I beg to move Amendment No. 987, in

Clause 51, page 33, line 4, after 'adjournment', insert

'which shall be for a maximum of one day'.

We come now to some vital issues, which are encompassed by the one word ''timing''. That is critical and the amendment is designed to tease it out. It relates to the prosecution's request for an adjournment to consider whether to appeal and the obligation on the judge to grant such an adjournment.

We have to get real, as I have often said on this Committee, and consider what happens in court. We might like to think that every case is handled by Kavanagh QC, or somebody of such erudite standing in the legal profession as the Solicitor-General, but that is not the case. As often as not, cases are handled by some young barristers, barely called, or by those who are so old that they have forgotten everything and are doddering around. They are not always of the calibre that is found at the top end of the Bar, which can be a problem. In practice, it means that the prosecutor will say that he would like an adjournment in order to consider whether to appeal. The amendment insists that the adjournment should be

for no more than 24 hours, because the Bill specifies no time limit within which the decision to appeal or the application must be made. Am I wrong? Is a time limit specified anywhere in the Bill so far as that adjournment is concerned?

Normally, when appeals are made from magistrates courts to the Crown Court or from the Crown Court upwards, there are strict time limits. If one does not abide by them, one is in deep trouble—one has to apply for leave to apply out of time. The prosecutor, who has requested an adjournment under subsection (3)(a)(ii) to consider whether to appeal, must have, by statute, some constraint upon him to decide quickly. If he has not, what will happen in practice is that the prosecutor will request an adjournment in order to consider the matter, and when asked how long he would like he will say, ''Well, I am going on holiday tomorrow and I need to speak to my head of chambers and take advice. In fact, I only got into this case this morning because my fellow barrister who knows all about it got a much better case and I was given the dross. That is why it is before you and why I am here today.'' That is the sort of thing that is often said. The barrister will ask for a week, a fortnight or five days. Where is the constraint that I seek to impose on him to make up his mind within 24 hours, one way or the other, on whether to take advice?

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point about time limits, but does he actually mean 24 hours or a sitting day?

The Amendment was badly drafted. I really mean a sitting day, which is much better—indeed, one might say overnight. Again, the consequences on timing are very severe if the barrister comes back to court and says, ''I have been advised by those in my chamber who are more senior that it is a good idea to appeal because we can get legal aid for it, which is helpful to us.'' The prosecutor will make his decision known to the judge, who must then grant an adjournment.

This is a serious issue. What is the judge to do? First, how does he get the barrister back the next day? What does he say to the jury? ''Members of the jury, the barrister needs time to sort out certain matters. I have made a potential ruling today and the barrister wants to consider whether to appeal. Today is Monday, but he cannot come back until Friday.'' What are the jury to do? ''Can you come back on Friday? You must observe my stricture. You cannot talk about the case except among yourselves.'' Under the Bill, the jury is sent back into the real world without the slightest indication of how long they will be there. That is the problem.

If the barrister says that he will appeal, there is the absurd business of an expedited appeal to the Court of Appeal, but there will be no such thing. Can the Solicitor-General guarantee that appeals to the Court of Appeal will be heard within two or three days?

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that not only will we have to have expedited appeals but we will also have to have expedited leaves to appeal in cases in which the initial judge has decided not to grant leave to appeal?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If there is an initial refusal, there might have to be an expedited application for leave to appeal with the consequential follow-on delays. However, if an appeal to the Court of Appeal is to take place, there is no chance that it will be heard the next day. Apart from anything else, how will the court receive the papers? In any court, there has to be not just a résumé but a complete record of every word that has been said in the trial. Such records are not made overnight. A shorthand writer has to set everything out and, in addition, counsel on both sides and the judge must have an opportunity to read through the record to agree the transcript. Otherwise, it might go out in an inaccurate form.

