Leveson's diversion package: accepted in December 2025, absent from the Courts and Tribunals Bill

The government accepted Leveson Part 1 as a blueprint in December 2025. The Courts and Tribunals Bill introduced on 25 February 2026 legislates the structural measures: removal of the right to elect jury trial, a judge-alone Crown Court Bench Division, a permission stage for appeals, and 24-month magistrates' sentencing powers. Recommendations 1 to 10, covering out-of-court resolutions, rehabilitation and health-intervention diversion, have no legislative vehicle and no ring-fenced funding, and the Lord Chancellor declined the early-guilty-plea reforms at second reading on 10 March 2026. The Bar Council tracker and the Justice Committee both flag that the demand-reduction half, which Leveson said was needed to make the structural half work, sits unfunded. The Bill also departs from what Leveson asked for. He recommended restricting election rather than removing it. He wanted the Bench Division to be a judge sitting with two magistrates, and magistrates' powers held at twelve months.

Leveson said the demand-reduction half was what made the structural half safe to attempt. The structural half is in Parliament and the diversion half has no vehicle and no money, so the backlog of roughly 80,200 cases is unlikely to fall as modelled. Jury trial rights are being curtailed on the strength of a package that is half implemented.

A statutory national framework for out-of-court resolutions, added by amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill or made under the two-tier framework in the PCSC Act 2022, funded by a ring-fenced multi-year diversion settlement at the next spending review. A published tracker would show each recommendation and its funding status.

// State-led: Instrument: Courts and Tribunals Bill amendment or PCSC 2022 secondary legislation plus spending-review fund; civil-society tracker is pressure, not the fill.

The Bill is in Parliament now legislating the structural half, and the diversion package it depends on still has no vehicle and no funding.