“(1) The Lord Chancellor must by regulations establish specialist courts for cases relating to sexual offences and domestic abuse.

(2) Any case heard in a court established under subsection (1) must be conducted with a jury and specialist judge.

(3) Additional guidance or directions may be formulated by the judiciary in relation to—

(a) the nature and dynamics of behaviour including—

(i) coercive control, and

(ii) honour-based abuse;

(b) best practice in hearing cases involving violence against women and girls, including ensuring fair and trauma-informed proceedings.

(4) Regulations under this section must make provision for such courts to have specialist facilities for alleged victims.

(5) The Lord Chancellor must take reasonable steps for any necessary resources for judicial, administrative and legal support, including advisors, prosecution and defence, to be made available to operate such courts.

(6) Any case heard by a court established under subsection (1) must be subject to such considerations regarding—

(a) time limits for case preparation,

(b) fixed dates for trial, and

(c) third party material review and disclosure,

as the Lord Chancellor may by regulations specify.

(7) Regulations under this section must include provision for the prioritised listing and progression of hearings and trials for such cases in such specialist courts, including the prioritisation of cases where the defendant is on bail.

(8) Regulations in this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.”—

This new clause would establish specialist courts for sexual offences and domestic abuse cases, with those cases heard by a specialist judge and a jury. It makes further provision including for victim support, and to prioritise cases where a defendant is bailed.

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 6—Fast-track courts for rape and serious sexual offences—

“(1) The Lord Chancellor must by regulations make provision for specialist court capacity for cases involving rape and serious sexual offences (‘RASSO’).

(2) Regulations under this section must include provision for the prioritised listing and progression of RASSO cases.

(3) The Lord Chancellor must take reasonable steps for any necessary judicial, administrative and support resources to be made available to operate such court capacity.”

This new clause would require the Lord Chancellor to ensure that specialist court capacity is made available for the fast-tracking of RASSO cases.

New clause 23—Report on the effect of the Act on prosecution of rape and serious sexual offences—

“(1) The Lord Chancellor must commission a report on the effect of the provisions of the Act on proceedings of cases involving rape and serious sexual offences.

(2) The matters the report must consider include—

(a) the effect of the Act on the time taken to dispose of cases;

(b) the effect of the Act on witness participation in proceedings; and

(c) the effect of the Act on experience of victims during proceedings.

(3) The report must make recommendations to improve each of the matters set out in subsection (2).

(4) Recommendations may include—

(a) recommendations about how the Act is implemented, and

(b) recommendations about further provision necessary to improve each matter.

(5) In this section, serious sexual offences are such offences as the Crown Prosecution Service may from time to time specify.

(6) Within twelve months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, the Lord Chancellor must lay before Parliament—

(a) a copy of a report under this section,

(b) the Lord Chancellor’s response to recommendations made by that report.”

This new clause would require a report on the effect of the provisions of the Bill on the progression of RASSO cases, and require the Lord Chancellor to respond to these recommendations.

New clause 25—Courts for rape and sexual offences—

“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for a specialist sexual offences court to be established at each Crown Court location in England and Wales for the purpose set out in subsection (2).

(2) The purpose of any court established under subsection (1) is to ensure that trials relating to sexual offences, sexual abuse, and rape are heard as quickly as possible.

(3) Any court established under subsection (1) must make provision for support from independent sexual violence advisers to be accessible to victims.

(4) Regulations under this section must make specialist trauma training available for staff working in each such court.

(5) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.”

This amendment would set up the specialist rape courts promised in the Labour Party Manifesto.

I rise to speak in support of new Clause 2, which was tabled in the name of my hon. Friend Charlotte Nichols. On Second Reading, my hon. Friend made one of the most powerful contributions the House has heard in recent memory. She spoke from her own experience as a victim of rape and made a point that deserves to be heard again in this Committee. She said that the experiences of victims are being “weaponised” and used as a rhetorical cover for reforms that do not deliver anything meaningful for those victims.

My hon. Friend also said something that goes to the heart of this debate: we promised specialist rape courts in our manifesto. The Bill does not deliver them. That observation raises a wider question for the Committee, as we consider new clause 2, about the manifesto commitment and what the Bill does instead. The Labour manifesto made a clear commitment to establish specialist courts for rape and sexual offences and for domestic abuse. That commitment existed because we recognised that the system was failing victims, not because of juries but because of how cases were being managed—the delays, lack of court capacity, the way evidence is handled and the limited support available to those giving evidence.

New clause 2 is the legislative delivery of that manifesto commitment. It would not require us to restrict jury trials or accept a reform the benefits of which may, according to the Institute for Government, amount to as little as a 1% to 2% reduction in delays—a reduction the Bar Council considers optimistic. Instead, it would require us to build something that is already proven to work.

