Courts Bill 2026 explained as serious jury trials stay

If you saw the headline and wondered whether jury trials were being watered down, the short answer is no, at least not in the way many people feared. In a press release published on 4 October 2026, the Ministry of Justice said plans to move some Crown Court cases to judge-only trials are being dropped, so serious criminal cases will still be heard by juries while ministers press ahead with other court reforms in England and Wales. (gov.uk)

That does not mean every judge-only idea has disappeared. The same Ministry of Justice announcement says especially technical and lengthy fraud and financial cases can still be heard by a judge alone, and the official Courts and Tribunals Bill factsheet treats those cases as a separate, narrower exception. **What this means:** ordinary serious cases keep the jury, but very long, highly technical financial trials may be handled differently if the court thinks that is appropriate. (gov.uk)

Why is the government moving so quickly? Because the backlog is huge. The Ministry of Justice said nearly 81,000 Crown Court cases were waiting to be heard, with almost a third delayed for a year or longer. It is worth pausing on that point: even the government says no single reform can undo years of underinvestment, which tells you this is not a quick fix but an attempt to stop the system from falling further behind. (gov.uk)

One of the biggest practical changes sits below the headline about juries. The official bill factsheet says magistrates’ courts would be given scope to deal with more cases themselves, including stronger sentencing powers. At the moment, magistrates are generally capped at 12 months’ imprisonment for relevant offences; the bill would let ministers raise that ceiling to 18 or 24 months for certain either-way offences, which are cases that can be heard either in the magistrates’ court or the Crown Court. **What this means:** more lower-level cases could stay in the magistrates’ court instead of joining the Crown Court queue. (gov.uk)

The bill also shifts who gets the final say about where many cases are heard. According to the government factsheet, defendants accused of either-way offences would lose the automatic right to insist on a Crown Court jury trial when magistrates have accepted the case, and Crown Court judges would no longer need a defendant’s consent to send a suitable case back down. For you as a reader, the simple version is this: judges and magistrates, not defendants, would decide the venue for many mid-level cases. (gov.uk)

The reform package is not only about courtrooms and juries; it is also about the machinery around them. Courts minister Sarah Sackman said the government’s response to Sir Brian Leveson’s review will include AI support for listing cases, more virtual hearings and steps to make sure defendants arrive at court on time. The Leveson review itself was commissioned to look at both reform and efficiency in the criminal courts, which helps explain why ministers are talking as much about admin and scheduling as about law. (gov.uk)

There is another detail worth watching. When the bill returns to the House of Commons on 13 October 2026, the government says it will add a statutory commitment to consider how the structural reforms affect ethnic minorities and people from different backgrounds, led by an independent reviewer. That matters because faster justice only counts as fair justice if people are not pushed through a system that works unevenly for different communities. (gov.uk)

So where does this leave us? The broader move away from juries in some Crown Court cases has been dropped, but the push to speed up the courts is very much alive. The full government response to both parts of the Leveson review is due in the coming weeks, which means this story is not really about one U-turn; it is about how England and Wales chooses to balance speed, fairness and public trust when the courts are under real strain. (gov.uk)