How long does such a review take? How long does it take to produce a transcript of the trial? How long does it take to get a hearing before the Court of Appeal? Is the Solicitor-General saying that such cases would not occur more than once a year? If there were many of them, it would be impossible to envisage hearings taking place within a week or two weeks.

What happens if the judge does not seek an expedited hearing? Why should it be expedited? What is the difference between a non-expedited and an expedited hearing? An expedited hearing will be heard quickly, but a non-expedited hearing may be heard considerably later. There is a tremendous problem about what to do with the jury during the interim period, which could run to many days. What will happen to jurors who are doing their fortnight, which is usually the time that one spends on a jury, and who start, perhaps, a third trial, which has been listed for three days, on Wednesday of the second week? The trial is to finish on Friday, but if there is a ruling on Thursday afternoon that will be appealed, the jury could be scattered for the next week or two, completely unable to reassemble for obvious, nuts-and-bolts, practical reasons.

What does the judge do meanwhile? Will he know straight away that the whole of the issue will be resolved within three to four days? What happens if the judge is asked, ''Can you start another trial?''? Court time will be wasted. Is it not much more likely that in practice judges will have to discharge juries? They will know that those things do not happen overnight, that it will take days, if not weeks, to reach a conclusion, and that it would therefore be much simpler to discharge a jury. That point brings me on to whether there would be a right to object to the discharge of a jury. Either the defence or the Crown might think that the case is going especially well or especially badly before a jury, and might have a view about discharging that jury.

Much will boil down to expense. The Minister knows, because there has been a parliamentary answer confirming it, that the cost of a Crown court amounts to some £8,500 a day. That was three years ago, and I am sure that the figure is well over £9,000 a day now. That is a huge expense. How many days will be wasted? Has anybody in the Home Office, in drafting the astonishing provisions that we are dealing with,

had any concept of the likely extra expense and burden that will be put on the Crown court system?

I might be utterly mistaken, but I have a feeling that there is a right of appeal from the Court of Appeal to the House of Lords. I hope that I shall be told to sit down straight away if I am completely wrong on that. However, Clause 56 seems to give a right of appeal against a decision by the Court of Appeal to the House of Lords. If that is right, we have the whole thing all over again—that is, the Court of Appeal having to produce all the papers and the House of Lords having to deal with the matter. In short, unless we can inject into the Bill a mechanism whereby the appeals must be dealt with quickly and, in particular, the application for an adjournment must be made within 24 hours or one working day, the whole thing will be left loose. If that happens and a strict timetable is not imposed, there will be long and expensive delays that will not be in the interests of justice, the jury or the defendant. Hence, the Amendment would ensure that the adjournment that the court gives to the prosecuting counsel to enable him to make up his mind as to whether to appeal is long or short—or an adjournment of some length or no length. We need to know.

It seems to me that the hon. Member for Woking has hit on a good point, which is that the provisions are silent on the appropriate length of the adjournment. That might be intentional, but it is left to the good offices of the judge in the High Court to determine what is appropriate. However, things could go either way. An especially irrational or impatient judge might allow a prosecution only a short adjournment to determine whether they wished to appeal. The judge might decide that his ruling was so transparently clear and non-threatening to the prosecution case that he did not intend to allow the prosecution appropriate time in which to consult on whether to proceed.

It is more likely that the reverse will be the case, and that there will be a delay in the process. I can envisage cases in which that is so because the prosecuting counsel is particularly dilatory, wants to take a skiing holiday when there are more important things to do, or whatever. In the case of admissibility of evidence, persons entirely outside the control of the prosecuting counsel could occasion the delay. For instance, in a public interest immunity case, the matter could be in the hands of a Minister, who might take a less than rapid approach to the subject.

There are inherent problems with having no indication of the appropriate length of the adjournment in which to consider the matter. The hon. Gentleman has a point. Frankly, I do not think that leaving a complete silence on the issue is in the interests of making the provision work effectively and efficiently. I hope that the Solicitor-General might accept that as a genuine point of view that should be addressed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woking has made some important points, and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome was right to support him. It is in the same spirit that I raise another point with the Solicitor-General, which might be relevant in relation to the important question of time.

