Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

This is a four-clause Bill with one proposition. I hope that when the Division comes colleagues will realise that one cannot object to it by voting for it or abstaining. One can object to it only by opposing it. On 20 November 2003, the then Home Secretary said that, if this proposal did not achieve the agreement of both Houses, the process of finding an acceptable alternative that did not involve a single judge sitting alone would begin. However, this is not the Bill that the Government were looking for, because it does not contain that alternative mechanism. Liberal Democrat Members, like our colleagues in the Conservative party and some Labour Back Benchers, oppose the Bill. We have tried to improve it, although our purpose was not to amend it but to bury it. The right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) gave some of the reasons why this is a bad Bill. First, given the argument about the burdensome nature of certain cases for juries, it cannot be claimed that the Bill will not be the thin of the wedge. Other long cases have just the same effect on jurors’ lives. Secondly, although lawyers, judges, the police and the prosecuting authorities are entitled to support the Bill, this House has to balance other considerations. We are entitled to say that their case is not overwhelming. For example, the director of the Serious Fraud Office has said that prosecutions are sometimes not possible under the present jury system that could be held before a single judge. That suggests that jurors are not able to reach the right answer, and that more convictions could be obtained in judge-only trials. That is an unacceptable proposition, as it undermines the entire case for jury trials. Thirdly, the Solicitor-General keeps saying that the Government should not be misunderstood and that the Bill has been brought forward only because they want the full culpability and criminality of a case to be put before the court. If that is what we want, we must continue to improve the rules so that it can happen, and indeed many of the relevant rules have been changed in the past few months. Fourthly, we believe that it is important for the criminal justice process that the roles of judge and jury be separated. In serious cases that come before the senior criminal courts, the jury decides the facts and the judge decides the sentence. The SFO, the Crown Prosecution Service and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs have not said that they cannot do their work. In fact, they do it increasingly well, and we do not get huge numbers of failed prosecutions. Fifthly, the Solicitor-General says that the Bill will apply to about six cases a year only but, if that is true, it is not worth making this nonsensical change, as so few cases cannot be a huge burden on the criminal justice system. Sixthly, our present jury arrangements involve lay people at the highest level of the criminal justice system, and that is the most important guarantee that it retains public confidence. A move to having professionals alone deciding innocence and guilt will undermine that confidence. Moreover, successful appeals against judges’ decisions will undermine the respectability of the judges’ role. Seventhly, the evidence from the Jubilee line case is not that the jurors complained about the procedure. They understood exactly what was going on, and what they complained about was the prosecution and the management of the case. Finally, the Solicitor-General has said on previous occasions that lots of things have changed, with new orders introduced by the Lord Chief Justice, but they have been going for less than two years and are barely tried. In addition, the Fraud Act 2006 is still very new, as are some of the relevant recommendations that have been made. The system that is now in place is very new and untried: we should allow it to bed down properly. The Government’s case for getting rid of jury trials does not improve with serial repetition. Lay juries are a fundamental guarantee that the public play a crucial part in the criminal justice process. More than ever, we need lay people to have confidence in our institutions. They may not trust us, or even the judges, by they do trust the juries. This Bill has no support among Labour Back Benchers and has secured no agreement across the House. It seeks to take away the right to jury trial, and it is being pushed through by a Labour Government who have been told no, no and no again.