Courts and Tribunals (Judiciary and Functions of Staff) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-06-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Howard Emerson Flight (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the Bill seeks to make reforms to the rules regarding the deployment of judges and to provide for the undertaking of some judicial functions by HM Courts and Tribunals Service professional staff. It contains three substantive clauses and one schedule. Clause 1 changes existing legislation to remove restrictions on how judges can be deployed, Clause 2 makes minor changes to the law concerning some judicial titles, and Clause 3 and the Schedule provide for court and tribunal staff to carry out some judicial functions and provide legal advice to judges. They would establish a unified system for the judicial oversight of staff carrying out those tasks across the various jurisdictions The changes are part of an ongoing programme of reform of the Courts and Tribunals Service and comprise some of the provisions previously in the Prisons and Courts Bill, which was dropped due to the calling of the 2017 election. But the Bill does not make much progress towards the logical solution of what is needed: establishing a dedicated housing court. The Bill has been criticised in Parliament and the press for including only some of the proposed reforms, and especially for failing to advance the use of online technology. In a recent report on the private rental sector, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee agreed that, "A specialist housing court would provide a more accessible route to redress for tenants", and urged the Government to issue "more detailed proposals" as soon as possible I had intended to table an amendment to give the Lord Chancellor the necessary powers to bring a single unified housing court into being, but apparently this has been ruled outside the scope of what is a two-topic Bill, although I would have thought it was the logical conclusion of those two topics. Anyway, it was intended to deal with business that relates to residential tenancies, which are currently split among the county courts, the First-tier Tribunal Property Chamber, the First-tier Tribunal General Regulatory Chamber, the Upper Tribunal and the magistrates’ courts. The intent was to make such a court modern in outlook, using online processes as far as possible and sitting flexibly according to needs In a speech in May, Sir Geoffrey Vos, Chancellor of the High Court, outlined the problem of there being multiple bodies that can be approached when things go wrong between landlord and tenant: "Property legislation in recent years has bifurcated the responsibility for determining specific property disputes in numerous areas between the courts and the tribunals, such that in a significant number of cases, the parties have no choice but to engage in both types of proceeding. This increases the costs, causes additional delay, and in some cases, stress and frustration associated with an illogical judicial process. … But the great prize nonetheless remains an absence of duplication – in the modern jargon – a one-stop shop. For my part, I think a rationalisation of how we resolve disputes is overdue" The Residential Landlords Association has found that there are over 140 Acts of Parliament containing more than 400 regulations affecting the private rental sector. A landlord or tenant can go to one of two tribunals, the county courts, the High Court or the magistrates’ court to uphold their rights, depending on what their specific complaint is. In some cases, there is a need to go to more than one of these bodies. The Government propose, moreover, to increase the complexity with a further body, a new PRS housing ombudsman. It takes an average of 22 weeks to regain possession of property where a tenant is not paying their rent or is committing anti-social behaviour. I understand that average figure is from housing association and individual situations When Sajid Javid was CLG Secretary, in his speech to the Conservative Party conference last October, he pledged to look at establishing a new housing court as called for by the Residential Landlords Association, "so that we can get faster, more effective justice" Since then, there has been little discernible action The Residential Landlords Association believes that the most efficient way of developing plans for the new court would be to build on the work of the existing First-tier Tribunal Property Chamber. The advantages of this would include: capitalising on the large number of cases decided on paper by the tribunal, making the process easier to access; using the mediation and enhanced alternative dispute resolution procedures the tribunal operates; enabling the use of the tribunal’s in-house surveyors and inspectors and thereby saving costs; and being able to integrate with and take full advantage of the new online court, so the majority of records could be dealt with online. The more informal operation of the tribunal should make it less daunting for tenants and landlords. The tribunal currently holds hearings in local public buildings, making it physically easier to access. The tribunal tends not to award legal costs where there would be advantages if the current cost-limited model were retained I had hoped the amendment, which I am not able to table, would be a useful probing amendment to explore how and in what timeframe the Government plan to progress with establishing a dedicated housing court, which is much needed.