Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, thanked me in his first remarks for having opened the debate on the Bill in what he described as a ““measured and dispassionate way.”” I opened this debate in a measured and dispassionate way because dispassionate and objective arguments, not emotion, drive this Bill. I am sorry that, at times in this debate, the same was not true of the opposing arguments. I absolve, if I may, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. Like the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, I would like to regard him as a friend. I understand his strong feelings in light of what happened in 2003, but I disagree with him entirely. It is now three and a half years since the Criminal Justice Act 2003 came to its conclusion. I do not agree that there is anything at all wrong in now inviting Parliament to implement one of the provisions then passed. I am sorry, though not at all surprised, that this debate has turned into the suggestion that the Government are trying to remove trial by jury. This is not a generalised attack on trial by jury. Nor do cheap jibes about the rule of law help. I want, therefore, to look at the arguments and the responses to those arguments. I remind noble Lords, as we come to vote and consider whether this is a Bill against the rule of law, that the particular proposal I have been promoting has been proposed and supported by senior judges, though not all of them. I have been very anxious not to bring judges into a political debate. I have therefore quoted public reports and a public lecture. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, put her finger on two aspects of why this matters. I want to make the point that people participating in debates in this House should never say that they are sorry that they are not lawyers. I hope never to hear such an apology again. Many of us should, perhaps, make the opposite apology.