𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Diane Abbott skewered David Lammy and Sir Keir Starmer over plans to scrap some jury trials. Speaking in the Commons, the independent MP highlighted previous comments by the Prime Minister defending the right to a jury trial.

Her intervention came after the Justice Secretary announced that jury trials will be reserved for indictable-only offences such as murder and rape, and either-way offences with a likely sentence of more than three years in prison in a bid to reduce the court backlog. Ms Abbott, who is Parliament’s longest continuously serving female MP, said: “The entire House is concerned about victims including attacks on women and girls.

“But the entire House is also concerned about the many women who will undoubtedly suffer miscarriages of justice if the right to trial by jury is curtailed.”

The independent MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington continued: “I would quote from a lawyer, ‘the right to trial by jury is an important factor in the delicate balance between the power of the state and the freedom of the individual.

“‘The further it is restricted, the greater the imbalance’.

“That lawyer is our current Prime Minister – he wrote that in 1992 (in Socialist Lawyer magazine). It was true then as it is true today.”

Ms Abbott, who was reelected as a Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington last year but has since been stripped of the whip, asked: “How can the (Lord) Chancellor stand up and propose a limitation of the right to trial by jury when he knows perfectly well the category of defendant who will suffer the ill-effects of that?”

Mr Lammy replied: “She will know that for lots of reasons to do with poverty particularly, many, many women are affected by criminal cases that don’t actually command the sentence of much more than 12 months.

“Actually the vast majority of crimes committed by women are dealt with by magistrates and it’s my judgment that they could do more.

“And I do say, in keeping in mind the victims particularly, it cannot be right that we’re asking women to wait, that in a city like London, if you are raped tomorrow the listing will not be until 2028 or 2029, if you’re centring those victims.”