Fraud Bill [HL]

My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord sits down, I had understood, until the latter part of his speech, that his main objection to the existence of juries in complex fraud trials was the consequence for their existence of the length of those trials; in other words, if we remove juries, trials will be shorter. But towards the end of the noble and learned Lord’s speech, he seemed to indicate a different motive. He seemed to suggest that evidence could be brought before a single judge which could not be brought before a jury; in other words, evidence that would be admissible before a single judge would be inadmissible before a jury—I am interpreting what the noble and learned Lord said and I want to be clear about it—and the consequence of that would be a greater conviction rate in fraud trials.