What works and what does not work? On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North pointed to the work already under way at Liverpool and Preston Crown courts. That work is reducing waiting times for complainants and defendants—we are talking about months, not years—without removing anyone’s right to be tried by a jury. That is the model, that is what we should be scaling, and that is what the new clause would require the Lord Chancellor to do.

Instead, the Government have brought forward reforms that will not take effect until 2028 or 2029. A victim who reports a rape today will wait through years under the existing system before a single one of the Bill’s provisions affects their case. We are being asked to accept a permanent reduction in defendants’ rights in exchange for a speculative and delayed improvement in victims’ experience. That is not a serious offer.

Let us be clear what the Bill does not do. It will not improve how evidence is handled, how cases are managed or how victims are supported through the process. It will not guarantee timely disclosure, it will not ensure fixed trial dates, it will not provide independent sexual violence advisers where they are needed, it will not reform the conduct of cross-examination, and it will not address wider support or compensation issues. All of those things, which the violence against women and girls sector and Rape Crisis England and Wales have consistently called for, remain untouched.

As my hon. Friend said on Second Reading, we should not claim that the Bill delivers justice for victims unless it actually does. The Bill will not do that. New clause 2 would take a different approach. It would preserve jury involvement in every case while introducing a specialist court designed to deal properly with sexual offences and domestic abuse. Each case would be heard by a jury and a specialist judge with training in coercive control, trauma responses, honour-based abuse and best practice in cases involving violence against women and girls. That combination matters. A specialist judge improves the management of proceedings. A jury brings the collective judgment and diversity of the public.

As the Lammy review found, juries are far more diverse than the judiciary, and there is no evidence that jury verdicts are affected by the ethnicity of the defendant. By contrast, the removal of juries risks undermining confidence, particularly among victims from minority backgrounds or people from poorer working-class backgrounds.

To address the real causes of delay, we ask that strict time limits for case preparation are set. We ask for fixed and reliable trial dates; the proper management of disclosure and third-party material; the prioritised listing of cases, including those of defendants who are on bail; specialist facilities for victims; and the adequate resourcing of judicial, administrative and legal support, including independent sexual violence advisers. These practical reforms would make a material difference to how cases are handled and to the experience of the victim, and they can be done quite quickly.

The Government have relied heavily on the experience of victims to justify the reforms, so they should support new clause 2, which would deliver on our manifesto commitment. It is based on a model that already works well. It would improve things for victims without removing fundamental safeguards and does not ask victims to wait until the end of the decade to see any benefit.

The Government have identified a real problem but, with respect, have chosen the wrong solution. If the Bill was truly about delivering justice for victims of rape and sexual violence, we would not be debating the restriction of jury trial; we would be implementing the specialist courts we promised. The Bill does not do that. I ask the Government to consider the new clause; otherwise, it will be a missed opportunity. I commend the new clause to the Committee.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. We are all here because we recognise that the current state of our criminal courts is untenable. Complainants and defendants alike are facing unacceptable delays, and victims and innocent defendants are suffering as a result. The Government’s response, as set out in the Bill, is a radical restructuring of our trial processes, most notably in the removal of the right to a jury in a vast number of cases—around half, in fact. We believe there is a strong obligation on the Government to institute a more targeted, and potentially more effective, way to address the specific delays that they most frequently cite, through the establishment of specialist courts for rape and serious sexual offences.

The Minister herself raised this issue in the Chamber on 7 January. When talking about jury trial reforms, she said:

“Does it make sense that the queue of the victim of rape or of a homicide is shared with someone who has stolen a bottle of whisky”?—[Official Report, 7 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 278.]

In December, the Deputy prime minister and Lord Chancellor said:

“if someone is charged with an offence such as theft of a bicycle, theft from a vehicle or employee theft, they can opt for a trial that, by necessity, goes into the system and will delay a rape trial”.—[Official Report, 2 December 2025; Vol. 776, c. 807.]

That point has been made by a number of Labour MPs, including Natalie Fleet. The Opposition have been clear that that is an oversimplification of how the listing process works, and that some of those examples are extremely unlikely to be in the queue in the Crown court, except for in specific circumstances. Nevertheless, the Government have been advancing that case.

A commitment to introduce specialist courts was actually in the Government’s manifesto. By fulfilling the promises made to the electorate, the Government can deliver swifter justice for a group of victims they have centred in the debate, without dismantling the constitutional right to elect for jury trial. The Government’s proposals to halve the number of jury trials was not in the Labour party manifesto, but on page 67 there was a commitment to

“fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.”

It could therefore be argued that—as much as we can debate what in an entire manifesto the public vote for—the public voted for a system that would prioritise these types of cases through specialisation and resourcing, and did not vote for a system that would instead prioritise administrative throughput by removing the right to elect to be judged by one’s peers.

Sometimes, Governments do things that were not in their manifesto one way or another, or were not touched on in any way, but it would be difficult for people to argue that the public had a specific idea that they were not going to get certain things. However, if a Government put in their manifesto a particular element of direct relevance, as they did in relation to specialist courts, the public would have every right to be aggrieved if something entirely different, and significantly so, appeared as Government policy instead of what was in the manifesto.

