Lammy on trial over plans to scrap juries
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 December 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today we’re going to be talking about David Lammy, and his brand new plans to drastically reduce the number of jury trials in the UK in an attempt to address the backlog. With the backlog of cases due to be heard in courts already at 78,000, and heading for 100,000, the Justice Secretary believes that only radical solutions can tackle the ‘courts emergency’. But is he being too radical? This comes on the same day that Lammy announced that 12 prisoners have been accidentally released in the last three weeks.
But first, the Budget fallout continues and there has been a resignation but – crucially – it’s not the Chancellor. After the OBR leaked the Budget early, its chairman Richard Hughes has taken the fall and resigned last night. Does this ease or increase the pressure on Rachel Reeves?
Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Isabel Hardman.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:36.2 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator' Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Oskreibinson, |
| 0:41.1 | and I'm joined today by James Hill and Isabel Hartman. And we're going to be talking about David |
| 0:45.3 | Lamy and his brand new plans to drastically reduce the number of jury trials in the UK in an attempt |
| 0:50.1 | to address the backlog. But first, the budget fallout continues, and there has been a |
| 0:55.8 | resignation at one of the UK's most hallowed economic institutions. Who is it, James? |
| 1:01.7 | It's not Richard Reeves. So that, the time of recording. Yeah, I've got Richard Hughes. |
| 1:05.4 | Last night, around 445 announced resignation. Cue the quips, he was meant to send it an hour |
| 1:10.7 | later. But look, I mean, |
| 1:12.5 | this was all about the budget leak that occurred last Wednesday, ironically after perhaps the most |
| 1:17.3 | leaked budget in history, and thereafter the recriminations. And really, I mean, there are some |
| 1:22.0 | reports which suggest the budget league was one thing, but that was very much sort of the excuse. |
| 1:26.3 | And that actually the decision of the OBR to release on Friday a breakdown of what it had told the |
| 1:31.8 | chancellor and when in the weeks before the budget is what I actually did for which it |
| 1:36.1 | is, but very respected senior civil servant had read the OBR for five years, said in his letter |
| 1:41.2 | that he loved leading the OPR, but he had responsibility. And I think |
| 1:45.9 | it seemed by most people in Westminster and Whitehall as quite a principal resignation. But I think |
| 1:50.3 | that the reason why was because ultimately relations between the Treasury and the OBR had broken |
| 1:54.8 | down. And this morning we've had a Treasury Select Committee hearing where it was meant to be, |
| 2:00.5 | of course, Richard Hughes, but now left the scene, actually, other OBR officials. |
... |
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