Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

As you indicated, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will also speak to new clause 5, which, with your agreement, I shall seek leave to put to a vote at the end of the debate, rather than new clause 4. The new clauses would amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which was the last substantive piece of legislation that this House passed in relation to the issues under discussion. In the principal legislation, the House debated whether there might be exceptions to the rule that serious criminal cases should have a jury trial. Parliament agreed—this has been enacted—that in certain cases that can now happen. The most obvious case that has been agreed is where there has been tampering with the jury. There is a procedure that allows an application for a non-jury trial in that exceptional circumstance. It was acknowledged that that should be allowed. There was another Government proposition—which had been raised and debated before—that there should be a trail without a jury in serious fraud cases. As Members will recall, that was extremely controversial. Because it was both controversial and was raised at the end of the parliamentary Session, it put at risk the Government’s ability to secure the agreement of both Houses of Parliament to that Criminal Justice Bill. The outcome of the ensuing negotiations between the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), and Baroness Scotland and Opposition spokespeople in both Houses was that that part of the Bill would be implemented only if an affirmative order were subsequently passed by both Houses. Effectively, it was put on hold except in cases when Parliament agrees to its implementation. Since then, the Government have sought on one occasion to implement it by using that process. They managed to get the order passed in this House, but it was made clear to them that it was unlikely that the order would be passed in the House of Lords, so they did not proceed down that route. The Bill provides a mechanism to return to that issue, but by way of a new and substantive piece of primary legislation. One of the elements of that Criminal Justice Act 2003 regime—were it implemented—was to impose necessary preconditions before a trial without a jury could take place in serious fraud cases. Section 43(5) of that Act states:"““The condition is that the complexity of the trial or the length of the trial (or both) is likely to make the trial so burdensome to ""the members of a jury hearing the trial that the interests of justice require that serious consideration should be given to the question of whether the trial should be conducted without a jury.””" The key passage is from ““so burdensome”” onward. New clause 4, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and I on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, and new clause 5, tabled on a cross-party basis by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, are two changes that would toughen up those conditions. As the Solicitor-General and the Minister well know, my party and I—and, as I understand it, the Conservative party—remain clearly of the view that we will not support the Bill. That is our clear and unchanged position, which we adopted in 1998 and maintained in 2003, 2005 and throughout 2006. We continue to defend jury trial in 2007, because it is the best form of trial for serious criminal cases.