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Courts and Tribunals Bill

Lifecycle: Implementation Justice Committee · Ministry of Justice Last regenerated 12 hours ago

Summary

What this is

Government Bill making structural reform of criminal courts in England and Wales (removing the right to elect Crown Court trial for either-way offences; introducing trial by judge alone for non-jury Crown Court cases including a new Bench Division for offences likely to attract ≤3 years' custody; raising magistrates' sentencing powers; reforming sexual history and bad character evidence rules and special measures), reforming tribunal leadership by re-titling the LCJ as President of the Courts and Tribunals of England and Wales and creating a Deputy Head of Tribunals Justice, and repealing the s.1 Children Act 1989 presumption of parental involvement.

Why it matters

The Bill implements the structural recommendations of Sir Brian Leveson's independent review of criminal courts as the Government's principal lever to reduce the record Crown Court backlog, while simultaneously repealing a 12-year-old family-law presumption following the MoJ's October 2025 review — meaning practitioners across criminal, family and tribunal practice are all affected by a single vehicle.

Current status

Introduced 25 February 2026; Second Reading 10 March 2026; twelve Public Bill Committee sittings concluded 28 April 2026; Bill reprinted as Bill 422 as amended in committee and the lifecycle has moved to Report stage with Notices of Amendments tabled on 29 April 2026.

What changed recently

  • 29 Apr 2026 — Report stage Notices of Amendments published (Bill 422), confirming progression from committee to Report. →
  • 28 Apr 2026 — Bill reprinted as amended in Public Bill Committee; eleventh and twelfth sittings completed and proceedings closed. →
  • 21 Apr 2026 — Victims' Commissioner correspondence to Bill Committee Chair Sir John Hayes raising concerns, plus response from Chairman of Ways and Means. →
  • 20 Mar 2026 — Tribunal Procedure Committee opened consultation on Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) judicial review rules — adjacent to the Bill's tribunal-leadership reforms. →
  • 19 Mar 2026 — Oral question session probed whether the Attorney General had advised the Lord Chancellor on the Bill's rule-of-law impact, signalling Opposition focus on the jury-trial removal. →

Key documents

Framework

Operationalising

Implementation

Scrutiny

Evidence

Commentary

Consultations

Stakeholders

Grouped by role with evidence. Long groups scroll inside their column.

Sponsoring department 1

  • Ministry of Justice → src
    Bill sponsor; published Impact Assessments, ECHR memorandum, Delegated Powers memorandum and Equalities Statement on introduction (25 February 2026); commissioned the predecessor Review of the Presumption of Parental Involvement (October 2025).

Sponsoring minister 1

  • Mr David Lammy → src
    Lord Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister; moved Second Reading on 10 March 2026 and is the named bill sponsor.

Lead committee 3

  • Courts and Tribunals Bill Public Bill Committee → src
    Twelve sittings 25 March – 28 April 2026 under Chairs Dawn Butler, Sir John Hayes, Dr Rupa Huq and Christine Jardine; reported Bill 422 as amended.
  • Sir John Hayes → src
    Conservative MP; Chair of the Bill Committee who corresponded with the Victims' Commissioner about the Bill's scope.
  • Justice Committee → src
    Issued a legislative-scrutiny call for evidence on the Bill on 27 February 2026, running parallel to Public Bill Committee scrutiny.