Opposition new Clause 25 asks the Government to return to their original vision. It is similar to the other new clauses tabled by the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester, and by the hon. Member for Warrington North. They are crafted in different ways—for example, new clause 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Warrington North, is more prescriptive about how the courts would operate—but the intention and outcome are essentially the same. Specialist courts equipped with trauma-informed training and access to independent sexual violence advisers would recognise the unique complexity of these cases in a way that a simple bench Division cannot.

As I have said, the Government frequently refer to the experience of rape victims waiting years for justice as a significant justification for restricting jury trials. They argue that moving towards judge-led trials in 50% of cases will streamline the process and reduce the backlog, but the evidence for the broader claims of efficiency is highly contested.

Independent analysis by the Institute for Government suggests that judge-only trials in the Crown court might save as little as 1.5% to 2.5%—[Interruption.] The Minister is right to say, and I do not mind accepting, that the saving is higher for the broader package—that has never been a point of dispute—but we are less concerned about the broader package, and there are things in it that we agree with. We are concerned about the much smaller saving that the IFG has pointed out. The Criminal Bar Association has pointed out that the Government’s modelling assumes that the trials will be completed twice as fast as is realistic. We must ask whether the trade-off is proportionate, especially when there is another option.

The Government speak as if juries are the bottleneck in rape cases, but the data suggests otherwise. A study of rape cases that took three years to reach a conclusion found that, on average, the first two years of the delay occurred at the investigation and charging stage. The real logjam exists in police work, forensic science delays and the time taken for the Crown Prosecution Service to reach a decision to charge. The jury trial element was typically completed within a year, once the case finally reached court; removing the jury at the very end of a three-year process does nothing to address the two years of waiting. However, if the Minister’s work to reduce delays is focused on the courts, surely the Government should move forward with their very own manifesto commitment in order to take that element of control that is under the remit of the Bill.

We must also consider the impact of these changes on public trust. We have spoken about this issue in the main, but a particular group of people have spoken out in this regard. Let us remember that the Deputy Prime Minister himself has identified juries as

“a success story of our justice system”

for their ability to deliver results that the public have confidence in, with a filter for prejudice that a single judge, however well trained, will not be able to replicate as consistently.

A number of groups have pointed out that that is particularly relevant in sexual offence cases. We received a letter from over 30 groups that are concerned particularly with violence against women and girls, and they argue together that cases should continue to be tried by a jury. They clearly feel that the reforms do not strike the right balance, and of course they put the interests of women and girls front and centre. Those advocates understand that the legitimacy of a verdict in a sensitive case depends on the participation of the community, and that victims do not want fast justice; they want justice that is respected and accepted by society.

Again, there is the question of prejudice. I have pointed out that some advocates of these reforms feel that the debate has been dominated by older men, white men and professionals, but actually, we know that these reforms will only exacerbate that issue, because there is a disproportionality between who makes up a jury and who will almost certainly dominate the Crown court bench division and other elements of the system. While we expect that rape cases will continue to be heard by a jury, there is a whole stream of cases involving violence against women and girls that will not be.

If the Government accept that rape cases require a different approach, as their manifesto suggested, they should embed that approach consistently across the system through specialist courts that utilise dedicated, specialist judges who are experts in the complex legal issues surrounding consent and the relevant evidence, as well as stricter case management protocols to eliminate the administrative failures and listing challenges that waste so many court days. The Bar Council and other experts have noted that courtrooms are sitting idle due to a lack of funding for sitting days and a shortage of advocates, not because juries are slow. If we invested in the human and physical capacity of specialist courts, the justification for removing juries would fall away further.

I want to take this opportunity to ask all Committee members to pay particular attention to the evidence—or perhaps the testimony—that the hon. Member for Warrington North gave in the Chamber when we debated this issue. I am sure that they have all seen it; I would be surprised if they did not see it originally or did not read it in anticipation of the Committee’s debates. The hon. Member campaigned against weaponising women’s experiences of violence and sexual offending to justify eroding our jury trials, and she was very clear that her preference—and the preference of many other groups—is to have specialist courts instead.

By establishing specialist rape courts, we can address the delays where they are most apparent, we can focus on the experience of victims by improving the efficiency of the pre-court process and, most importantly, we can reform our justice system while remaining faithful to its most fundamental principles. Let us deliver the swifter justice that we promised, but let us do so with the consent and involvement of the public through the continued use of our valued jury system.

I rise to speak to my new Clause 6, which would introduce specialist courts for sexual offences and domestic abuse cases. It is similar to new clause 2, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Warrington North, and Conservative new clause 25, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle.

