Cutting jury trials could clear courts backlog in a decade, claims Lammy

The backlog of nearly 80,000 trials clogging up the court system could be cleared within a decade if parliament agrees to slash the number of jury trials, David Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, has claimed.

- Rajeev Syal

In an interview with the Guardian, Lammy, who is facing a backbench rebellion over the proposals, has urged Labour MPs and the public to back a version of Canada's judge-only trials in thousands of criminal cases in England and Wales.

Dozens of Labour MPs have expressed concerns about the proposals, which they say could make it harder for defendants from working-class and minority ethnic backgrounds to challenge a prosecution.

One rebel Labour MP, the former shadow attorney general Karl Turner, has said he may stand down and trigger a byelection unless the government scraps plans to restrict jury trials.

Lammy, speaking from Toronto, where he witnessed criminal cases in which the defendants faced possible sentences of up to three years after their cases were heard by a single judge, said: "It has been happening in Canada for decades. It is very normal. In this jurisdiction, often defendants are preferring to be in front of a single judge rather than a jury."