New Bar Chair sets 2026 priorities on jury trials, legal aid investment and children in justice
The new Chair of the Bar, Kirsty Brimelow KC, has set out her priorities for 2026, placing jury trials, legal aid and children in the justice system at the centre of her agenda.
In her inaugural address at Gray’s Inn on Monday 12 January, Brimelow said she would focus first on tackling what she described as a crisis in the criminal courts and the legally aided Bar. She said she was working “hand in hand with Circuit Leaders and the Criminal Bar Association” as part of that effort.
Brimelow said she is leading the Bar Council’s stance against government proposals to reduce jury trials, describing the opposition as both “principled and pragmatic”. She argued that jury trials carry deep constitutional importance and referenced the 1670 case involving Edward Bushel and fellow jurors who refused to convict the Quakers Penn and Mead.
She said there is “much to do” to recover the criminal justice system and argued that restricting jury trials would not reduce the case backlog, which she said had built up over years of financial “slash and burn” in the criminal justice system. She added that such proposals could erode trust, which she said relies on citizen participation in criminal courts.
Brimelow also questioned the practical impact of reducing jury trials, saying any changes would take effect towards the end of the current Parliament and that the impact remained uncertain. She said the focus should instead be on reforms that could reduce the backlog sooner, including intense case management and proactive triaging of cases led by the CPS and police. She also called for opening courts that continue to sit empty by removing the cap on sitting days.
She raised concerns about delays linked to prisoner transport contracts, saying hours are lost each day due to prisoners not being brought to court on time, and then not being taken into the dock because of a lack of staff. She said the combined value of the two contracts for north and south is nearly £1.4 billion, with an annual cost of around £138 million.
On legal aid, Brimelow said legal aid is “back in sharp focus” in 2026 and pledged to focus on investment across jurisdictions. She said properly resourcing the publicly funded Bar remains central to legally aided work and argued that legal aid should be placed alongside the NHS and education as essential to equality before the law.
She said the number of barristers receiving at least 80% of their income from criminal legal aid fell by 11% from 2017/2018 to 2020/2021 but returned to 2017/2018 levels following investment in 2022. However, she said the number of KCs receiving at least 80% of their income from legal aid, or predominantly practising in crime, has fallen by a quarter.
Brimelow also highlighted a decline in civil and family legal aid work, saying it has been 30 years since any meaningful increase to civil legal aid rates and describing the position as unsustainable.
On children in the justice system, she said she has set up a working group to consider increasing the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales from 10.