Courts and Tribunals Bill

Update 8 October 2026

On 8 October 2026 the Justice Committee published the Ministry of Justice response to the Committee’s report on the Courts and Tribunals Bill. The letter is from Sarah Sackman KC MP, Minister for Courts and Legal Services, and is dated 5 October 2026.

The response says the Government will table an amendment at Commons report stage to remove the Crown Court Bench Division provisions from the bill. It gives the Crown Court backlog as nearly 81,000 cases, with almost 24,000 waiting a year or more. Those are the Government’s figures in this document, not a BugBen calculation.

Below is a neutral list of what the response says about each numbered recommendation: accepted, not accepted, or deferred. Recommendation numbers are the Government’s own labels (JSC1 to JSC22).

Source: Courts and Tribunals Bill: Government Response, Justice Committee, House of Commons, published 8 October 2026 (publication 55134).

Accepted

• Recommendation 4. Publish quarterly statistics on magistrate recruitment. The Government says it plans to publish appointment figures as a regular update from October 2026, and quarterly after that. It says 655 magistrates were appointed between April and June 2026, compared with 384 in the same period in 2025 and 215 in 2024, and that it is on track for 21,000 magistrates in place by 2028–29.
• Recommendation 5. In part: bring in the new magistrates’ court appeals rules only once audio recording of those courts has been fully rolled out. The Government says it accepts this.
• Recommendation 6. Set out why “loss of time” orders are included as well as a permission stage for appeals. The Government sets out its reasons and is keeping the orders. It says a court does not have to impose one. It also says it will consider any recommendations the Law Commission makes about those orders when the Commission reports next year.
• Recommendation 7. In part: audio recording must be in place and operating in every magistrates’ court before the appeals measures start. The Government says it accepts this. It says the bill’s impact assessment allocates about £27 million over three years for the recording technology. It says the final design for storage, access and transcription will be confirmed once Parliament has settled the bill.
• Recommendation 12 and Recommendation 14. The Committee asked the Government to reconsider the three-year threshold for judge-only trial in a new Crown Court Bench Division, and to keep child defendants out of that division. The Government says it will amend the bill to remove the Bench Division provisions. It says recommendation 14 therefore no longer applies. It does not add a different jury test for that division, because the division is being removed. It says the rest of the bill, plus investment and efficiency work, will free enough Crown Court time to reduce the open caseload.
• Recommendation 21. Focus new magistrate recruitment on groups that are not well represented. The Government does not use the word “accept”. It says a magistracy that better reflects the communities it serves remains a priority, and it describes a recruitment campaign, shorter recruitment times, and a review of expenses. Its figures: 17% of new appointees in 2025/26 were from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared with 14% of magistrates in post; 36% were aged under 50, compared with 19% of the existing magistracy; 2% of current applicants came from routine, semi-routine, service or manual occupations.
• Recommendation 22. In part: the Government says it agrees that progress is needed towards a judiciary that better reflects society, and that the lack of improvement in the number of black judges is particularly stark. It accepts that further progress is needed in the magistracy, especially for some under-represented groups. It points to a Judicial and Legal Diversity Board, chaired jointly by the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice, to set an outcomes framework.

