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Criminal Justice Bill
Lords amendment: No. 32
2.31 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Blunkett): I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): With this it will be convenient to take the following: Lords amendment No. 33 and the Government motion to disagree thereto, Government amendments (a) to (f) to words restored; Lords amendment No. 34 and the Government motion to disagree thereto, amendment (c) to words restored, Government amendments (a) and (b) to words restored; Lords amendment No. 35 and the Government motion to disagree thereto; Lords amendment No. 36 and the Government motion to disagree thereto, Government amendment (a) to words restored, amendment (c) to words restored and Government amendment (b) to words restored; Lords amendment No. 37 and the Government motion to disagree thereto, Government amendment (a) to words restored; Lords amendment No. 38 and the Government motion to disagree thereto, Government amendment (a) to words restored; Lords amendment No. 39 and the Government motion to disagree thereto; Lords amendment No. 40 and the Government motion to disagree thereto, Government amendments (a) and (b) to words restored
Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. For the sake of clarification, may I confirm that you intend us to debate Lords amendment No. 32, not Government amendment No. 32? As the former entirely contradicts the Government's view, we should clarify the point. I hope that that is helpful.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I believe that the House understands what we are doing.
Mr. Blunkett: Thank you for that clarification. I seek to reinstate part 7, with minor alterations that I shall mention later. On Second Reading, I said that we would respond to sensible debate and suggestions and that we would be prepared to listen to reasoned argument. It was therefore a surprise to discover that we faced neither sensible debate nor reasoned argument on part 7 of the Bill. The House of Lords chose simply to delete it, not to attempt to reflect on it, revise it or respond to my request.
I wish, therefore, to make one or two matters clear at the beginning of this debate. First, the time for posturing is over. Our amendments respond to the debates in Committee and in the House of Lords. They respond to the sensible observations that were made despite the Lords' pyrrhic victory in deleting part 7 completely. The amendments therefore respond to the will of Back
Benchers in this House and to the reflections of the more sensible people in the upper House. I should make it clear, therefore, that we will make no further amendments to part 7. When the Bill goes back to the Lords, their lordships should consider whether they would like to see the Bill fall on the issues considered in part 7. I say that because it is time to make it clear that we are talking about some of the most organised and desperate criminals that this country has to deal with. We are not talking about people who have committed a minor crime or who have been accused of shoplifting. We are talking about organised criminality on a grand scale.We challenge the Opposition parties on whether they mean what they say. For example, in a Sunday paper this week, Lord Strathclyde anticipated the introduction of measures to tackle criminality in the Queen's Speech. It is blinding cheek—if I may use that term—for the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords to talk about the need for further legislation to tackle crime and criminals, when we are trying to tackle the most organised criminals in our community with this Bill.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): The Home Secretary mentions organised and desperate criminals. I hope that as he develops his arguments he will explain how clause 41, which he seeks to reinstate and which would give a defendant the option to elect for trial without jury, has any relevance to the comments he has just made.
Mr. Blunkett: I am happy to address clause 41. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I was addressing the issue of trial by jury, in relation to those who have intimidated or sought to abuse juries, and in serious fraud cases. We sought to offer a choice in clause 41. All those political parties and individual Members of Parliament who enjoin the Government to provide choice should be in favour of choice on this occasion, given that we have faith in judges and in juries. Indeed, various elements in the House have declared their undying commitment to both juries and judges. As we trust them both, providing choice is a sensible proposition.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): I am amused by the Home Secretary's remark that he has faith in judges. One of the most prominent characteristics of his time as Home Secretary has been his total lack of faith in the judiciary and his desire to make that clear. That aside, will he tell me—so that I may put this group of amendments into context—how many times a jury has been nobbled and a trial aborted as a result since the Government came to power in 1997?
Mr. Blunkett: I will happily obtain that detail for the hon. and learned Gentleman during the course of the afternoon. However, we are not weighing numbers. As a barrister would know, the scales of justice are not about how many trials—and there have been enough—but about truth and justice. It has been erroneously suggested that we are reintroducing the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill, which fell in the previous Parliament. I read in The Independent this morning the voices of vested interests parading their support for the
House of Lords in eliminating part 7 of the Bill. I do not know which side those members of the legal profession think that they are on, but this House is on the side of the innocent—those who are innocent of unwarranted charges, and the innocent in our communities, who see the perpetrators of crime go free because they dislocate, interfere with and disrupt the legal and judicial systems.
Simon Hughes: Does the Home Secretary realise that in relation to two of the three proposals he makes to restrict jury trial—that which would allow a defendant to choose to go before a judge alone and that which would allow complex or lengthy cases to be heard by a judge alone—the argument against is not only that we might end up with a two-tier justice system, but that trial by jury is not the cause of the public's current lack of confidence in the criminal justice system? Trial by jury is what gives many people confidence in the system, because 12 ordinary people decide guilt or innocence, not one extraordinary judge. Losing trial by jury risks losing the confidence of a great number of ordinary citizens in the present jury system.
Mr. Blunkett: We already have instances where, for all sorts of good reasons, a citizen is able to choose whether to appear before a magistrates court or before a jury. Allowing people a choice seems perfectly reasonable, as they are the ones being tried. It is in their interests that we are having this argument about what is the best method of ensuring that we convict the guilty and not the innocent.
Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham): Are we not in the business of trying to say where the presumption should lie? For the sort of reasons expressed by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), should not the presumption be that a jury trial is the norm? Yet clause 41 makes it clear that, if a single defendant applies, the trial will be held by a judge, save in exceptional circumstances. In other words, the presumption is not in favour of jury trial.
Mr. Blunkett: It is a trifle strange, then, that appeals—when the most detailed points of law are addressed—should be heard by judges, not juries. Those judges are presumed to be wise and capable enough to hear appeals. This is not a matter of interfering with our judicial system, but of providing checks and balances.
Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews (Medway): Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Garnier: Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mr. Blunkett: I will, but I am just checking whether someone behind me wants to get in. I always like to have my opponents in front of me, not behind me.
Mr. Garnier: We are all in front of the Home Secretary.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Robert Marshall-Andrews.
Mr. Marshall-Andrews: Will not the amendments proposed by the Government mean that all serious and complex cases may be tried without a jury, and not just long and complex fraud cases?
Mr. Blunkett: No, the proposals before the House are specifically intended to deal with long and complex fraud cases.
Mr. Marshall-Andrews: Where is that made clear?
Mr. Blunkett: I refer my hon. and learned Friend to the text of the amendments under consideration. His
point follows on from the point made by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). In the light of previous debates, the Government are altering the Bill to exclude cases—apart from those that involve serious fraud—that are long and complex. We have responded to the view that it is difficult to judge what sort of cases, apart from fraud cases, would warrant such designation and treatment.
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