We tabled new clause 6, which would ensure that specialist court capacity is made available for the fast-tracking of rape and serious sexual offence cases, because that was a Labour manifesto commitment. The Government have announced blitz courts, which will list similar cases together. They will be introduced to begin with in London and the south-east, where the backlog of cases is most severe, and will at first prioritise cases involving assaults on emergency workers. Our new clause would ensure that court space and time is set aside for RASSO cases.

The Government promised in their manifesto to implement specific rape-focused courts, but have chosen not to deliver that commitment. As of September last year, 16% of cases in the backlog were sexual offence cases. We all listened to the harrowing oral evidence from victims and survivors of rape who waited years for their cases to be heard. I pay tribute to them and to the hon. Member for Warrington North for their bravery in doing something incredibly challenging: reliving the most fragile moments of their lives. They did so incredibly well. We owe it to them to fix the system. I recognise that the Government are trying to do that, but they are choosing to do it in a different way from the way a lot of survivors are asking for it to be done.

Specialist rape courts have not been properly trialled. What have been trialled are courts with specific trauma-informed training. Fast-tracking rape cases will alleviate the wait that many face. If courts are trauma-informed, that might limit retraumatising experiences for victims at the point that they enter the process. In her written evidence, the Victims’ Commissioner said:

“Victims of rape are particularly impacted by the backlogs and by the criminal justice system more broadly. The duration between the case being received and completed at Crown Court is particularly high for rape offences, an average of 429 days compared to an average of 259 days for all offences… Specialist rape courts which expedite rape cases and ensure a trauma-informed approach via training and adaptions to the court environment could help lessen the impact of the system on victims.”

The Victims’ Commissioner has been calling for specialist rape courts since 2022 and was really pleased that the Government committed in their manifesto to introduce them. I think that comes from her experience working alongside a very limited pilot that created a trauma-informed court in a particular Crown court. I am sure she will be keen to see the Government make good on the commitment that they stood on just two years ago.

New clause 23, which is also tabled in my name, would require the Lord Chancellor to commission a report on the effect of the provisions of the Bill on the progression of rape and serious sexual offence cases, and to respond to the recommendations in the report. It is completely unacceptable that these cases are waiting for so long. We need to understand whether the Government’s measures make a material impact on those cases and reduce the time that people have to wait in the criminal justice system. The new clause is also supported by the Victims’ Commissioner, so that we can see real progress for victims who are stuck in the criminal justice system.

Huge apologies for my lateness, Sir John. I wish to speak in support of new Clause 2 and lend my support to new clauses 6, 23 and 25, all of which seek to honour the commitment that the Government made in their manifesto at the last election. I have huge admiration for the hon. Member for Warrington North, both for her courageous and clear speech on Second Reading and for tabling new clause 2, which seeks to honour that commitment. I am heartened by how many Labour Members have added their names to the new clause, and I hope that the Government will listen.

New clause 2, which is detailed, would introduce specialist courts. It sets out the different ways in which guidance can deal with the difficulties that courts currently have in dealing with issues such as coercive control and honour-based abuse, and would make sure that the courts deliver justice in a timely and compassionate way. It is so important that we look at the many practical ways of dealing with the cases that we need to hear, for victims of domestic violence and sexual offences, that do not completely remove the right to select a jury trial, as the Minister has admitted the Bill will do, and that do not adjust the thresholds in courts so as to effectively abolish the centuries-old principle of jury equity. That principle is important to our democratic right to protest and to protect our fellow citizens from unjust prosecution, including by authoritarian or tyrannical future Governments.

The new clauses in this group outline how much can be done to make court processes support victims in a practical, kinder and more compassionate way. They would make the processes more trauma-informed, and more effective and just, as they would bring more successful prosecutions in cases of sexual and domestic violence. I also support new clauses 8 to 10, which would mandate training in such matters and which we will discuss later.

A goal of the Government’s reforms is to increase speed, and the new clauses would achieve that by focusing specialist courts on these important cases. We have debated extensively the many other practical measures that could speed up justice more generally and clear the backlog, which is getting in the way of far too many of these cases.

I really hope that the Government are listening and that we can vote on these issues today. I hope they will go away and listen more to the victims groups that are determined to put forward practical measures to deal with these things without affecting our fundamental rights, and introduce clauses that will do that—and remove clauses 1 to 7—on Report. That is the right thing to do. The issues have been laid out clearly during the Committee’s debates, and the Government now have an important choice to make.

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I too support the new clauses, and I concur with a lot of what has already been said about the reasons for supporting them. I will make a couple of wider points on the merits of specialist rape courts and courts for sexual offences.

There is nothing wrong with the legal system in this country when it comes to the fundamental principles of trying these crimes—that someone is innocent until proven guilty, that they have a right to be heard in court, and that evidence must be tested rigorously, as is the right of a defendant in any case. The issue is how that is applied in the way our courts operate in respect of a set of crimes that are extremely sensitive because of the impact on the complainant—the victim—who is almost always a live witness. It is trying to deal with the operation of the court that is at issue here.

