Juries could be scrapped for all but the most serious crimes under new plans being considered by the Justice Secretary.

David Lammy has reportedly written a memo to ministers and senior civil servants to say there was ‘no right’ to jury trials in the UK.

Instead, he suggested that juries will only decide rape, murder, manslaughter and ‘public interest’ cases while ‘lower-tier’ offences would be heard by a judge, according to The Times.

He said action must be taken to cut the backlog of nearly 78,000 crown court cases in England and Wales. The government is yet to respond to recommendations made by Sir Brian Leveson in a review of how to reform the court system and cut the record-high crown court backlog.

Sir Brian’s recommended juries would be reserved to hear the most serious cases, w

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