Issue 429  20th December 2025

Keir Starmer is facing the threat of a backbench rebellion over plans to reduce the number of jury trials in England and Wales as dozens of Labour MPs signed a letter describing the move as “madness”. The justice secretary, David Lammy, announced plans earlier this month that will take thousands of trials away from the jury system to be heard instead by judges and magistrates. The government and the retired judge Sir Brian Leveson, who was commissioned to come up with proposals to change the justice system, argue that a record backlog in the courts is failing victims, witnesses and defendants.

A group of 39 Labour MPs have signed a letter urging the prime minister to reverse the plans, which they describe as “an ineffective way of dealing with the crippling backlog in cases in our criminal justice system”. Downing Street suggested the government intended to stand firm against any backbench rebellion as the prime minister’s official spokesperson pointed to new figures on Thursday showing the crown court backlog in England and Wales had risen to nearly 80,000 cases, a record high...

Justice secretary David Lammy has once again doubled down on plans to curb jury trials to cut the Crown court backlog. Asked about his proposals during justice questions in the House of Commons this morning, Lammy said one-third of victims of sexual offences in the backlog have been waiting at least a year for a trial. In many of those cases, ‘there are also defendants playing the system, pleading late pre-hearing after pre-hearing, and witnesses then fall away and cases collapse. For that reason, it’s absolutely right that we change the threshold, introduce the measures that Sir Brian Leveson has properly looked at in order to speed up the process and get those victims justice’.

The Conservative’s David Davis MP told the justice secretary that ‘summary justice is no justice at all’ and urged Lammy to read expert analysis that suggested the Leveson review was based on poor data. Lammy defended the review, saying the analysis was based on data and international evidence, ‘and that’s why it is important we implement it because there is no silver bullet… otherwise at the next general election the backlog will have soared to over 100,000’...

David Lammy told the justice select committee this afternoon that he hopes legislation for his proposed reforms will receive Royal assent by the end of 2026. A bill will be introduced to parliament next spring.

Thousands of drivers could have speeding fines cancelled after a fault saw some cameras falsely triggered on English A roads and motorways. National Highways said it had found 2,650 wrongful speed camera activations since 2021 due to a delay between cameras and variable speed signs. Affected drivers will be contacted by police and be reimbursed for any fines while points will be removed from their licences where needed...

National Highways apologised for the error and chief executive Nick Harris said a fix for the issue has been identified... National Highways, which runs England's motorways, blamed an "anomaly" in how variable speed cameras were interacting with signs on some A roads and motorways. It meant a delay of around 10 seconds between cameras and relevant variable speed signs, meaning some drivers were incorrectly identified as speeding after the limit had changed. The body said the 2,650 incidents since 2021 represent fewer than two each day, compared with more than 6 million activations of speed cameras on the affected roads over the same period. It said the anomaly has impacted 10% of England's motorways and major A roads. The fault affects all of the variable speed cameras on smart motorways, and two on the A14 which links the north and the West Midlands to East Anglia. It is working with police to check activations and promised nobody will now be wrongly prosecuted. Meanwhile, police forces have stopped issuing fines from variable cameras until they have confidence in their accuracy...

All police forces will introduce specialist rape and sexual offence investigation teams to hunt down perpetrators, under sweeping reforms announced today by the Home Secretary. As part of the government’s Violence against Women and Girls Strategy due to be launched later this week, the full power of the state will be deployed in the largest crackdown on violence perpetrated against women and girls in British history. This will see specialist investigators apprehend, investigate and lock up rapists and sex offenders across the country... The dedicated rape and sexual offence specialist investigators, deployed in every police force in England and Wales, will replace an outdated system, where officers often did not have the specialist knowledge to investigate rapists and sex offenders, leaving predators to walk the streets...

Domestic abuse protection orders will also be rolled out across England and Wales, placing mandatory curfews, electronic tagging, exclusion zones and notification requirements on abusers, with offenders who break orders facing up to five years in jail...

A new crack team of online operatives will be deployed to use covert and intelligence techniques to tackle violence against women and girls online tackling preparators. With nearly £2 million investment, a brand-new network of officers will have the technical capability to target the most technologically sophisticated offenders. This builds on the Home Office’s successful undercover network on child sexual abuse that has arrested over 1,700 perpetrators...

More women and girls will be protected from deepfake abuse as new laws will ban ‘nudification’ tools – that use generative AI to turn images of real people into fake nude pictures and videos without their permission. As part of the government’s strategy to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG), ministers have pledged to make it impossible for children in the UK to take, share or view a nude image using their phones. The government will join forces with tech companies so we can work together to make this a reality and better protect young people from grooming, extortion, bullying, harassment and sexual abuse...

The creation and supply of so-called ‘nudification’ apps or tools that generate deepfake nude images of real people will also be banned, under plans announced today, building on offences which criminalise sharing these deeply damaging images. The new legislation will allow the police to target the firms and individuals who design and supply these tools... Government has also already legislated to criminalise the creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes, ensuring that offenders face the appropriate punishments for this atrocious harm...