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Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon): Another issue that arises in relation to this Bill, but which may not be selected for debate, is corporate manslaughter. Of course, emotions can run high in relation to that issue,
especially if there has been a major disaster. Assuming that the press coverage today is accurate that the Government are to honour their commitment to bring forward legislation on corporate manslaughter, how does my right hon. Friend envisage such trials taking place? Would they take place with judge and jury or on an indictment in this way?
Mr. Blunkett: My hon. Friend tries in an ingenious way to get me on to a subject on which I will say only one thing: we have made a decision that we should publish a draft Bill. We believe that it is right to have extensive discussions on the issues in relation to corporate manslaughter, and that it would be right and proper to listen to the strongly held views of those on all sides, including those most affected, and we will do that as soon as possible. I will not give either a timetable for the publication or an assurance about what mode of trial such cases would be dealt with under. I shall refine my English by the time that I have finished this afternoon.
Clearly, this group deals with clauses Nos. 37, 38 and 40, and with new clauses 1 and 2 tabled by the Opposition. I shall take the opportunity briefly to address those matters so that I do not take up the time of the House later. I shall be brief, as I know that, even with the time that we have available, many Members will want to address what I consider to be an extremely important issue.
In the last Parliament, we had two of what were described as mode of trial Bills. Some have suggested publicly—I hoped that we had overcome this—that with the proposition under consideration this afternoon, relating to less than 100 trials a year, we were returning to the mode of trial Bill and threatening trial by jury. I thought that we had got over that, until the shadow Home Secretary was quoted in two newspapers on Saturday—misquoted, I hope—as saying that
- "the home secretary believes that being tough on crime inevitably involves undermining institutions that have protected our fundamental liberties."
The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
- "We believe that trial by jury is an institution well worth preserving and the bulwark of liberty in this country."
We are not debating the withdrawal of the right to trial by jury. We have no intention of doing so. It is wrong for Members in this place or in the House of Lords, or for barristers who should know better, to imply that that is what we are doing.
Simon Hughes: I accept what the Secretary of State says but the propositions clearly propose the restriction in certain cases of trial by jury. Will the right hon.
Gentleman tell the House whether he believes that jury trial is not working or whether it still has his whole confidence? If we end up with certain cases in the higher courts being tried by judge alone and certain cases being tried by jury, do not we inevitably have a two-tier justice system, the people deciding in one instance and the professional judges deciding in the other?
Mr. Blunkett: No, I do not. Given the limited number of instances that we are addressing where we should have trial by judge only, to suggest that my confidence in the jury system as a whole is undermined is entirely fallacious. We have a variety of hearings throughout our system from district judges through to the Court of Appeal and judges sitting in trio. We do not suggest that their right to hear appeals on jury trials undermines the previous trials that were undertaken by jury. It would be fallacious to suggest that it does.
5.45pm
Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway): Will the Secretary of State give way?
We need to address the issues as they really are. I am always pleased to give way to my hon. and learned Friend, and I look forward to his pearls of wisdom.
Mr. Marshall-Andrews: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the gracious way in which he has given way.
However small the number of cases, if we are giving to judges the right to decide whether someone should have a jury trial or not, how can we say that we are not removing the right to jury trial?
Mr. Blunkett: In the thousands of cases that are currently held in front of a jury, and will continue so to be heard, there will be no change. The limited number of cases to which I have referred—somewhat fewer than 100 a year—are affected because they involve serious fraud or complex financial issues, or where there has been jury interference. We are suggesting that in those cases there can be a decision by the judge, having examined the cases, that it would be in the best interests of justice and of gaining the truth, and therefore getting to the root of the problem, that such a course should be taken.
I make the case strongly that protecting the integrity of jury trials by not allowing others to destroy that integrity—by not allowing others to undermine confidence in jury trials and by not allowing others to use manipulation and interference to damage jury trials—we are strengthening the credibility and well-being, and the confidence in, jury trials and the criminal justice system.
Mr. Heath: By the Secretary of State's comments earlier, in saying that he is now not seeking to introduce the provisions set out in a previous mode of trial Bills, is he accepting that the Government's arguments in support of introducing those Bills were erroneous and that the Opposition parties were right in their objections to them?
Mr. Blunkett: I do not accept that the arguments put by my right hon. and hon. Friends were erroneous. I
believe that they put their case with conviction, and that there was a substantial argument to be put. Parliament overturned those mode of trial Bills. We were prepared to listen. That is a strength, not a weakness. I took a further look at the issue, along with the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-General, and we concluded that it would be better to proceed as I am describing. I make no apology whatever for that.On the evidence that we have, trials that have lasted months on very difficult cases involving complex financial issues have often led to considerable difficulty in dealing with the logistics and recruiting the jury. Over and over again, the same examples are thrown up, because they are excellent examples. In the Maxwell case, 700 jurors were called and 550 excused, with a range of arguments and reasons given for people withdrawing or being withdrawn, reflecting the inability of people to hold down their jobs or conduct their lives in such circumstances.
Here we are, asking people to do that or, in the case of the Opposition's new clauses, to believe that there is another way of arranging matters—not through normal juries, not by drawing on 12 stout men and women and true, but by developing an expert jury service. It is an extraordinary way round the problem, to say that there is a major problem—I admit there is; that we need to deal with it—and we do; that we cannot continue with the present system because it does not work—and it does not; and that we will invent a new system, which is not jury service but effectively an expert panel. It is not quite the same as the proposal for expert assessors, which was debated some years ago when these matters were dealt with by the Roskill Committee and later by Lord Justice Auld.
The proposal is for a coterie, not quite of our fellow men and women, but of some of them who would be able to develop their expertise in a way that would allow them to deal with cases that the official Opposition accept could not be dealt with adequately in the normal way, for the very reasons that we have enunciated and which led us to introduce these changes to the law, so that we can ensure that trials are fairly heard and fairly dealt with, in a way that does not make a mockery of the system, the collapse of trials or the inability to gain convictions where convictions would otherwise be justified.
Simon Hughes: I gather that last year there were 31 cases that lasted more than six months. Did the Home Secretary consider alternatives to removing jury trial—for example, smaller juries consisting of eight members, or jurors who had indicated that, because they were unemployed, retired or able to free, they would be available willingly to serve on longer cases? There is an argument for a more flexible system, but no case has been made for getting rid of the principle of a representative group of people judging cases.
Mr. Blunkett: The whole argument for jury trial is its representative nature. It falls where it falls, so there is no way, we hope, that it can be manipulated. In some cases, as I shall explain in a moment, we are concerned about interference. We believe that there is a danger that
people have learned how to do the job of interfering with the process of a fair trial. Anybody who has read John Grisham's excellent book—what was it called?
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