Is Labour ready to reopen the Brexit debate?

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. Mr Speaker, does the Prime Minister believe that when an organisation descends into total shambles, the person at the top should resign? That is Kemi Bedanoff talking about the Treasury and the person at the top being the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, on whether she should resign. She's been accused of misleading the public, politicians, and even one or two of her own cabinet ministers have said they were misled.

0:35David Lammy:But today we hear from one, the Justice Secretary David Lammy, with a very clear message to those cabinet colleagues. Stop it. It doesn't help the business of getting on with governing. Feeling cosy with journalists and having a drink and bitching about colleagues is not conducive to getting on with the business and serving the people of this country. So I can't stand it. I don't do it myself. And it's deeply counterproductive. In an exclusive interview today, David Lammy talks to us about his plans for jury trial, about the state of his party, the state of the government and what's gone wrong.

1:14David Lammy:Welcome to the News Agents.

1:20The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. And today the News Agents decamped to the offices of the Justice Secretary overlooking St James's Park, all rather spectacular, to sit down and talk to him not just about his plans for reforming the justice system, but also getting much wider than that.

1:38David Lammy:Yeah, David Lammy's woken up this morning to find himself accused of making a massive mistake, not just by the opposition, but by Labour MPs and by peers after announcing those radical plans to cut thousands of jury trials. We want to ask him about that and whether he's sure he's going to get that pushed through his party. We wanted to talk to him about wider prison reform. There are two prisoners released by mistake, still on the run as we record. But we also talked to him about the state of his party, the state of government. And we ask whether there is the beginning of an inkling that wants to throw out the changes Brexit made.

2:20David Lammy:Is that where the Labour Party and the government is taking us next?

2:31David Lammy:David Lammy, lots of your colleagues, lots of Labour MPs and peers have come out today to express fear about the changes that you are trying to make to the jury system. Do you welcome a debate on this or is your mind made up? Are you going to push this through? We've got to push this through. There are complexities to it. So I just want to sort of step back. All Labour colleagues and lots of the country truly understand that austerity was real. They see it in their National Health Service. They see it in their kids' schools. They know that their policing and crime is not where they would like it to be.

3:10They're not in our courts every day. They're certainly not in our prisons on the whole. But let me be absolutely clear. It's in the criminal justice system, the hidden bit of the system, that austerity was at its most kind of grim. I think Rory Stewart wrote a book about coming into the Justice Department and sort of seeing all of this writ large. And that's how I feel. And so reform here and investment is number one. If you believe in the jury system, this is in fact about preserving a cornerstone of our democratic kind of settlement where you can be judged by your peers. but there's there's sort of something else that sits alongside that which is at the same time as we've we've got to respond to this huge backlog of cases i remember when i was studying a level english and reading bleak house about a famous johnson went on and on and never ended we cannot go back to that era and if i do nothing if i just sit here and do nothing and have an easy time the backlog will be 100 ,000.

4:27David Lammy:So let's talk about that backlog. You've got 80 ,000 cases. If you make the changes you need, what will the backlog look like in 18 months' time? Will it be halved? Will it be gone? What's the ambition? It probably won't in 18 months' time. I've set myself that the backlog is reducing by the next general election. That's not very ambitious, is it? Well, that's why I was taking some time to explain the extent of the problem, because the second thing that's happened, which is relevant here, police are now arresting more because there are more of them. Technology has massively changed the experience of criminal trials, DNA evidence, AI will make a contribution.

5:14Forensics is massive. We ask people to sit on serious fraud cases that can go on for months. let's be clear also jury you get 65 quid a day if you're on a jury okay but jury cases only account

5:26David Lammy:for three percent of the trials so if you take the juries out how big an impact is that actually going to have on a backlog of 80 000 because it doesn't sound like it's going to be significant all this change all this reform all this kind of freaking people out for something that is not going to noticeably impact that backlog in simple terms 90 of cases dealt with by the magistrates we're going to be asking magistrates to do a higher percentage if you like and to sentence not just you know at the moment they deal with the you know a year but we're going to take them to 18 months we're actually taking a power potential to take them to two years so more work for magistrates again lay people ordinary people doing more work taking more of those cases but you can't say in a year's time we're going to get the backlog down from 80 000 to 50 ,000 or 60 ,000.