We have this principle already in our legal system when it comes to trying young people. We have youth courts—I am not suggesting there is an equivalence, but the principle is the same—that have a different set of ways of operating, because we understand the sensitivity of trying someone who is under age. The principle here is the same: the court should operate under a different set of rules because of the sensitivity of the complainant. We have already dealt with the procedures and modes by which the court should operate: the way that witnesses and complainants are handled within the environment of the court building itself; sensitive ways of gathering and hearing evidence in court; and, of course, the very specific impact of delays in those hearings, which is difficult for anyone in any Crown court trial, but particularly so where the evidence relates to such sensitive, personal and very often horrific crimes.

That is the principle that Parliament and the Government are trying to grapple with. In my view, the Government have not gone far enough and are not delivering on their manifesto pledge, but there are some new clauses here that they could support in order to achieve it.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I will speak on new Clause 6, new clause 25 and, in particular, new clause 2 tabled by the hon. Member for Warrington North. Her proposal represents the genuine structural reform that victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse have long been promised and too long denied—the radical change that the Labour party proposed when in Opposition and in fighting the last election. I acknowledge the hon. Member’s extraordinary courage in waiving her anonymity to speak openly in the Chamber. She revealed how long she had had to wait before going to court and mentioned that every single one of those days was agony, made worse by having a role in public life that meant that the mental health consequences of her trauma played out in public.

New clause 2 would deliver what this Labour Government themselves pledged in their manifesto: specialist courts for rape and domestic abuse, trauma-informed proceedings, fixed trial dates, and proper support facilities for victims. It would create time limits for case preparation, fixed trial dates and prioritised listings, including for cases where the defendant is on bail, addressing one of the most dangerous and distressing features of the current system.

I remind Government Members that the front cover of the Labour party manifesto featured one word: “Change”. The Government’s supporters and their own Members—and even the Opposition—all thought that would be change for good, not for bad. They thought that it would be change of the sort that was in the manifesto, not restricting jury trials, of which there was no mention in the manifesto. Public confidence in this place is at an all-time low. If Governments win elections with manifesto pledges and then ignore those pledges or offer diluted concessions that go not so very far, they lose the confidence of the public. It is so fundamental, and it is such an important moment in our democracy. Governments have to live by what they said they would do. Here is the Government’s chance to do so.

Rather than diluting the right to jury trial, as the Bill’s central provisions would do, new clause 2 proposes a better answer to the backlog: courts established specifically for sexual offences and domestic abuse cases, with specialist knowledge and resources to handle them properly. The Liberal Democrats believe, as I think do many Government Members, that victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse deserve a justice system designed with their needs in mind, not one that treats their cases as scheduling problems to be managed and uses a pretext for restricting jury trials.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden for speaking to new Clause 2, the hon. Member for Chichester for tabling new clauses 6 and 23, and the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle for tabling new clause 25. Before I turn to new clause 2, I will take a moment, as others have done, to acknowledge the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North, and to thank her for having the courage to share her experiences on this issue in the Chamber in order to drive forward change for victims of sexual violence. I think all of us remember the moment when she gave her speech in the Chamber—you could have heard a pin drop. That obviously took considerable personal courage. Hearing from her then, and subsequently when we have spoken about how she feels the system let her down, has been invaluable in shaping my thinking on the issue.

New clause 2 has catalysed the debate about how our criminal justice system treats those who have experienced rape and serious sexual violence. The hon. Member for Wimbledon made a powerful speech about the Labour party manifesto. It contained a commitment, which we have been driving forward, to halve violence against women and girls. Let me be absolutely clear. Our manifesto commitment to introduce specialist courts for rape and sexual offences has never changed. It has not been watered down, and our commitment to it has not wavered. The Minister for Victims and I, as well as others across Government, have been putting in place the foundations to deliver those specialist courts.

It is important to note that that change and the efforts to drive down the delays right across our criminal justice system are not mutually exclusive, because we need to deliver change for all victims of crime. Those two things are not an either/or. While it is true that the proposals, which build on the recommendations of the independent review of the criminal courts, are not in the Labour party manifesto, I also believe, as I have said before, that to govern is to choose. When we see a problem in any public service—when we see a backlog of over 80,000 cases, and cases being listed into 2030—we could say, “Well, we didn’t specify in our manifesto how we were going to fix it; we’ll just get on with everything that was in our manifesto and turn a blind eye.” I am not prepared to do that.

I want to be absolutely clear with the Committee, and with Parliament in general, that the two things are not mutually exclusive. We can deliver both specialist courts for victims of rape and the necessary changes that I have contended for to drive down the backlogs and delays that are denying justice to defendants and victims right across our criminal justice system.

While I concede that the black hole might not have been foreseeable, the fact that there was a backlog in the courts was clearly foreseeable. The idea that the Government came into power and then suddenly realised there was a backlog is implausible.

