David Lammy’s Jury Trial Reforms: What Limiting Juries for Shorter Sentences Means for British Justice
A centuries-old English tradition is colliding with a modern courts crisis. David Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, has set out plans to curb the right to trial by jury in England and Wales for defendants facing sentences of three years or less. The change is pitched as a way to rescue a criminal justice system buckling under record backlogs and victims waiting years for their day in court. Jury trials to be scrapped for …
Under Lammy’s outline, cases where the likely sentence is three years or below would no longer be heard before a jury but decided by a judge, often in a new judge-only division of the Crown court. Defendants would lose the right to choose a jury trial for many “either-way” offences, while magistrates’ sentencing powers would be extended to allow them to impose longer custodial terms. Lammy insists juries will remain the “cornerstone” of justice for the most serious crimes, but critics say the shift marks a profound constitutional moment.
The proposal lands after weeks of leaks suggesting even more radical plans that could have scrapped juries for up to three-quarters of criminal cases, triggering a fierce backlash from lawyers, civil liberties groups and parts of Lammy’s own party. The government now says it is hewing closely to recommendations made by Sir Brian Leveson in an independent review of the criminal courts.
This article explains what Lammy is proposing, how it connects to the Leveson review, what it could mean for court delays and victims, and why the argument over jury trials goes to the heart of Britain’s constitutional identity.
Key Points
David Lammy plans to limit jury trials in England and Wales to cases where offenders are likely to receive sentences of more than three years, with shorter cases decided by judges.
Defendants would lose the right to elect a jury trial for many “either-way” offences, as the government seeks to clear record Crown court backlogs and speed up justice for victims.
The reforms draw heavily on Sir Brian Leveson’s 2025 review, which urged a new judge-only Crown Court division and tighter limits on which cases can reach a jury.
Legal bodies and civil liberties groups warn the changes could undermine a historic safeguard against state power and hit minority defendants hardest.
Supporters argue that without drastic reform, thousands of cases will continue to languish for years, with victims withdrawing and public trust collapsing.
Even in its watered-down form, the plan raises fundamental questions about how far Britain is willing to trade jury rights for administrative efficiency.
Background
Trial by jury occupies a near-mythic place in the story Britain tells about itself. It is often traced, somewhat loosely, back to Magna Carta and seen as a shield against arbitrary state power. In practice, the right has always been more limited and conditional than the rhetoric suggests, applying only to certain categories of criminal cases and with significant restrictions in the magistrates’ courts.
Across recent decades, however, jury trials in England and Wales have been largely maintained for serious criminal charges in the Crown court. Defendants facing “either-way” offences – such as some thefts, assaults and frauds – have often had the option to insist on a jury rather than be tried by magistrates. That choice has long been seen as a key safeguard, particularly for those who fear bias or inconsistency in lower courts.
The immediate catalyst for Lammy’s reforms is the state of the criminal courts. The Crown court backlog has climbed to record levels, with close to 77,000 outstanding cases and some trials now listed well into the second half of the decade. Victims’ groups report people waiting years for trials, their lives effectively on hold while memories fade and evidence decays.
Rape and serious sexual offences are particularly affected. Recent figures suggest survivors of adult rape can wait an average of around 500 days for their trial to be heard if the defendant is not remanded in custody. Many withdraw from the process before it reaches court, contributing to rising “victim attrition” in the system.
In response, the government commissioned a sweeping review from Sir Brian Leveson, the former head of the criminal division of the Court of Appeal. Leveson’s 2025 report recommended keeping more cases in the magistrates’ courts by limiting which offences can reach the Crown court, creating a new Crown Court Bench Division where a judge and magistrates – but no jury – would hear mid-level cases, and allowing judge-only trials in especially complex frauds. The review argued these changes could save thousands of Crown court sitting days each year.
Against that backdrop, leaks in recent weeks suggested Lammy was considering going further than Leveson, potentially restricting jury trials to only the gravest offences such as murder, manslaughter and rape. Some reports claimed this could remove juries from as many as three-quarters of criminal cases, triggering accusations of a constitutional “power grab” and fuelling a political storm before any formal announcement.
