Sir Geoffrey Cox
ConservativeMP for Torridge and Tavistock · Since 2005
Speeches (24)
Courts and Tribunals Bill
I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. Postmasters, postmistresses, postmen—those whose honesty and integrity are integral to their employment and who, for a breach of trust, would not receive three years’ imprisonment—would all be deprived of their jury trial, and at a time when the sharks and the vultures are circling around the institutions of this country. We are now on the brink of undermining—I believe irredeemably—one of the most precious of those institutions, which commands almost un
Courts and Tribunals Bill
The other logical absurdity is that, under the Government’s proposed reforms, somebody with a previous conviction may well go above the three-year threshold, so those who have a string of previous convictions will get a right to jury trial, but a person of good character will not.
Courts and Tribunals Bill
No, I am not giving way. Let me make that clear now. I want to finish in a moment. The reality is that jury trial is too precious a thing to lose. We are faced with a question of principle here. The savings that the Government claim will be made are contested by many expert analyses from the profession, the Institute for Government and others. They are based on questionable assumptions. Are those savings sufficient for us to abrogate a fundamental principle that attracts almost universal assent
Courts and Tribunals Bill
I will not take interventions now, and certainly not if they are of the quality that we have had up till now. The reality is that jury trial is the cornerstone of our justice system. Do away with it and we are in trouble. Let us look at the way in which this Bill operates. It automatically presumes jury trial for everything that will have a likely sentence of three years, and those will involve some grave offences. However, in relation to serious, complex or lengthy cases, it could cover any all
Courts and Tribunals Bill
No, I am not giving way. I am mindful of time and I must complete what I have to say. This is a time when not just this House but the judiciary and the courts are under attack. The unprecedented attacks upon the judiciary and the legal profession are deplorable. Institutional trust is under siege, and now is not the time—[Interruption.] I am trying to make a speech that is non-partisan—[Interruption.] It really is not. I remember vividly when I sat where the Lord Chancellor now sits and he was o
Courts and Tribunals Bill
Not just now. I say to the House, in all conscience, that jury trial is precious. Why? It is precious because it unites all parts of the political spectrum. It is precious because it allows the people of this country to be directly engaged in the adjudication of guilt or innocence in thousands of cases across the country. At a time, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden) pointed out when he rose to intervene, when our institutions are under unprecedented attack, is
Courts and Tribunals Bill
I will give way to the hon. Member for Colchester first.
Courts and Tribunals Bill
I will give way to the hon. Member for Colchester (Pam Cox) first, if she can give me just two seconds. I want to develop this theme, because it is very important to me. There are some things that have to be above politics. If there are not, we have no society to defend. Jury trial is one of those institutions that have been defended by those across the aisle from me, on the opposite extreme of the political spectrum, and by those on our side of the House, out to the furthest waters of the right
Courts and Tribunals Bill
Not now—later. I will. I want to appeal to Labour Members. We are engaged in ideological strife. But in the Venn diagram that any society depends upon for the sustaining of sufficient points of common ground to keep a society together, jury trial is one of those that appear in a point of intersection between the vast numbers of this House and outside it.
Courts and Tribunals Bill
Not just now, but I will come back to the hon. Member. We in this House are engaged in ideological strife. Every day of our lives we are engaged in a political battle, and frankly, sometimes we do not always live up to the highest standards that even our own parties have set. In the course of my legal career, I have been led—when I say “led”, I mean that I was a junior in the courts—by some distinguished Labour Members of Parliament who continued to practise in the criminal courts and regarded i
Courts and Tribunals Bill
I should declare an interest at the beginning. I am a member of the Bar—that is not uncommonly known—I still practise at the Bar, and I have the honour to be a criminal barrister and a member of the Criminal Bar Association. I have spent 44 years at the Bar. I have defended and prosecuted in some of the largest criminal trials that this country has ever seen—and some of the longest. I have been experienced in seeing how juries react to circumstances of adversity and circumstances that challenge
Courts and Tribunals Bill
There has always been a summary jurisdiction—invariably never for offences of dishonesty, and invariably never for offences that might lead to the destruction of the reputation of those who are facing it. If one Member of this House, who must be disqualified if there is a sentence of imprisonment of more than 12 months, after the passage of this Bill is arraigned before a court on a case that might involve 12 months and one day, he or she will lose the right to a trial by jury, despite the fact
Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation
It seems to me that the Secretary of State is adopting a highly technical and extremely unmeritorious argument. He says that because the declaration of incompatibility is not the subject of the intervention of the veterans, that gives him the opportunity—entirely technically and devoid of any moral merit whatsoever—to bring in this remedial order, but he knows perfectly well that the substance of the argument on which the remedial order is based is very much in point in the deliberations of the
Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation
I wonder whether the Secretary of State can assist me with this problem. The Supreme Court is at the moment seized of the issue as to the lawfulness of the declaration of incompatibility. The fact that the Government have withdrawn their appeal does not prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on it. Let us suppose that the Supreme Court rules that the declaration of incompatibility is void. The legal position is that the declaration of incompatibility would then be void, and therefore the basis on
China Spying Case
Why was the Attorney General’s Office represented and present? If the meeting had nothing to do with the case, why was the Attorney General’s Office present through its representative?
China Spying Case
The Attorney General’s Office has nothing to do with foreign policy.
China Spying Case
No, I will not—too short of time. There was nothing to prevent that because it was a question of fact. The fact is that the Government were not prepared to change their approach. It is a perfectly legitimate point for the right hon. Member for Torfaen to say to me, “Back in 2021, the policy of the Government was not to describe China as an enemy,” but at that time, we had not had the spying, the intimidation, and the direct targeting of this institution and the democratic assembly of our people
China Spying Case
This has been an interesting experience, almost revisiting ancient times with the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) leading for the Government on this debate. While I have a great deal of sympathy with his position, I cannot sympathise with his rather bland, anodyne account of the events to date. What is clear, and it is an apophthegm often imbibed with one’s mother’s milk, is that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, sounds like a duck, looks like a duck, it is almost
Churches and Religious Buildings: Communities
I thank the hon. Lady for the work she does on behalf of the Church. She occupies a very important role and commands considerable respect for what she has been doing. I wish to add to the point that the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) just made about the closure of churches, particularly in rural parishes, which is becoming an increasing problem. In my constituency, we have experienced difficulty getting the Church to recognise that it too has an obligation to stand by the si