Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Alexander Carlile (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am very grateful to those who have intervened in this debate. I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord German, who has had the courage to climb on to the head of the pin occupied by a number of broad-shouldered and big-elbowed lawyers. He made some very good points in doing so, particularly his straightforward point about the gatekeeping role that we say in this amendment should be carried out by the High Court I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. I was around in the other place in the heady days when he was a Minister at the Home Office. I suspect that his experience of the Home Office as he described it was as instructive as such experience would be today. What is required in these cases is a clear exercise of judgment before they reach the Parole Board, fully expressed and in a justiciable way. A lot has been said about the adequacy of reasons in relation to this issue. I think we are all agreed—certainly, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the Minister agreed—that we are concerned about the adequacy of reasons I am puzzled by what the Minister said about the utility of judicial review in these cases. He knows—all those of us who have been in judicial review cases, and some of us have been judges in them, know—that the test of judicial review is not an ordinary merits test; it is not a test of what is right. The test in judicial review, if you are to win, is: would no reasonable Minister have made this decision? It is quite different from the test on the merits which would be applied by the High Court. I will say a word in a moment in answer to points that have been made about the High Court. I say to those who have suggested that judicial review is an adequate remedy—of course, it is a possible remedy—that it does not fit the bill because it does not mean that there will be a merits test with the adequacy of reasons that has been discussed The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is an absolutely excellent and much-admired advocate, at least by me, but like other great advocates is sometimes wrong, and I venture to suggest that he may have been wrong on this occasion. What this amendment argues for is two quite different stages which are carried out without the intervention of the Executive, save to refer a case. The High Court makes the first assessment. I take what was said by the noble Viscount on drafting as something that needs to be considered, so I will just use the present tense: is there a risk that there is a danger of a particular sort? If so, the case is referred to the Parole Board. That is a decision based on the evidence, on merits, after a proper hearing. It goes to the Parole Board and a quite different assessment is made, which is the one the Parole Board expertly carries out all the time and is about release provisions—whether a person should be released or detained in custody It has been an interesting debate and I will reflect on what has been said. I will of course reflect on the comments made by the Minister. I am grateful to him for analysis, which naturally merits further thought, but for the time being I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.