Issue 460  25th July 2026

Andy Burnham has become the first Labour prime minister to appoint a non-lawyer to the post of lord chancellor. Alex Norris MP is a former trade union official who was elected to parliament for Nottingham North in 2017. Under Sir Keir Starmer he served as minister for border security and asylum in the Home Office. Meanwhile Ellie Reeves KC MP was named as attorney general, a promotion from her role as solicitor general under Starmer. The appointments follow yesterday's dismissal of David Lammy and Lord Hermer following Burnham's assumption of office...

The new lord chancellor and justice secretary had barely got his feet under his desk before being embroiled in a row over early prison releases. Alex Norris MP was told by the prime minister yesterday to pause the scheme designed to address prison overcrowding ‘until we have conducted an urgent review and done everything we can to minimise risk to the public’. The prisons minister responsible for the policy, Lord Timpson (James Timpson), resigned from the government on Monday, ahead of Andy Burnham becoming prime minister.

Another key issue for Norris will be the curbs on jury trials planned by predecessor David Lammy. In a statement shortly after taking up the justice brief, Norris said his priorities would be to deliver swifter justice and safer communities. ‘That means we must reduce the court backlog so that victims see justice more quickly, while playing our full part in tackling violence against women and girls. We must also restore confidence in our prisons and probation system, so that there is always space for the most dangerous offenders and the public is protected from harm.’

Last December, Norris, then a Home Office minister, defended Lammy’s plans. In a newsletter article he accused critics of making ‘exaggerated claims’ about the reforms. ‘In reality, only 3% of trials that take place in Britain are heard by juries – these proposed changes wouldn’t even reduce that number to 2%,’ he wrote. ‘We cannot allow squeamishness about reforming the system to stand in the way of… justice.’ Sceptics about the need to curb jury trials may have an ally in the new solicitor general, Andy Slaughter MP. As chair of the Commons justice committee, Slaughter last year called on Lammy to produce ‘clear evidence’ on why curbs on jury trials are necessary ‘and why that does not offend our system of justice, of which we are all still very proud’.

Andy Burnham has announced he is pausing a scheme which would have seen thousands of prisoners in England and Wales eligible to be released early. It came after criticism of the scheme from survivors and victims' families, including the widow of PC Andrew Harper who described the possibility of his killers' early release as "deplorable". The Sentencing Act, which was due to come into effect in September, would have seen some offenders let out at varying stages in a bid to ease prison overcrowding. The new Justice Secretary Alex Norris said the pause aimed to "give victims and survivors certainty" and the government wanted to make sure it got "the implementation of this policy right". He added a review would also look at the information given to survivors and victims' families as part of the early release process...

Under the act, some offenders would have been let out after serving a third of their sentence, rather than half. The rest of their sentence would be spent in the community, where they would be monitored and could be returned to prison if they offended again. More serious offenders would have been released after serving half of their sentence, rather than two-thirds. The policy was brought in to ease overcrowding in the prison system but has been criticised by opposition parties, as well as victims and their families. The scheme would have seen around 700 prisoners released in early September, the BBC understands...

A grant of up to £3.62 million is available for the contractor to take over the seven-year-old programme to nurture law tech developments, the Ministry of Justice has announced. A central aim of the investment is to spread the benefits of technology more widely. LawtechUK, set up in 2019, aims to support innovation in legal services by accelerating the development and adoption of digital technology. 'It also supports the government’s ambition to maintain the UK’s position as a world-leading legal centre by promoting innovation, improving access to legal services and strengthening the international competitiveness of English and Welsh law,' the MoJ said. As well as nurturing technology start-ups its activities include supporting the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce, chaired by the master of the rolls. 

The programme's current phase, run by contractors Legal Geek and CodeBase, had been due to end in March but received a six-month extension earlier this year when the government announced £4.5m of new funding. Phase three of the programme, for which 'up to £3.62m' is available, will run from November 2026 to March 2029... According to the announcement, the government is 'particularly interested in how this programme can help ensure that the benefits of technological change are shared more widely'. This includes supporting smaller legal service providers while helping to improve access to legal services and reduce unmet legal need...