Civil Proceedings, First-tier Tribunal, Upper Tribunal and Employment Tribunals Fees (Amendment) Order 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-07-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Simon Denis Brown (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this is the third time the Lord Chancellor has exercised the power afforded by Section 180 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to prescribe what we all know now as enhanced court fees—fees which exceed the cost to the Courts & Tribunals Service of doing that for which the fee is being charged. On each occasion, the draft order has attracted, as today, a regret Motion in this House, and each time I have spoken to support that regret Motion. On the last occasion, on 15 March, I was the only speaker in the debate apart from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, who moved the regret Motion, and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who resisted it. Today, alas, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is no longer in his place, but we are of course lucky enough to have as his replacement the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, who is a personal friend—I hope I am allowed to say this—and indeed a neighbour That said, with a new Lord Chancellor now in office—one perhaps not overburdened with previous experience of issues concerning the rule of law and access to justice—I return briefly to some of the things I said about the earlier enhanced court fees orders. First, there is a real case to make for objecting even to the principle of full cost recovery. The justice system exists for the benefit of society as a whole, and one may reasonably question why courts should be any more liable to self-finance than, for example, the police service, the fire service or any other public service. But put that thought aside: enhanced fees go altogether further than mere full cost recovery, and are hugely more objectionable. By definition, they are calculated—in both senses—to make a profit. They amount, realistically, to selling justice—on the face of it, contrary, as we all know, to Magna Carta, but regrettably now sanctioned by Section 180 of the 2014 Act As I observed in earlier debates, that Christmas tree of an Act contains 186 sections and 11 schedules, and occupies no fewer than 232 pages of the Queen’s Printer’s copy of the legislation, so it was small wonder that by the time we got to Clause 180, our usually impeccable and meticulous scrutiny of legislation had perhaps become somewhat lax and careless. The Government seek to justify enhanced fees on the basis that they are needed, according to paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum for the previous order, "in order that access to justice is protected" But this rationale is, I suggest, entirely disingenuous, as it effectively turns that vital principle on its head. Of course Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service must be funded properly, so that it provides access to justice. But it manifestly does not follow that any part of that funding should be achieved by profiteering from certain selected parts of the service, least of all when that profiteering will hinder access to justice by discouraging at least some of those who would otherwise use these selected services Lord Dyson, Master of the Rolls, who retires next week—I express the hope here today that his courtesy title will be speedily translated into a full Cross-Bench peerage—in his oral evidence to the House of Commons Justice Committee on enhanced fees, emphasised that access to justice is the critical point here, and that, "ordinary people on modest incomes … will inevitably be deterred from litigating" As the Justice Committee concluded in paragraph 46 of its report, "the introduction of fees set at a level to recover or exceed the full cost of operation of the court requires particular care and strong justification. Where there is conflict between the objectives of achieving cost-recovery and preserving access to justice, the latter objective must prevail" How right it plainly is. As for the particular enhanced fees proposed by this order, I can find no "strong justification" for them, not by reference to the particular services for which it is proposed to exact them, still less by reference to the principle of access to justice. The order is indeed to be regretted. If the House is divided, I shall certainly support the amendment.