Faced with cabinet concerns and intense lobbying from the legal profession, Lammy has now publicly aligned himself with Leveson’s more limited threshold: cases where the likely sentence exceeds three years will continue to be tried before juries, while those below that level will be heard by judges.
Analysis
Political and Geopolitical Dimensions
Politically, Lammy’s plan is framed as a response to what he calls a “courts emergency”. The government argues that without radical reform, backlogs will keep rising, victims will be retraumatised, and public faith in the justice system will collapse. Ministers point out that other common-law countries, including Canada and parts of Australia, already make greater use of judge-only trials for mid-level offences.
At the same time, the optics are sensitive. A Labour government that campaigned on restoring trust in institutions now finds itself accused of rolling back a core civil liberty. Opposition politicians and some Labour backbenchers have warned against “constitutional vandalism”, arguing that the right to jury trial has survived wars, terrorism and even the pandemic and should not be sacrificed to fix administrative problems rooted in funding and management,
The legal profession is deeply divided. Bar associations and senior barristers have raised alarm about the risk of miscarriages of justice and the potential for unconscious bias when verdicts are left to a single professional judge, especially in cases involving marginalised defendants. They question whether public confidence will be strengthened or weakened if fewer citizens ever participate in the justice system as jurors.
Internationally, the move will be watched by other democracies wrestling with their own court backlogs and debates over jury rights. Some countries have experimented with hybrid systems, lay assessors or expanded plea bargaining instead of wide-scale restrictions on juries. Britain’s decision could feed into a broader conversation about how liberal democracies balance efficiency, rights and public participation in criminal justice.
Economic and Systemic Impact
Supporters of Lammy’s approach point to the potential gains in speed and capacity. Jury trials in the Crown court take longer and consume more judicial time than hearings in magistrates’ courts or judge-only divisions. Leveson’s review estimated that keeping more trials out of the Crown court and creating a new Bench Division could save thousands of sitting days each year – a significant share of the roughly 110,000 annual Crown court sitting days.
Lammy has argued that moving shorter-sentence cases to judge-only hearings, while extending magistrates’ sentencing powers to 18 months or possibly two years, will allow serious violent and sexual offences to be prioritised in the Crown court. In theory, that could shorten the long waits facing victims in those cases and reduce the risk that trials collapse as witnesses drift away or evidence grows stale.
Yet there is scepticism about how much time judge-only trials will actually save. Legal analysts note that judges sitting alone often need to produce detailed written reasons for their verdicts, which takes time and can increase the likelihood of appeals. Some fear that complex, contested cases might simply shift delay from one tier of the system to another rather than eliminating it.
There is also the question of resources. Setting up a new judge-only division, training more magistrates for longer sentences, and upgrading court technology all require sustained investment. Without fresh funding, critics warn, the reforms could become another structural reshuffle that leaves underlying staffing and infrastructure problems unsolved.
Social and Civil Liberties Fallout
The social stakes go beyond spreadsheets and waiting-time charts. For many defendants, especially those from minority communities, the idea of being judged by “peers” rather than professionals carries symbolic and practical weight. Civil liberties advocates argue that juries bring diverse life experience into the courtroom and act as a democratic check on the power of the state.
Campaigners warn that moving thousands of cases to judge-only hearings could entrench disparities if unconscious biases are not properly addressed. They point to concerns about racial disproportionality in stop-and-search, charging decisions and sentencing, arguing that jury removal risks compounding these trends rather than confronting them.
Victims’ groups, however, focus on a different injustice: the lived reality of delay. For a survivor of domestic abuse or sexual violence, waiting years for a trial can mean living in fear, struggling with mental health and facing repeated adjournments that reopen wounds. Some organisations argue that while jury rights are important, justice delayed is itself a denial of justice, and that responsible reforms which speed up the process can be victim-centred.
