There is not a great deal that I can add to this highly polemical and very instructive debate, except this: I have prosecuted the worst of them and I have defended the worst of them, and I have gloried in the successes and suffered the defeats in that respect. I come here to defend the jury system only because it is part of us, not because it is anything else. It is part of us inasmuch as this Chamber is part of us. It brings together an enormously eclectic number of people in order to judge their fellow citizens. The idea that they are not capable of doing it is an insult to them and an insult to us. We are an extraordinarily eclectic group of people. The days when the squirearchy came here to sit on the Tory Benches and to patronise the representatives of organised labour on this side of the House are all gone. Of course, they have toffs on those Benches, and let me say straight away that we have toffs on our side as well.

We have become a glorious and eclectic mix of people and we trust ourselves to wrestle with the most profound, difficult and sometimes incomprehensible legislation. One message that I have is: for God's sake trust the jury system, which has served us for 800 years. The idea that juries do not understand the complexities of fraud trials is an insult to juries and an insult to those who have lived with them for 800 years. Nobody in the business or game would support that view. It is borne out by juries' high conviction rate; they know dishonesty and fraud when they see them.

Let us support the system that has served us so well, and stop, at this stage, any erosion of this great liberty that we have. There were those who said that we should do away with jury trial for the least serious offences, and we beat them back twice in the last Parliament. Now, they have come back and said that we should do that with the most serious offences. Had we lost last time, we would now be squeezing into 800 years of liberty a tiny section of criminal activity, which would be wholly unacceptable.

I want to finish on the question of jury nobbling. The jury is the strength of the system, not its weakness. It is almost impossible to corrupt 12 people, whether with money, bribery, threat or violence - that simply does not exist - but it is possible to corrupt, bribe or threaten one man. The great strength of our system is that it involves 12 people. In a very long life of crime - I used that phrase the other day as a joke, but the point is true - I have never known a jury to be corrupted or distorted to the extent that an unjust verdict was delivered. But if I were asked whether, if the Bill goes through, I could say that the prospect is that I will never see a single judge corrupted or bribed, I would describe that as myopia.

This country's glorious and wonderful system has been copied and adulated throughout the world. The House - on both sides - should resist with every sinew and vein of its body any attempt to erode what we have.