Group of Labour MPs warns Starmer over jury trial limits

Nearly 40 Labour MPs have warned the prime minister they are not prepared to support proposals to limit jury trials.

In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, the MPs, largely but not wholly from the left of the party, say the plans are “not a silver bullet” to reducing the backlog in trials.

“To limit a fundamental right for what will make a marginal difference to the backlog, if any, is madness and will cause more problems than it solves,” they write.

Sir Keir has previously answered concerns from MPs about the plans by telling them that jury trials already make up only a small proportion of trials in the criminal courts system.

In the Commons last week, he told Karl Turner – who organised the letter – that “juries will remain a cornerstone of our justice system for the most serious cases”.

The 39 MPs include prominent figures such as Diane Abbott, former whip and leading member of the Tribune group of Labour Vicky Foxcroft and Dan Carden, who leads the Blue Labour group of backbenchers.

They suggest a number of other ways to reduce the courts backlog, including increasing sitting days, hiring more barristers as part-time judges called Recorders and asking the Crown Prosecution Service to consider bringing some cases in the backlog on a lower charge.

The Justice Secretary, David Lammy, announced the measure on 3 December. It scraps jury trials in England and Wales for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years, removing the right for defendants to ask for a jury trial where a case can be dealt with by either magistrates or a new form of judge-only Crown Court.

The measure came after retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Brian Leveson was asked by the Lord Chancellor to come up with a series of proposals to reduce the backlog in the courts.

The process started in December 2024. In July of this year, Sir Brian said “fundamental” reforms were needed to “reduce the risk of total system collapse”. His proposals also included more out-of-court settlements like cautions.

Announcing the jury trial measure, Lammy said it was necessary as current projections have Crown Court case loads reaching 100,000 by 2028, from the current backlog of almost 78,000.

This means that a suspect being charged with an offence today may not reach trial until 2030. Among the impacts of this are that six out of 10 victims of rape are said to be withdrawing from prosecutions because of delays.