We are two years into this Government. The change that was promised is long delayed and people are losing confidence—we see that. This point crosses political boundaries. The public are losing confidence in our democratic processes, and change delayed is change denied.

I thank the hon. Member for that Intervention. I will make two points in response. First, the full extent of the crisis in our criminal justice system was not apparent. It was not apparent in prisons, when we opened the car bonnet on day one and essentially found prisons at breaking point. That obviously interacts with courts, because if we are sentencing people and there is simply nowhere to put violent criminals, we have a pretty serious problem on our hands. The full extent of the crisis in our courts was not apparent either, and we need to have a solution that meets the moment. That is what this Bill is.

Secondly, I strongly refute the suggestion that we have been sitting on our hands; rather, we have been putting in place the building blocks and ingredients of a specialist court. We are rolling out trauma-informed training not just for our specialist judges but for every member of the court staff—that is in train. We are changing the way that evidence is dealt with, as we debated on clauses 8 to 11. We are investing £6 million in the introduction of independent legal advisers for victims of rape as they go through that process. We are committing more than £500 million to victim support, some of which will cover victims of rape and sexual offences. I would argue that that is far from change denied. I would call that change in train, which will deliver a transformation for victims of rape in this country.

The Minister is in danger—there is a bit of a pattern here—of wanting to have things both ways. She is suggesting that waiting for Brian Leveson’s review, and the parliamentary time and effort going into the legislation, has had no impact or delay on the measures regarding specialist rape courts, which were in the Government’s manifesto and they could have just got on with from day one. That really stretches credibility.

The Government must accept the consequences of their decisions. If they have decided that the erosion of jury trials is the way forward, they should just say that and accept that there has been a negative consequence on their manifesto commitment to introduce rape courts. The Minister cannot say, “We’re pretty much doing what we would have done anyway, and this is all fantastic from both sides of the paper.” It is really not.

Once again, I strongly reject that suggestion. The two things are not mutually exclusive: wanting to bring in measures that speed up justice for every victim in the criminal justice system and building the foundations for a specialist court.

Let us get back to basics. What is a specialist court? What are we talking about? I have discussed this with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North. A specialist court prioritises a type of offence to address the timeliness issue. It guarantees special measures. Again, we have debated provisions in Committee about how we ensure the consistent guarantee of special measures in whichever Crown court in the country a rape trial occurs. Thirdly, it is a court in which not just those who are adjudicating and directing juries, but those who are supporting the participants, are trauma-informed, as that is how we now in contemporary society understand that evidence needs to be treated. That training is in train.

Those are the essential ingredients of a specialist court. Those are the building blocks. We guarantee them not just in this Bill but through the funding of training and the measures being implemented in our courts. That is really important, but it does not have a bearing on the overall backlog problem. It prioritises those cases, as we recognise them being among the most serious with some of the most acute trauma, but it does not deal with the huge backlog delays for other forms of violent crime and other types of crime.

The Minister and I have both talked about making choices. The brass tacks are that the Minister has chosen to make huge changes to our court processes, but not to introduce this change in the Bill. There is still the chance to introduce measures into the Bill on Report and make different choices. Will she consider that?

We are making those choices. The difference is that we do not need legislation to make those choices. We have made those choices, including the commitment of money to fund independent legal advisers, trauma-informed training and victim support. We have made those decisions. We have put those building blocks in place. We do not need legislation to deliver specialist courts. I had this discussion yesterday with the Victims’ Commissioner. We do not need legislation.

I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of the new Clause. How could I not? It is in our manifesto. We are taking action to deliver it. We do not need the new clause to deliver it—that is the point. I will come shortly to its unworkability, but I will not take from the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion or anyone else the suggestion that we have not been making the choices to deliver on our commitment to halve violence against women and girls.

Will the Minister give way?

I am going to make some progress.

As I said, and as I discussed with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North, I assure the Committee that the principle behind this proposal is recognised by the Government. I agree with my hon. Friend on her assessment of what is needed: swifter justice and prioritisation so that victims do not wait years for their day in court; specialist staff and judges who are trained in these kinds of cases; and properly equipped courtrooms that support victims and witnesses to deliver their best evidence with dignity.

I welcome the debate we are having. As I said, the Government have been laying the foundations. We inherited a broken system, and we have prioritised work to stabilise the whole system, including commissioning both the sentencing review led by David Gauke and the independent review of the criminal courts. The reforms introduced through the Bill are critical to putting the whole court system on a sustainable footing.

Through the Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls, we are already acting to improve the experience of coming to court for all victims of rape and sexual violence. The Bill introduces measures, which we have discussed, to protect those victims from the unfair use of rape myths in clauses 8 to 11, and to strengthen and guarantee access to special measures in clauses 12 to 16.