I hope that I am not being too pedantic, but I ask the Solicitor-General for clarification of what happens when there is no adjournment because, under Clause 51(3), following the ruling, the prosecution must inform the court that it intends to appeal. How does the Solicitor-General envisage paragraph (a)(i) working? The prosecution must inform the court that it intends to appeal following the making of the ruling. What time scale is envisaged? Is it intended that it should happen before any other evidence is heard or at a later stage in the trial? The phrase

''following the making of the ruling''

seems to encompass both those options. We need some clarification on that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woking is absolutely right in his general point that this must be done as quickly as possible in the interests of justice and, quite frankly, in the interests of administrative efficiency and saving public money, because in these cases time is money.

I will deal first with the question of costs. I refer the hon. Member for Hertsmere to the explanatory notes accompanying the Bill. Paragraph 668 says:

''The Majority of costs to be incurred for additional prosecutor time and administration in prosecution appeals will fall upon the Crown Prosecution Service. It is estimated that various appeals and retrials will cost £1.3 million from the financial year 2005–2006. It is estimated that the Lord Chancellors Department will require seven additional staff, at a cost £0.2 million annually from the financial year 2005–2006 in relation to the additional appeal court capacity.''

That is as helpful as I can be on the issue of costs.

The Amendment raises the question about the time limit. There have been attempts throughout the criminal justice system to reduce delays. That is the whole thrust, whether it is the prosecution, the Lord Chancellor's Department, judges or the police. Everybody is agitated about delay. It is bad news for the defendant and for victims. It is bad news for the whole criminal justice system and gives it a bad name, and everybody thinks, ''What on earth are they doing talking about a case that happened two years ago?'' Everybody realises that it is a very bad thing.

The prosecution right of appeal slows down a case. That is inevitable. It is allowing something to happen right in the middle of a case that cannot happen at present. Our view is that it is important and in the interests of justice not to have a judge's ruling that finishes off a case, which should have been able to be tried and put to the jury. That is unsatisfactory for the victim and very unsatisfactory for public confidence in the criminal justice system.

The points about delay are well made, but we should not allow them to override what we are trying to do. The hon. Member for Woking is probably trying to say that he agrees with the principle, but in order to make it not cause the delay, he is saying, ''Please put a time limit in the Bill.'' However, we have decided to do that by way of the court rules. That is why I have set out the rudimentary chart, although the timings are not rudimentary, because they have already been discussed between the prosecutors, the

court and the Court of Appeal. The chart is by way of my assurance. We have not written it into the Bill. I ask the Committee to reject the hon. Member for Woking's amendment and not write it into the Bill. However, I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept the assurance that when he says, ''These things need to be done overnight,'' that is exactly what is intended to happen. Even when the prosecution say that they would like an adjournment to consider whether the case will come back the next day and notify the court that they intend to appeal, at that point the Crown court officials will check with the Court of Appeal registrar. They will find out what the situation is and when the Court of Appeal might be able to hear the appeal. The next day, when the prosecutor returns and says, ''Yes, I do intend to appeal,'' the judge will have the information about how long it would take to go up to the Court of Appeal. They can then say, ''We should try to expedite this,'' or ''We cannot go.''

It is envisaged that on day one the judge will say that he or she is minded to give the ruling. Things will then swing into action. Overnight, the CPS will have to make high-level decisions. On day two it will become clear whether an appeal will happen, and the Court of Appeal will decide whether it is expedited. In an expedited case, the intention is that it will take place within a few days.

Let me say two things. First, I have been assured that that is the agreement that has been reached about how it should be done. That assurance has not been plucked out of the air, and an awful lot of work has been done on how it could be organised. Secondly, the reason why I can give the assurance is not only that everybody has been working on it, but that everybody is very determined to cut down the existing delays, and certainly not to allow new ones to burgeon.

