Civil Proceedings, First-tier Tribunal, Upper Tribunal and Employment Tribunals Fees (Amendment) Order 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-07-20
Topic: Law and Crime
David Pannick (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, our new Lord Chancellor needs urgently to address the level of fees for access to courts and tribunals, for all the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and in all the other speeches that the House has heard, after the speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, I welcome Liz Truss to her new role as Lord Chancellor. It is an important role. She has a statutory duty to protect the rule of law The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, mentioned that Liz Truss is a woman and expressed concern that that may have provoked some of the hostility. I should point out that, contrary to reports, Liz Truss is not the first female Lord Chancellor. Lord Campbell, in his 19th century Lives of the Lord Chancellors, included Queen Eleanor, wife of Henry III. In 1253, in the king’s absence abroad, Eleanor performed all the duties of the office, judicial as well as administrative, for the best part of a year. No doubt a 13th century Lord Falconer complained that Eleanor had not been trained as a lawyer and that she had not previously served as a senior Cabinet Minister. I am prepared to see how Liz Truss performs in her office before criticising her—or indeed criticising the Prime Minister for appointing her. The new Lord Chancellor’s attitude to court fees will for me be an important test of her commitment to the rule of law Like my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, I have appeared in previous debates on this subject. I do not have his complete record of attendance, but I have appeared on a number of these occasions in support of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I have explained repeatedly my concern about the Government’s policy on fees for courts and tribunals. It is a very simple matter. The high levels at which fees are set undoubtedly impede access to justice for legitimate claims. It is as simple as that; potential claimants cannot afford to vindicate their rights. The inevitable consequence is that debtors and rogue employers are encouraged not to meet their obligations because they know that they will not be taken to court or to the employment tribunal It is not appropriate for the Lord Chancellor of this country to stand in the doorway of the Royal Courts of Justice or of the employment tribunal and say to those who want to claim for unfair dismissal, or say to the small business person seeking to recover a debt, "You can’t come in unless you pay me a sum that greatly exceeds the cost of dealing with your case". I recognise that Parliament has given the Lord Chancellor the power to do precisely that, but I do not think that it is wise for a Lord Chancellor to exercise that power. I am certainly not persuaded by the creative argument of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, that the fee increases promote access to justice. That is a quite remarkable argument that your Lordships have heard this evening I am particularly concerned by the contents of the report published by the House of Commons Justice Committee on 14 June, entitled Courts and Tribunals Fees, HC 167. It is a remarkable document, and I have these questions for the Minister based on that report. First—and I echo the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, in this first question—does the Minister accept the principle stated by the Justice Committee in paragraph 46 of its report: "Where there is conflict between the objectives of achieving cost-recovery and preserving access to justice, the latter objective must prevail" Does he accept that Secondly, does the noble and learned Lord accept the conclusion of the Justice Committee at paragraph 50 of its report that the senior judiciary was correct in its evidence to the Ministry of Justice that the research conducted by the ministry before formulating its policy on court and tribunal fees was inadequate to justify the ministry’s proposals Thirdly, does the Minister accept the Justice Committee’s conclusions at paragraphs 58, 59 and 79 of the report that it is "unacceptable"—its word—that the committee was "strung along"—again, the committee’s words—by the Government’s refusal to publish its own review findings on the impact of employment tribunal fees, and that those findings must be published now without any further delay? I have to say to the Minister that the Government’s conduct in not publishing review findings that they obtained several months ago on a matter of considerable importance is quite disgraceful. Will the Minister apologise on behalf of the Ministry It has been traditional in these regular debates on this subject—regular debates on the injustices perpetrated by a Ministry of Justice—for noble Lords to have the pleasure, and it has been a real pleasure, to listen to the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, in defence of the Government’s position. I am very pleased to see him, although he is not in his usual place but in his new place on the Conservative Benches. Your Lordships know that the noble Lord resigned last Thursday. All of us at the Bar have had the irregular experience of being asked to present hopeless cases. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, did that with charm, good humour and sensitivity several times a month. We will all miss him in his role as the acceptable face of the Ministry of Justice—as Chris Grayling’s and Michael Gove’s representative on earth, in the real world, where small businesses seek to recover debts and unscrupulous employers evade their duty to make redundancy payments. For every unjust policy that the noble Lord had to defend in this House, I suspect that there were at least three other impossible policies that he had refused to believe in and fought off before breakfast every day The Government are very fortunate still to have the services of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, but I suspect that even his skills of advocacy will be severely tested by the brief that he has inherited this evening. I shall listen very carefully to his defence of government policy before deciding whether to support the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in the Lobbies should he decide to divide the House.