6:14David Lammy:You can't do that, right? I can't say that because, of course, this requires legislation. That legislation is introduced next spring. It's got to pass through the Commons, then pass through the Lords, then become enacted at some point in 2026, 27. And that's why we're getting to the next general election. But as I say, you've got the magistrates court taking more, then you've got up to three years so from 18 months to three years this new division of the crown court with a single judge and let's talk about those kind of cases that that would have gone to a jury we're talking about theft of an iphone we're talking about some sort of fly tipping type cases we're talking about some you know you kick someone in the groin at the moment you've got a system where you can elect to have a jury.

7:09Well, if you elect to have a jury, that case can take two days. Again, that case is holding up the rape case, the murder case. So now that group of cases will go to the single judge. That's how you get the speed. Brian Leveson, when he looked at this, said probably about a 20 % gain. It could be more. So that's why we're doing it. So if you go to a court, and I've done some court reporting, and you see the people that are in the horsehair wigs the barristers they all tend to be sort of one color from one background whereas the juries look diverse from all sorts of backgrounds aren't you concentrating justice in the hands of a very few unrepresentative people who do not possibly empathize represent the people that are before them who are the defendants that's why it's important that you do have jurors in the more serious cases the question is is that threshold at one year or is it at three years one and two remembering that our magistrates are more diverse in london 31 percent of our magistrates for example come from an ethnic minority background isn't there an enormous dearth of magistrates well they're going to be increasing about magistrates.

8:31Do people want to be magistrates? They do want to be magistrates. When we advertise, people do want to be magistrates. It's a bit tough sometimes on the self-employed, if you see what I mean. We haven't got enough self-employed magistrates. A lot of them work in the public sector. The public sector is more generous about time off, those sorts of things. But people do want to be magistrates, and their magistrates are increasingly more diverse, which is good. And they'll be taking on more. The single judge, the irony here is that I looked at this for David Cameron and Michael Gove for the Lammy Review.

9:01Who are our judiciary? Is there bias? Those sorts of questions. I recommended training, which they're now actually doing. I did make recommendations for diversity. Our judiciary have got more diverse, certainly many, many more women than there were before and more ethnic minorities. We need more to do, but there are. So I think taken as a whole for this group of cases, this smaller group of cases that they're now going to do, this is the right thing to do to keep the system standing up, understanding that there is also a demand problem. There are also more cases on top of austerity. So we have to do something.

9:43And you might say we would have had to have done something. And if the world were very different and criminal justice had been invested in over the last 14 years we might be in a different place but we just aren't in that place and one of the things i said which you will recall when i was foreign secretary is that i was going to be a progressive realist i was going to meet the world as it is not as i would wish it to be and i brought that into this department we've got to we've got to recognize austerity has happened we have got this huge backlog a woman should not be waiting three, four years for a rape case to come on.

10:20We should not, 60 % should not be dropping out. That is unacceptable. And we can do something.

10:25David Lammy:Right diagnosis, wrong solution. That's what you're being told, though. Of course, everyone can see the diagnosis. But who's saying that? Criminal barristers. Well, I remember, and you... Well, Helena Kennedy. I mean, you know, one of your own. You will remember... No, you just pulled a facial expression. No, no, I love Helena. So what does that mean? She's a dear friend of mine. But I will remember when senior consultants said to the Tony Blair government, you cannot introduce targets for how long there are cancer waits and A &E waits. We govern when operations happen. And who would suggest that now?

11:03So you talked about doing the review for Michael Gove and David Cameron and looking at this whole area. you know your tweet of a few years ago from 2020 has been replayed and replayed and replayed Robert Jenrick has called you a hypocrite he's right isn't he you've changed your mind on it I haven't changed my mind on jury trials as I say there's this sort of Robert Jenrick is and you know perhaps he sees his job as to put out their disinformation in order to run his argument he one has to give the impression that we're in the United States and everybody in the country gets a trial and of course 90 % of people don't because 90 % of cases go to the magistrates.

11:43He then has to pretend that the 10 % that go to the Crown Court, 7 % of them don't plead guilty and then be sentenced by a single judge and therefore you're left with 3%. And actually what this is about is about threshold.

