of people.