We are bringing the successful model of Operation Soteria into the courtroom so that the focus, as in policing and prosecution, is on the suspect, not the complainant. That work is being led by Professor Katrin Hohl, from whom the Committee heard. That is another important building block. Her insights will be critical to shaping what we mean by specialist courts. We are rolling out independent legal advisers for adult rape victims this year—that is not a delayed choice; it is happening this year. We have also secured £550 million for victims’ services over the next three years, which will include the victims we are discussing. We remain committed to fulfilling our pledge to introduce specialist courts alongside that.

I will consider the elements outlined in the new Clause, and those that have been raised by Committee members. I and other Ministers have engaged with the violence against women and girls and victims’ sector on the delivery of what the commitment will look like. It is not just about words on the statute book; it is about what it feels like in the courtroom. Groups we have engaged with include Rape Crisis, the Survivors Trust, We Are Survivors, and the End Violence Against Women coalition. As I said, we are also taking input from the Victims’ Commissioner. That feedback, and the direct feedback from victims about the challenges they faced when going to court, are crucial in informing the policy development.

It is clear that the establishment of specialist courts does not require legislation. It is important that we get this right so it represents a step change for victims. Let me be clear: specialist courts for sexual offences or any other type of crime are not an alternative to the reform measures in the Bill, because they would not reduce the Crown court’s outstanding caseload and drive down wait times in the longer term. They are about improving the experience of what happens in court for victims of rape and prioritising those cases, but they do not do anything to improve the timeliness and address the backlog. I remain committed to the delivery of our manifesto pledge, so I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden to withdraw the clause.

Let me say something about new clause 6 and the question of prioritisation. I absolutely sympathise with the intent of the new clause, and agree with points that everybody has made about the fact that victims of rape and sexual violence currently wait far too long for justice. The delays in this area are worse than in other areas because of the complexity of those cases.

However—this is one of the elements of new clauses 2 and 6 that is unworkable, in my opinion—decisions about listing and prioritisation of cases are rightly matters for the judiciary. That is an important point of principle regarding the separation of powers. The judiciary is leading on a new national listing framework, which will be with us in the next couple of months. Under current listing practices, vulnerable victims are already prioritised, but we have been assured that that principle, and the focus on the prioritisation of rape cases, will be made explicit in any forthcoming national model, removing the postcode lottery and local variation in how they are applied in practice. That will be incredibly important.

The other feedback that I have heard from victims and representative groups is around the damaging effect that the listing of floating trials can have on victims. This has been a constant theme. Floating trials, which lead to uncertainty and last-minute adjournments, can compound the agony and tension involved in giving one’s evidence. Addressing that and driving that practice out of the listing system will be really important. The encouragement of a presumption in favour of fixed trials, so that we do not get those situations, is something that we are working closely with the judiciary on. We want to drive out the practice because we know how damaging it can be.

The measures in the Bill, combined with our investment in courts and uncapped sitting days, the major new recruitment drive for judges, and the investment in legal aid and other efficiencies, will ensure that victims of all offence types have a shorter wait for justice. But we need to respect the function of the judiciary in terms of decisions around the listing and prioritisation of individual cases. We feel confident that the new national listing framework will deliver for all victims, and in particular victims of these types of crime.

The Minister talks about the practice of floating trials or over-listing, which we know is so harrowing for victims, who get themselves ready for a case only for it to not go ahead. Quite often they are not told that they have a floating case or that their case has been listed; they are just told that their case has been adjourned and that they will be provided with a new date.

If we look at the data for the number of cases that fell at the last hurdle in 2024, we see that there were 444 where the prosecution advocate failed to attend; 314 where the defence advocate failed to attend; 209 where the prosecution advocate engaged in another trial; and 186 linked to prison transport delays, although I would argue that that number is much higher because of the way they are recorded. How does the Minister square the circle of trying to speed up the process while asking the judiciary not to over-list, which could cause the number of courts that are sitting empty each day to go up, because when a case falls that Crown court will then be empty?

The hon. Lady asks a really good question. The point about ineffective trials is one of the greatest sources of both delay and waste in the system. She is right that last year over 1,000 trials were ineffective on the date of trial. That means that everyone had turned up except for one element, and the hon. Lady cited a number of the missing elements. That is why I do not take issue with the data presented by the Institute for Government, but I do take issue with its remedy. As the IFG itself points out, one of the greatest drivers of those ineffective trials is workforce pressures—the fact that we do not have enough prosecutors and defence barristers.

We are constantly being hit with the criticism that there are courtrooms lying empty. That slightly misrepresents the problem—sometimes we need that spare capacity in a court—but it is not entirely untrue. Part of that is about not just sitting days but system capacity and workforce. Building that workforce back up will take time. That is why the Government’s investment in criminal legal aid and match funding for pupillages is crucial, as is the record settlement that the CPS received. Building up the workforce to meet the demand and reduce the number of ineffective trials is so important.

