It has been claimed that lawyers affiliated with the Labor Party were “blocked” from briefing the party’s MPs to share their concerns about plans to reduce the number of jury trials in England and Wales.
The accusation was made by Karl Turner, leader of a secondary rebellion against a landmark government bill that would remove the right to a jury trial in thousands of cases, before MPs had the first chance to vote on the legislation.
Up to 65 Labor MPs are believed to have been considering voting against the Courts and Tribunals Bill ahead of Monday’s second reading.
David Lammy, the justice secretary, announced last December plans that will take thousands of trials out of the jury system to be heard by judges and magistrates. But the government has faced discontent from its own ranks, including 38 MPs who signed a letter urging the prime minister to reverse the plans.
Lammy drew on his own experience of growing up in Tottenham, north London, and appealed to his colleagues’ sense of social justice to defend the plans as he addressed a parliamentary Labor Party (PLP) meeting on Monday night, claiming they had reached “a melting moment for the British state”.
He said: “After 14 years of Conservative chaos, our courts aren’t just creaking: they’re collapsing. When a public service collapses, it’s never the rich or the well-connected who are first left stranded. It’s the working-class kid on remand. It’s the survivor of sexual violence waiting three years to give evidence.”
Turner, the Hull East MP who coordinated the letter, said the policies were the subject of deep concern within the Society of Employment Lawyers (SLL), one of the party’s oldest affiliates, and were discussed at the body’s executive committee last Friday.
“The SLL’s political position is that these measures are a terrible mistake, are unworkable and must be stopped, but they have been prevented from sharing that position with Labor MPs in a briefing of the kind you would hope they could do,” Turner said, adding that the pressure came from ministers.
The SLL and a spokesperson for Lammy, who was due to meet Turner on Monday night, were contacted for comment.
While a major clash between the government and MPs may still be avoided on Tuesday, a significant number of Labor MPs could abstain or choose to vote against the bill at a later stage. Turner said he hoped he could remove aspects of the bill that he and others opposed when it reached its “report” stage in the House of Commons.
The position of Angela Rayner, the former minister who remains a leadership candidate, is among those to be closely watched.
Meanwhile, those in favor of the measures – which aim to reduce a growing backlog of cases – have continued to apply pressure, including more than 30 Labor MPs who wrote to Lammy urging him not to back down.
“We know from our personal experiences the ways our justice system is failing women and girls across this country,” said the letter from 34 MPs, including former ministers Ashley Dalton and Anneliese Dodds, who urged Lammy not to veer off course as “too many women’s lives depend on it.”
There was also a late intervention from victims’ commissioner Claire Waxman, who wrote to MPs on Monday saying trial dates as late as 2030 were pushing the justice system to its limits and urged them to consider the profound “human cost” of delays.
He added: “Delay in justice is not an abstract principle: it is the aggravation and prolongation of trauma. I have asked victims trapped in our justice system: faced with waiting years for a jury trial, would you prefer to wait or accept a judge if it meant quick justice?”
Among those who spoke out against the plans on Monday was Chris Moran, a lawyer and legal commentator, who published an open letter to the Prime Minister saying he was resigning from the Labor Party over the proposals, which he described as “unprincipled, counterproductive and disgraceful constitutional vandalism”.
Many members of the public had no experience of the criminal justice system and could therefore be forgiven for “not understanding the enormity” of the proposals, he added.
A spokesman for the prime minister said on Monday: “The government inherited a justice system on the verge of collapse, a backlog that only grew and no plan to deliver faster and fairer justice for victims.
“There is no choice. Only by using a combination of reform, investment and efficiency can we hope to reverse the problem of backlog and deliver the faster and fairer justice that victims deserve.”
