Burnham scraps the plan to curb jury trials. Judges would sit alone only in some fraud cases
Andy Burnham's government announced at the weekend that it is abandoning a plan to remove juries from many Crown Court trials. The plan, drawn up under Sir Keir Starmer, would have had a judge sit alone where the likely sentence was under three years. The Ministry of Justice told the BBC that judge-alone trials will now apply only to some fraud and financial cases. Justice Secretary Alex Norris said he changed course after hearing the strength of feeling, and said the backlog would still begin to fall "in this Parliament". Reports put the backlog at 80,829 cases at the end of June. The Bill still removes a defendant's right to choose a Crown Court trial in some cases and doubles magistrates' maximum sentence to two years. The Criminal Bar Association estimates that could send about 25,000 cases a year to magistrates. The Law Society, the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association welcomed the reversal while raising that concern.
Trial by jury is among the oldest rights in English law, and the plan had split Labour and the legal profession. Dropping it is a signal of how the new prime minister intends to handle Starmer-era policies he inherited. But the reason for the plan was real: victims and defendants wait years for trials. Taking away the most contentious fix leaves the question of how to cut the queue without a clear answer, and shifts the weight to magistrates' courts that are themselves overloaded.
If you are summoned for jury service, nothing changes for now. If you are a defendant, or the victim of an offence that could be tried either way, the venue may in future be chosen by the court rather than by the accused. If you are waiting for a case to be heard, the date is unlikely to move soon: ministers have given no figure for the fall in the backlog.
The government listened. The jury plan was the most unpopular part of the package, lawyers and a bloc of Labour MPs opposed it, and removing it lets ministers get on with the reforms that can cut waiting times, such as using more magistrates and more sitting days.
The reversal is cosmetic. By doubling magistrates' powers and limiting the choice of venue, the Bill still takes tens of thousands of serious cases away from juries, and does so without the capacity to hear them. The backlog will not fall on promises.
Judge this by two numbers, not by the headline. The first is the sentencing limit the Bill finally sets for magistrates: two years is the figure in play, and every month of it moves cases out of jury courts. The second is the first quarterly backlog figure after the change. If it is still near 81,000 by the spring, the U-turn will look like a retreat without a plan. We will report both when they appear.
DailyDrop U.K. edition No. 1 · Morning · MON., OCT. 5, 2026