Technological and Security Implications
Lammy’s jury reforms sit alongside a broader agenda to modernise the criminal courts, much of which will flow from later stages of the Leveson review. That includes better digital case management, remote hearings where appropriate, and improved data on how long different types of cases take. These technological upgrades are meant to complement structural changes to who hears which cases.
Critics argue that less controversial steps – such as more investment in court buildings, expanding sitting days, improving video technology and recruiting additional judges and court staff – could do as much or more to tackle delays without touching jury rights. Supporters respond that the scale of the backlog means incremental measures are not enough, and that technology alone cannot bridge the gap between capacity and demand.
Why This Matters
The reforms would be most immediately felt by defendants charged with “either-way” offences where the likely sentence is under three years. Many of these cases involve theft, non-fatal assaults, lower-level drug offences and some frauds. For such defendants, the option to insist on a jury trial in the Crown court could disappear, replaced by hearings before a single judge or in magistrates’ courts with enhanced sentencing powers.
Victims in these cases, meanwhile, might see their trials come on sooner. If the reforms free up Crown court time, serious sexual and violent offences could also move faster through the system, reducing the risk that witnesses disengage or evidence deteriorates. For communities hit hard by crime, faster, more reliable adjudication could strengthen confidence in the rule of law.
In the short term, the political battle will focus on parliamentary scrutiny of Lammy’s legislation, amendments in the House of Lords and potential court challenges if lawyers argue that the right to jury trial has been unlawfully curtailed. In the longer term, the key question will be empirical: do backlogs fall, do victim withdrawal rates improve, and does public trust rise or fall?
The debate also feeds into wider global trends. Across democracies, governments are searching for ways to streamline criminal justice amid rising caseloads, technological change and shifting public expectations of safety and fairness. Britain’s choice will help define where the line is drawn between efficient case management and the deeper values attached to lay participation in justice.
Real-World Impact
Consider a young man charged with a series of non-aggravated burglaries, with a likely sentence estimated at two years. Under the current system, he might opt for a jury trial in the Crown court, hoping a panel of twelve will see his case differently from magistrates. Under Lammy’s reforms, that option could disappear. His case would be heard by a judge alone, with limited appeal against the decision to keep it out of a jury court.
A survivor of domestic abuse, by contrast, might see the benefits of faster justice. Instead of waiting several years for a jury trial, during which their life remains on hold and their safety uncertain, a streamlined system could bring their case to court in months. If the reforms succeed in cutting delays, the emotional and financial toll on such victims could be significantly reduced.
Small businesses could also be affected. A shop owner accused of a lower-level fraud or regulatory offence might find their case handled in a new judge-only division. The hearing could be shorter and less disruptive than a full Crown court jury trial, but they might also worry about having no lay voices in the room when complex commercial disputes are resolved.
Finally, the reforms may reshape public experience of the justice system. If fewer people are called for jury service, fewer citizens will see how the courts work from the inside. That could reduce disruption to work and family life, but also weaken the sense that criminal justice is a shared civic responsibility rather than a process run by professionals at arm’s length.
Conclusion
At the heart of David Lammy’s jury trial reforms lies a sharp tension. On one side is the urgent need to fix a criminal justice system that leaves victims waiting years and risks cases collapsing under the weight of delay. On the other is a historic commitment to trial by jury as a guard against state overreach and a symbol of democratic participation in justice.
Lammy’s decision to align with Leveson’s three-year threshold, rather than the more sweeping options floated in earlier leaks, reflects both political pressure and constitutional caution. Yet even this “watered-down” package would mark a significant shift in who decides guilt or innocence in thousands of cases each year.
The next phase will be decisive. Parliament, the legal profession and civil society will test the proposals line by line, while victims and defendants judge them by their lived experience in the months and years ahead. The key signals to watch will be hard data – on backlogs, waiting times, victim withdrawal and appeal rates – and softer measures of public trust.
If the reforms deliver faster, fairer outcomes without eroding confidence in justice, they may come to be seen as a necessary modernisation of an honoured tradition. If they fail, Britain could find itself with a court system that is neither quicker nor more trusted – and a diminished right to jury trial that would be difficult to restore.
