Courts and Tribunals (Judiciary and Functions of Staff) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-12-12
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I hope I shall make a better stab at my speech than I did of being a Teller earlier I rise to oppose these amendments, tempted though I am by the way in which they were proposed by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), whom I respect as a fellow lawyer. However, I do have to say that she seeks to go further than is appropriate and seeks to put a needless restriction on the ability of the procedure committee in particular to come to the appropriate balance. I have very great respect for the views of both the Law Society and the Bar Council—I say that with reference to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a non-practising barrister and a consultant to a law firm—but ultimately the scheme envisaged by the Government is a right and balanced one, and reflects in particular the views of the senior judiciary, which I think is important because ultimately it is the judges who are best placed to decide the appropriate level of delegation. They are the people who work day to day with these staff; they see day to day the nature of the boxwork—as it is sometimes called—and the other things that come in For these reasons, when the matter was debated in the other place, both Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the recently retired Lord Chief Justice, to whom I have already referred, and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, recently retired president of the Supreme Court, counselled against an undue restriction on the operation of the civil procedure rule committee, already a well established body of the kind the Opposition seek to bring in. I think they also broadly supported the overall thrust of the Bill The hon. Lady referred to austerity. That is not the objective of this Bill; there has been a long-standing proposal to modernise the civil justice system. She referred to the work done by Lord Justice Briggs, for whom I have the greatest respect. The Bill is a logical follow-on from the Briggs report, and it is necessary if we are to achieve modernisation and make the courts more accessible for litigants. This is an entirely sensible Bill; that is why the judiciary has pushed for these sorts of proposals, and why Lord Thomas said that he "warmly" welcomed it. It will save some £6 million; he regards that as a realistic figure. That is important in the context of the available resources for the courts system. We all accept that the courts are under pressure, and this is a sensible way forward that does not impede the basic requirements of access to justice or fairness Lord Thomas said two further things that we should bear in mind. He spoke about the developments in civil procedures; the rule committee has been an important part of that over the last 15 to 20 years, so it is not as though the committee were unused to dealing with these matters. The committees bring together representatives of the legal profession. As a former practitioner, I agree with his description of that committee as "a highly representative body with many representatives of the legal profession. Certainly, the committee will always try to reach a view by consensus—when I was a member of it for more than six years there never was a division; we always managed to agree."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 June 2018; Vol. 791, c. 2039.] Most experienced practitioners will be aware of that. I think we can say the same of the criminal procedure rule committee; these are very well established bodies, and judges do not forget that they are judges when they are there It is a little unworthy, I say with respect, to suggest that the judiciary—we have talked about the senior judiciary chairing these bodies—would acquiesce in an inappropriate level of delegation for a purely financial consideration. They would be going against their judicial oaths. I do not think for one second that the hon. Lady really means to say that they would do that. The amendments would, however, put needless constraint on the committee’s work. That is why I quoted before and quote again Lord Thomas’s observation: "Experience has shown that detailed restrictions on procedure are a very real fetter on the administration of justice"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 June 2018; Vol. 791, c. 2039.] In the other place, he gave a number of examples that I need not give here showing why that could be counterproductive It is also worth considering the speech of Lord Neuberger. He pointed out the following: "There are two protected factors: one is that nothing can be done without it being in the rules, and the second is that the Lord Chief Justice needs to give his or her authorisation to the person who makes the decision." ."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 July 2018; Vol. 792, c. 887.] Those are important safeguards.