Courts and Tribunals Bill 2026-27: Progress of the bill

Background

The Courts and Tribunals Bill 2026-27 was introduced to the House of Commons on 25 February 2026.

The bill had its second reading on 10 March 2026 and was considered by a Public Bill Committee over 12 sittings between 25 March 2026 and 28 April 2026.

The bill was carried over from the 2024-26 parliamentary session and was reintroduced to the House of Commons on 14 May 2026 to resume its progress. Report stage and third reading are scheduled for 13 October 2026.

Full background on the bill as introduced (including clause-by-clause analysis and stakeholder reaction) is set out in the Commons Library briefing Courts and Tribunals Bill 2024-26. Among other things, the bill would:

• remove defendant’s rights to ask for trial by jury for mid-level (‘either-way’) offences and allow judge-only trials for some offences
• introduce revised tests for admitting evidence of someone’s previous sexual behaviour or bad character in sexual offences prosecutions
• change the rules around the use of ‘special measures’, which are adjustments to support vulnerable or intimidated witnesses to give evidence (such as screens and video links)
• remove the presumption of parental involvement in family court cases
• make changes to the existing arrangements on tribunal leadership, lay justices’ allowances, and the naming of the Central Criminal Court

The bill’s proposals on jury trials (clauses 1 to 7) have provoked significant and sustained opposition from the legal profession, parliamentarians and other stakeholders.

The bill, together with its explanatory notes and an overview of its parliamentary progress, is available on the UK Parliament website. Government documents relating to the bill, including factsheets and impact assessments, are available on gov.uk.

The Justice Committee has also scrutinised the bill. The committee’s report, which focused on clauses 1 to 7 (jury trials and criminal court reform) and the government’s response are available on the committee’s website.

Committee stage

The only changes made at committee stage were technical government amendments to clause 6 (magistrates’ court sentencing powers) and clause 18 (tribunal leadership).

Committee stage was dominated by discussion of clauses 1 to 7 (the bill’s other clauses were relatively uncontroversial). Key themes of the debate at committee stage (which echoed those at second reading) included:

• the divergence between the changes proposed by clauses 1 to 7 and the changes that were recommended by Sir Brian Leveson in Part 1 of his Independent Review of the Criminal Courts
• the adequacy of the evidence base and modelling used by the government to justify the proposed changes
• the availability of alternative options to deal with Crown Court backlogs, such as extending sitting hours and improving case management
• whether the magistrates’ courts have (or could build) sufficient capacity to cope with the increased caseload that the bill would divert to them from the Crown Court
• the lack of reference to jury trial reform in Labour’s 2024 manifesto, alongside the bill’s failure to include any provision on specialist rape and sexual offences courts (which had featured in the manifesto)
• the lack of diversity in the judiciary and the risk the proposed changes would have a disproportionate impact on defendants who are more likely to elect trial by jury (such as Black defendants)
• the permanent nature of the proposed changes, without piloting them first or making them subject to a time-limited ‘sunset’ clause

Post-committee developments

On 4 October 2026, the government announced its intention to table an amendment to remove clause 3 from the bill. Clause 3 would have required either-way cases in the Crown Court assessed as likely to receive a custodial (prison) sentence of less than three years to be allocated for a judge-only trial, rather than jury trial. The Justice Secretary Alex Norris said he had “heard the strength of feeling on the proposals for increasing the number of judge-alone trials in the Crown Court” and had decided to “change course”.

The announcement also said the government would make “a statutory commitment to consider any impacts of the structural reforms on ethnic minorities and people of different backgrounds, led by an independent reviewer”.

Separately, the government has announced that “every Crown Court in England and Wales will get at least one courtroom especially set up to hear rape and serious sexual offence cases over the next two years”. It said that measures would include private entrances and waiting rooms for victims, facilities to pre-record evidence and observe sentencing remotely, the prioritisation of rape and serious sexual offence cases when setting court dates, and the introduction of a new Rape Justice Taskforce. This commitment does not involve any amendments to the bill.

Report stage and third reading

Report stage takes place in the Commons Chamber and involves MPs considering the bill as agreed at committee stage. MPs can also propose further amendments which can be voted on. 

Third reading is the final chance for MPs to debate the contents of a bill before it goes to the House of Lords. Changes cannot be made at this stage in the Commons. At the end of the debate, the House decides whether to approve the bill and therefore pass it onto the House of Lords.