Witnesses & evidence-givers 12

  • Bar Council → src
    Written evidence (CTB24) and joint supplementary submission with the Criminal Bar Association and Circuit Leaders (CTB38) responding to Leveson-derived structural changes.
  • Criminal Bar Association → src
    Co-signatory to joint CTB38 supplementary submission on the criminal-courts package.
  • Wales and Chester Circuit → src
    Written evidence (CTB39) from the Circuit Leaders on the criminal-courts reforms.
  • London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association → src
    Written evidence (CTB40) — defence solicitor perspective on removal of right to elect and judge-alone allocation.
  • The Law Society → src
    Written evidence (CTB21) addressing the structural and procedural changes to criminal courts.
  • JUSTICE → src
    Written evidence (CTB28) — civil liberties NGO submission, of particular relevance to the Article 6 dimensions of judge-alone trial.
  • Crown Prosecution Service → src
    Written evidence (CTB29) from the principal prosecuting authority.
  • Magistrates Association → src
    Written evidence (CTB07), particularly relevant to clauses 6 (sentencing-power uplift to up to 24 months) and 19 (lay justices' allowances).
  • Resolve → src
    Written evidence (CTB43) submitted to the Public Bill Committee.
  • Both Parents Matter → src
    Father-rights organisation submitting initial (CTB10), further (CTB35) and additional further (CTB42) written evidence opposing the Clause 17 repeal of the parental involvement presumption.
  • Claire Throssell MBE → src
    Domestic abuse campaigner; supplementary written evidence (CTB33) supporting Clause 17 from the perspective of children harmed in contact arrangements.
  • Professor Penney Lewis → src
    Criminal Law Commissioner, Law Commission of England and Wales — written evidence (CTB23) on the evidence and special measures reforms.

Commentator 2

  • Sir Desmond Swayne → src
    Conservative MP (New Forest West); tabled the oral question of 19 March 2026 asking whether the Attorney General had advised the Lord Chancellor on the Bill's potential impact on the rule of law.
  • Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst → src
    Conservative MP (Solihull West and Shirley); supplementary oral-question contributor on the same rule-of-law line.

Political commitments

What parties and ministers have promised — manifesto pledges, King's Speech announcements, ministerial statements. Each card shows what was said, by whom, and when, with a link to the original source.

  • commitment Ministerial statement Labour · 2025 · Family Justice: Better Protections for Children

    Repeal of the presumption of parental involvement when parliamentary time allows

    I am pleased to announce today that the Government will repeal the presumption of parental involvement when Parliamentary time allows.

    Why linked: Direct ministerial commitment (HLWS976, 22 October 2025) that crystallised as Clause 17 of the Bill.

    Source: Family Justice: Better Protections for Children · Original ↗

Open questions & gaps

Known gaps in the evidence base and what's still pending.

Pending in the lifecycle

  • Report stage and Third Reading in the Commons (notices of amendments tabled 29 April 2026).
  • Lords stages — none yet listed; the Bill will need First Reading, Second Reading, committee, report and Third Reading in the upper House.
  • Justice Committee output from its 27 February 2026 legislative-scrutiny call for evidence.
  • Use of the Sentencing Act 2020 Sch 23 para 14A regulation-making power: will the SoS exercise the new option to set magistrates' general limit at 18 or 24 months?
  • Commencement regulations and the 'specified day' under clauses 3(3) and 4(8) — three-month minimum gap after substantive commencement.

Beyond the corpus

  • MISSING Sir Brian Leveson's full independent review report itself. — The MoJ factsheet identifies the review as the policy blueprint but the review document is not retrieved in the events/candidates pool.
  • MISSING Government Response to the Review of the Presumption of Parental Involvement. — The Review is in the corpus but no published Government Response document is — only HLWS976 announcing the policy intention.
  • MISSING Lords-stage Library briefing. — A Commons Library briefing (CBP-10515) is in the candidates pool; the typical Lords Library briefing for Second Reading is not yet visible.
  • MISSING Lord Chancellor's section 19(1)(a) HRA statement of compatibility text. — An ECHR memorandum is in the corpus but the explicit s.19 statement, ordinarily on the Bill's face, is not separately surfaced.

Confidence gaps

  • No Hansard transcripts of the twelve PBC sittings are themselves linked as events on the thread — they appear only as Parliament-search candidates, so the substance of clause-by-clause debate is largely inferred from amendment papers and the list of selected amendments.
  • The Bill's interaction with the Sentencing Code commencement architecture (clauses 6 and 23) is technical and the practitioner reading depends on Sentencing Act 2020 cross-references not all reproduced in the Bill text.