Courts and Tribunals Bill

14 April 2026

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Courts and Tribunals Bill Tue, 14 Apr 2026 House of Commons

00:04 - 00:16

Speaker 1

Order. Order. Amendment 38 to clause one as on the amendment paper. The question is the amendment being made. Continue with the minister.

00:16 - 00:21

Speaker 2

Thank you and it's a pleasure to serve under your chairship. As I was

00:21 - 00:22

Speaker 3

saying earlier and I was

00:23 - 01:37

Speaker 2

cut off in mid flow, clause one supports a more efficient use of court resources by preventing cases of lower level seriousness from escalating unnecessarily to the Crown Court. And I was responding to the point raised by the member for Writing Pavilion about jury equity and I think there is some relationship between that and the comments raised by by others most notably by the member for Bexhill and Battle in relation to whether one should look at the characteristics of the defendant when allocating mode of trial rather than the seriousness of the crime which is the objective test that we've included within clause one. In essence the approach taken is an objective one and it's one that adheres to a principle of equality of treatment when it comes to mode of trial, one that's driven by the seriousness of the crime. And she raised the point around freedom of expression, the right to protest, which of course is a cornerstone of our democracy. But where it comes to public order offenses, as things stand, some of those offenses, depending on their seriousness, are currently heard in the magistrates court.

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