Not accepted

• Recommendation 1. If the defendant’s right to elect Crown Court trial is removed, allocation rules in the magistrates’ court must stay flexible enough for the circumstances of a case. The Government says it does not agree that the current rules are inflexible. It says courts will still apply the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 and the Sentencing Council’s allocation guidelines, and that the change is to remove the defendant’s choice of Crown Court trial.
• Recommendation 2. The power in clause 6, to vary magistrates’ court sentencing powers, should use the affirmative procedure and be limited to purposes set out in the delegated-powers memorandum. The Government says it will not limit the power in that way or move it to the affirmative procedure. It says the negative procedure lets it act more quickly, including to reduce those powers, and that decisions will be informed by operational data and partners.
• Recommendation 5. In part: delay the appeals changes so their impact can be assessed, and until the Law Commission reports on criminal appeals. The Government says it cannot accept a delay. It says fewer than 1% of magistrates’ court disposals are appealed, which was 4,914 appeal receipts out of 120,524 Crown Court receipts in 2025, and that around 60% of appeals were unsuccessful (2,762 cases in 2025). Those figures are the Government’s.
• Recommendation 8. Say whether magistrates will have to give detailed written reasons to support appeals. The Government says it does not intend to require detailed written reasons. It says the current approach, often a few sentences, will continue, and it cites High Court cases on how full those reasons need to be.
• Recommendation 9. Set out why the Government is not following Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendation that magistrates keep sitting with a judge on appeals. The Government says that, under the new process, appeal hearings are to be heard by a judge sitting alone, because they will focus on points of law and lay magistrates would defer to the judge on those points.
• Recommendation 10. Set out the effect on children and young people, and how the Government will mitigate the risk of a child turning 18 during an appeal. The Government says a retrial can still pass a sentence that was available at the original trial, including a referral order, because Schedule 2 of the bill says so, even if the defendant is by then over 18. It says loss of anonymity when a defendant turns 18 can already happen under the current appeals process. It says it will consider what the Law Commission recommends on this point next year.
• Recommendation 13. Amend the bill so it is beyond doubt whether a Crown Court allocation decision can be judicially reviewed. The Government says no amendment is needed. It says judicial review will not generally be available, because of sections 28(2) and 29(3) of the Senior Courts Act 1981, with a possible exception if a judge acts outside the legislation. It says that question is for the Administrative Court.
• Recommendation 15. Judge-only trial powers should apply only to cases that have not yet been arraigned when the powers start. The Government says: “We reject this recommendation.” It says a procedural change can apply to cases already under way, and that Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights does not give a right to a jury. It also says a trial already listed to start with a jury before the reforms begin will keep its jury, and that a defendant who has elected Crown Court trial will not be sent back to the magistrates’ court.
• Recommendation 16. Allow an appeal, or a judicial review, against a decision to order — or not to order — a judge-alone trial in a complex and lengthy case. The Government says a separate appeal route is not needed. It says a defendant who argues that a judge-alone trial made the conviction unsafe can raise that in an appeal against conviction. It says further guidance can sit in Criminal Procedure Rules or Criminal Practice Directions.
• Recommendation 17. Limit the power to add offences to Schedule 1 so that only dishonesty offences can be added. The Government says it will not limit the power to dishonesty offences. It says homicide and indictable-only sexual offences stay excluded, any case must still meet the other statutory tests, and a change to the schedule needs an affirmative statutory instrument.
• Recommendation 18. Estimate, with the judiciary, how much judicial time reasoned judgments in judge-only Crown Court trials will take each year. The Government says that, once the Bench Division is removed, the duty to give a reasoned judgment applies only to certain fraud and financial cases tried by a judge alone because they are complex and lengthy. It says the number of cases is so limited that a separate estimate is not necessary.
• Recommendation 19. Put in the bill a duty to review the first year of judge-only trials in the Crown Court. The Government says a separate statutory review after one year is not necessary. It says it has committed to an independent review of the reforms’ impact on disparities, and to a wider evaluation.
• Recommendation 22. In part: set a single national target for a representative judiciary and magistracy by 2035. The Government says an outcomes framework and milestones will be more effective than a single, global target. It does not adopt the 2035 target.

Deferred

• Recommendation 3. Put forward a plan to increase the number of salaried district judges in the magistrates’ court, and match legal-adviser pay with comparable public-sector legal roles. The Government describes recruitment already running, including a March 2026 exercise for up to 30 district judges (magistrates’ courts), whom it expects to start sitting in the second half of 2027. It says the Senior Salaries Review Body’s major review of judicial pay is due by the end of 2026, and that the Ministry will then consider it for district-judge recruitment. On legal advisers, it says it welcomed a recommendation of pay parity with the Crown Prosecution Service and describes existing pay and progression work. It does not say that parity is in place.
• Recommendation 7. In part: set out in detail how recordings will be stored, accessed and transcribed, and give precise costings for introducing and maintaining audio recording. The Government says final system design, including storage, access and transcription, is confirmed once the legislative position is settled, because detailed build work cannot run ahead of Parliament’s decision. The figure it gives now is the £27 million technology budget noted above.
• Recommendation 11 and Recommendation 20. Set out, before the bill is enacted, whether criminal legal aid thresholds in the magistrates’ court will change, including Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendation to raise them; align the means test for either-way offences that can draw 12 months or more in custody with the Crown Court threshold; bring means-test changes in before the bill’s provisions start; and give a timeline. The Government says it will shortly set out its response to Lord Leveson’s report, including the upper and lower thresholds in the magistrates’ court. It says it is still considering what the bill means for legal aid eligibility. It does not give the timeline the Committee asked for. It says that, under the current rules, it remains confident that the majority of defendants charged with either-way offences will be eligible for legal aid in the magistrates’ court.

Parliament’s business calendar for 13 October 2026 lists the remaining stages of the Courts and Tribunals Bill in the House of Commons. The Government response says it intends to bring forward the Bench Division amendment at Commons report stage. Parliament’s business calendar.

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