The hon. Member for Chichester made an important point about the interaction between the measures we are discussing, the desirability of reducing the number of floating trials because of the impact of late adjournments, and the need for some agility and flexibility, which is why listing is a judicial function in individual Crown courts. Some parties might be ready to go, and they will want to get the trial on sooner, so we want to allow for some flexibility to enable that. It is not about watering down all the special measures that might be needed to support best evidence, but about where it is desirable to have some agility.

In that vein, the Government’s piloting of an AI, data-driven listing tool, which has been tested in Preston and Isleworth and is showing early positive results, will be crucial. I have seen the tool, and it allows us, based on certain factors in a case, to get a pretty rich understanding of how long it is likely to last. It works in much the same way as an NHS appointment: if somebody cancels because they are not well enough to go ahead with a surgery, but everybody else is ready—including the team, the doctors and the hip surgeon—can they pull in someone else on the waiting list? The tool will allow us to do the same kind of thing, building on some of the know-how from NHS appointment systems. We want to retain some agility while, at the same time, having a consistent approach to prioritising cases.

We want to see rape cases prioritised in the national listing model, because of the vulnerability of the witnesses involved and how pernicious delays can be, and we want to drive out floating trials, but there has to be some flexibility in the system. One thing we must guard against—this is why we have to think really carefully about when legislation is needed and when it is not—is creating a situation where the intent might be absolutely right, but we inadvertently create inflexibility by legislating.

In this case, we should not legislate in this way out of respect for the separation of powers and the constitutional dividing line between the executive and the judiciary, but there are other reasons why we might not want to legislate—for example, if it would lead to inflexibility and counterproductive results that go against the interests of some complainants in rape trials. That was a slightly long-winded answer, but I hope it gives the Committee a sense of how much is going on in the justice firmament that is not legislative but represents real progress for citizens in this country who have the misfortune of encountering the criminal justice system.

New Clause 23 would require the Lord Chancellor to undertake a review of how the reforms impact the way RASSO cases are handled. It is not right for victims to continue to pay for the crisis in our courts, particularly in respect of delays. We know that victims of rape are facing, on average, a wait of over 400 days for trial, and we know that a large proportion of the outstanding caseload—around 20%—is made up of sexual offences. We need to drive down that backlog, why is why I have said that reform measures are needed. There is no doubt that, if these reforms receive Royal Assent, the Ministry of Justice, the Justice Committee and others will look to measure the impact they are having. I urge the hon. Member for Chichester not to press new clause 23 to a vote.

In a similar vein, new clause 25 seeks to introduce specialist courts, which I have already spoken about. I hope I could not have been clearer that the Government remain committed to this enterprise and to our manifesto commitment. However, the introduction of such courts does not require primary legislation. In essence, we are getting on with it, regardless.

One thing I have already mentioned is providing trauma-informed training to all court staff, which will be available from this spring. Again, there is change happening right now in our courts, irrespective of what happens with the Bill. That is happening as we speak, and it will be a real step change. It is something for which victims groups have been calling for a very long term, and which I hope and believe will improve the experience of going to court for victims of sexual offences.

I sincerely thank all Members who have tabled new clauses in this space. It is important—and, frankly, a welcome opportunity—for me, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend Alex Davies-Jones, and others to talk about how we are galvanising these different initiatives within our criminal justice system. We want to deliver the specialist courts that we promised, to drive forward progress and to encourage our judiciary to be front-footed and progressive in its listing practices, but this is not mutually exclusive with the reforms in the Bill designed to drive down the backlog; it is a question of both/and, not either/or. I thank hon. Members for raising these important issues, but I urge them not to press their new clauses to a vote.

I remind Members that you will be able to decide later whether to press new clauses 6, 23 and 25 to a vote; you do not need to do that now.

I understand that you want to come back in, Kieran. I do not want to make a habit of that. I will allow it, because new clauses have been tabled from across the Committee and I can see that this is a very significant subject, but, in fairness to the Minister, I do not think other Members should come back in once she has spoken. I will make an exception this time, but please be brief.

Thank you, Sir John. I just want to make a simple point. The Minister said that what the Government want to do does not require primary legislation, but in the same speech referred to primary legislation that we are considering today as part of introducing specialist rape courts. It is obvious to anybody that there is a requirement for primary legislation. We waited a year for Brian Leveson and we are two years into the Parliament. There are uncontroversial clauses that we have not opposed; the Government could have got on with those and passed them within six months, and they would be operating right now. I just do not think the Minister’s argument that nothing has been lost from progress on these issues because of the jury trial reforms stands up to scrutiny.

Minister, do you want to respond? It is not necessary if you do not want to.

I do not think it is necessary. Everyone has heard what I have to say.

Fair enough. I therefore turn to Yasmin Qureshi—you can speak now if you wish to.

I will withdraw new Clause 2, because I know that the Minister is addressing the issue and I accept her commitment. She is an honourable lady and I accept her word, and I look forward to the specialist courts being implemented very soon. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the new clause.

Hon. Members::

No.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.