Let me give the hon. Gentleman some helpful information about numbers. The Law Commission looked at the numbers issue. They looked at it by way of judges' rulings that gave rise to successful defence appeals in the Court of Appeal. We have looked at what the Law Commission has said about numbers and have made our own assessment. We concluded that—I will give the relevant chart to hon. Members, or write to them—annually, the total estimated number of appeals will be between 100 and 150, of which non-expedited cases will be 80 to 120 and expedited ones 20 to 30. That is the order of magnitude. I would hate to think that non-expedited cases were lolling about in a no man's land. Perhaps ''non-expedited'' is not the right word, because it implies a lack of urgency. However, in spirit, they all need to be on the front foot. Expedited is the fast track, but we do not want the non-fast track to be slow. Those are the numbers. People who have gone through this with a great deal of care believe that the timings that I have set out could be put into the court rules, ensuring that delay—we are all enemies of delay—will not be caused by this important change, which is a matter of principle. Delay causes a great loss of confidence in the criminal justice system.

I can see that the hon. Gentleman is girding his loins for an onslaught, by way of a vote on his amendment. I put it to him that we do not want to be

too rigid. It may well be that there are some cases in which a two-day delay is entirely reasonable. In principle, the right of the prosecution appeal is important enough not to have a primary legislation ruling. We would have to write it into the Bill that it would be possible to apply out of time, otherwise it would just be daft. Instead of writing one day to apply out of time into the Bill, why not have court rules in order to do it in one day? That is how we intend to proceed.

I ask the hon. Gentleman not to insist on his amendment, on the basis of my assurance.

The Solicitor-General is doing her best with a poor set of cards. Sometimes one is dealt a strong hand at bridge, and sometimes not, and she has not been dealt a strong hand in this case. It is not her fault, but she is unable to deal with the issues that have been raised, not least the good point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere, who asked her what was meant by the phrase,

''following the making of the ruling''.

How soon is soon? What is ''following a ruling''? We simply have not heard. It is not the Minister's fault but, as the Government have already tabled hundreds of amendments to the Bill, she might have tabled another to make the Clause read, ''immediately following the making of the ruling''. We would then have known. As it is, the Bill gives the prosecution an absolute right to appeal against a ruling if, following the ruling, it tells the court that it intends to appeal.

What if a barrister goes home on a Thursday—let us say that the court is not sitting on Friday, for one reason or another—and then says to the judge next Monday or Tuesday, ''I have been thinking about this matter, your honour, and I have decided to appeal''? The judge might say, ''Well, that was three days ago.'' ''Yes,'' says the barrister, ''but I am just working according to the statute, your honour.'' The judge is then shown the statute, and the barrister says, ''It simply says that I have to tell you that I intend to appeal following the making of the ruling. It doesn't say how soon after. That's why I've left it for three days and have thought about it.'' The Minister has not dealt with that point, and that is very unsatisfactory.

The Minister says that everyone has been working on the clause, and mentions that agreements have been reached and that the Law Commission has been making assessments. I dare say that many people have been working on the clause, but I suspect that they are all from the Home Office team, and I do not suppose that they have been to the Crown courts and discussed nuts and bolts with the listing clerk, the senior clerk and the deputy clerk.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it follows from what we have heard that most of the cases will be non-expedited? In most, if not all, of those non-expedited cases, the jury presumably will be discharged, and all the time spent by a court hearing evidence after the judge has made his ruling but before the prosecution imparts its intention to make an appeal will be wasted. Meanwhile, costs will run up.

Yes. My hon. Friend again hits on a point that the Minister will not find it easy to deal with. He rightly suggests, and the Minister accepts, that the Majority of the cases—possibly four out of five—will be non-expedited.