11:58David Lammy:He quoted your own words back at you in the Commons yesterday. He quoted you saying it is important for justice to have jury trials. And it is. It is. And that's still the case. But let's remember, when I was tweeting that back in 2020, the backlog was sitting at about 40 ,000, 42 ,000. Today, it's doubled. And if we do nothing, it will double again. So either you sit there and do nothing and you're really purist and precious and you say, just pour money in that will fix the problem. And it won't. Sir Brian has made that really clear and I'm really clear. Money will not just fix this problem or you get serious about reform.

12:35That's my job. that's my job and if robert jenrick were here and doing his job properly he'd be doing it i just suppose i want to go back to emily's question about what's this going to do to the backlog the waiting list to get to get a trial it seems to me an awful lot of pain for very little gain in the sense that you're saying well maybe we'll start to see a fall in the number of people waiting for trials by jury by the end of this parliament i mean i know that we're living in a world that moves fast and people want pace, I want pace. But let's just for a second, you've got my in-tray and why this is going to take some time.

13:16Justice has been chronically under-invested in and we have courts, but it's not just about our judiciary. This is also about our barristers. How keen are our young lawyers to become criminal aid lawyers at the moment? I'm telling you now, not very keen. They choose to go to every other area of law other than criminal legal aid because it's not been funded properly. And actually, criminal legal aid barristers and solicitors are earning less often than teachers or nurses. One of the things I introduced today, yesterday, was a government-backed pupillage scheme funding that next generation of criminal lawyers to come into the pipeline.

13:56I've also taken up fees for criminal aid barristers because we were losing barristers in this area. Again, that pipeline takes some time. This has been long overdue and I'm the first person to do it in years. You need the barristers, you need the solicitors if you're going to make the system work. Yes, we've got the courtrooms, but you've got to fill them with people. You've got to get people between the prison and the court. People are talking about efficiencies. More to do there. But again, prisons have been chronically underinvested in. So the truth is, I wish that I could, you know, click my fingers and make this happen tomorrow.

14:33But in this system, in this ecology, no different to an operation. An operation doesn't just happen because the consultants there, the whole thing's got to come together. I've got to fund all these bits and reform bits to make it work properly.

14:46David Lammy:And you've talked a lot about austerity and you've talked a lot about underinvestment. But this now rests with you, as you're all too aware. People look at the justice system now. They see the stories of early release. They see the stories of prisoners being released by mistake. Twelve this past month. I think it's 90 in the past eight months. And it seems utterly shambolic. This is now on your watch. Will ending juries help address any of that? No, juries will not address that particular problem. So let's step back from that problem. I mean, we've got two on the run today as we speak, and we don't know where they are.

15:23David Lammy:or what they did, or whether they're a danger? The prison system releases 57 ,000 prisoners every year. It's a paper-based system where prison officers make the appropriate decision as to when someone's come to a release date.

15:45There have always been, throughout all of our lifetime, prisoners who have been released inappropriate. Prisoners on the run. Hang on, a day or two, you know, or a week or two. There have always been errors in releases. But there has been a spike over the last four to five years. And the reason there's been a spike is because we have a prison capacity crisis. The last government introduced four different pieces of legislation governing when you could be released. and we introduced emergency legislation when we came to office to deal with that prison crisis. So the complexity of the system for the courts and for the prison, determining who should be released on what date, there's like 500 pages of stuff to wade through.

16:35Then the last government sacked all these prison offices. They lost 6 ,000 in the early part of that last government. So the offices that we have doing this work are actually quite junior.

16:47David Lammy:OK, so just to bring in, Charlie Taylor, you know, well, the prison inspector says this is what happens when you revoke visas of prison guards, mainly West African prison guards. Will you be making it easier for prison guards from West Africa to work in the UK? Is that something that is now top of your agenda? Will you change visa rules? I don't think that particular bit of policy is governing this, but I'm very grateful for those offices that came largely from Nigeria, Ghana, into our country. But you've just heard from the prisons inspector, Charlie Taylor, who says this is a major factor in the mistaken release of prisoners.