I am sorry to cut the hon. Gentleman off in the middle of his answer to the Intervention of the hon. Member for Hertsmere. The hon. Member for Woking suggests that the time limits that I have given, which are the basis of my assurance to the Committee, were dreamt up in a Home Office ivory tower. He suggests that everyone will know or think it plain common sense that the limits mean absolutely nothing and are not based on anything.

I reassure the hon. Member for Woking that it has been valuable for the Home Office to be involved in discussions about the timings, but there has also been detailed discussion between the prosecutors and the courts. The provisions have been thought through at a front-line level. The people on the ground think that the provision is workable. Perhaps I might ask the hon. Gentleman to acknowledge that, as this is an intervention.

I accept what the Minister says, but it is a fanciful thought that Crown court staff across the country think that the provision will be at all workable. I am distressed that 80 per cent.—four fifths—of appeals are likely to be non-expedited, because as far as I can make out, we have no idea how long a non-expedited appeal will take. The amended chart implies that, in the case of an expedited hearing to the court of appeal, the whole matter will be dealt with in a week or even less. However, the chart does not deal with non-expedited matters at all. Might not non-expedited cases take much longer?

May I respond to the hon. Gentleman's point by saying that the interlocutory appeal was developed at the instigation of the senior judiciary and in consultation with them. This is not an ivory tower job. The hon. Gentleman may think that it will not work, but everyone else hopes and expects that it will.

I sometimes think that the senior judiciary live in ivory towers; they seem not to know where Kingston Crown court is, never mind the dross that we have to try when we sit there. They might well have crafted a few thoughts, but nuts and bolts problems remain, and I think that the Minister has accepted that.

Does my hon. Friend share my curiosity at whether, after all the deliberations and consultations with practitioners, ''following'' in 51(3)(a) means before any other evidence is heard, or whether it would allow an application to be made after further evidence has been heard? If that is the case, at what point after such evidence has been heard? That time may be wasted.

My hon. Friend puts in different words a point that he made earlier; what does ''following'' mean? Does it mean immediately following? What can be heard and what time will be wasted? The Minister must recognise that these are real concerns.

The Minister must also accept that discharging a jury will be very expensive. The Minister seemed to be saying that in expedited cases the jury would be more likely to be discharged—[Interruption.] It is the other way around, is it? I am extremely glad to hear that because in non-expedited cases it would be ludicrous to anticipate the same jury remaining to hear cases. They will simply not be around for another three, four or six weeks.

Months.

Months, even.

My reading of Clause 53(2) on expedited appeals is that the judge has discretion only to adjourn rather than discharge the jury. It poses the question of what happens if an expedited appeal is subsequently appealed to the House of Lords under the later provision. Will the judge still have the discretion to discharge the jury? If not, an empanelled jury could hang around for ever.

That is another extremely good question to which we have not received an answer. We on this side of the Committee are trying to stimulate a debate and to tease out—to use a favourite phrase of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere—from the Government just what they mean by these clauses. It is scandalous that we are not told this afternoon how long it is envisaged before a non-expedited hearing takes place. When my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere mutters ''months'', I fear that he is close to the mark. It is because the Government have been unable to give any satisfactory answers that we are testing the water, and I have my troops at the ready. If Committee members have been listening carefully to the arguments, I know how they will vote.

I admitted straight away that my Amendment is badly drafted. However, I put it before the Committee to inject a little urgency into the debate, so I shall put amendment No. 987 to the vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendments made: No. 945, in

clause 51, page 33, line 4, at end insert—

'(4A) Where the ruling relates to two or more offences—

(a) any one or more of those offences may be the subject of the appeal, and

(b) if the prosecution informs the court in accordance with subsection (3) that it intends to appeal, it must at the same

time inform the court of the offence or offences which are the subject of the appeal.'.

No. 946, in

clause 51, page 33, line 6, after 'effect' insert

'in relation to the offence or offences which are the subject of the appeal'.

No. 947, in

clause 51, page 33, line 8, leave out 'Where' and insert

'If and to the extent that'.—[Ms Harman.]

Clause 51, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.