17:22David Lammy:You could change that. I'm working with the Home Secretary on that. I think we're going to get there on what we need to do to ensure that we don't suddenly lose thousands of officers. But particularly on... But it won't be about visas. You won't be changing visa rules there. The issue that affects releases in error, we have a paper-based system and it needs to be a digital system. I am bringing in a digital sort of crack squad to work with prisons, but the investment needed is a lot and will take time. So just back to those two on the run. I mean, sorry, you sort of flew past that one. We've still got two prisoners on the loose today.

18:01David Lammy:We don't know where they are. We don't know. Emily, nearly every week there are prisoners that are released in error. That has been the case for most of our lifetime. The numbers have gone up, but the number relative to the 57 ,000 is actually quite small, even though there's been a spike. The two people currently at large are not violent offenders. And it's important to reassure people of that. and we'll have more from the Justice Secretary in just a moment.

18:39news you can trust and the conversations that matter with award-winning journalists at the heart of the stories from the uk and around the world breaking news here in edinburgh i'm simon my american week is next reporting from the heart of card discover how today's story affects your life listen on our free global player app or the new lbc app lbc leading britain's conversation

19:08the news agents we had the guy who had been in the bell hotel and who gets mistakenly released and you are christened calamity lammy it felt like it had become a joke the government had become a joke at that stage you've explained the background what does it feel like as the politician to be called calamity lammy by the mail by by my political opponents i mean i i you can't I don't think you can be in the business of politics if you haven't acquired broad shoulders. I've been in politics 25 years. I understand that the job is getting on and doing the best job that I can and gripping the system the best I can and working with civil servants and others to do the best job they can.

19:58And in this area, the truth is our prison officers are fantastic people working in a system that's decayed because it was underinvested in. And so I'm working with them to get them the systems that will improve this over time. I've asked Lynn Owens, who used to lead the National Crime Agency, to look at this for me in detail. She'll report in the spring, and we'll act on that. So you have to get on with it. Okay. So David, you talked about the fact that you've been a politician for 25 years. Arguably, what's happened in the prison service is a sort of perfect metaphor for the way a lot of people see britain today that things are falling apart that nothing is working that someone who was a prime target to be imprisoned is let out all the rest of it have you ever known a time where there has been such disillusionment no and the squandering of goodwill of this government since you were elected last July where people feel really let down?

20:58So let's just step back in strongly political way. So this is my second time back in government. And it does feel very different to when I served as a junior minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in a period of growth, in a period of investment in public services, in a much more optimistic period in Britain. as a politician. And this is, I'm trying not to be partisan. The 14 years of the conservatives, particularly that last period under Boris and Liz Truss, it was terribly squandered. It was terribly, it left us in a really, really bad place as a country. And then we come into office. And being a progressive in office in this environment is tough.

21:48But it's not just tough in the UK. Let's look around the world. Canadian colleagues, progressive, were finding it tough. They were way behind in the polls. Norwegian colleagues were finding it tough, way behind in the polls. Australia was finding it tough, way behind in the polls, all in a midterm stage where everyone said, get these guys out, can't stand them, they're not fixing the problem of the populace. Why are they in office? And midterm, it felt shit. That's the truth of it. But you then get to the election, people start to see some results, the cost of living being the number one thing, and guess what?

22:24All those progressives coming back.

22:26David Lammy:Mike Carney nearly faced a vote of confidence just last week, David. I mean, you know he was nearly out of a job then. It's not my job to sit here doom and gloom, it's all terrible. But what about the mistakes you're making as a government? All governments make mistakes. But the lead up to the budget, the briefing over whether Keir Starmer was facing a challenge and what West Streeting was up to, Wasn't that absolutely clumsy and idiotic? All governments make mistakes. Some of them are self-inflicted. Some of them, like what we've been talking about, prisons, is the consequences of being in government, and then you have to act and respond to being in government.

23:00David Lammy:Some of them are self-inflicted. What was self-inflicted in the last month? Do you accept that the lead-up to the budget was an utter fiasco? Look, I have been really disappointed with some of the leaks that we've experienced in government. I government feels very leaky and indeed my jury decision and the determinations that we're making collectively were leaked that that's not government working at its best. But the leaks over the budget seem to come from the Chancellor herself. I've never liked infighting amongst politicians and within political parties and I don't think the public like it. I remember when I was first in government people would say you Blair are you brown.