Transfer of Tribunal Functions and Revenue and Customs Appeals Order 2009

My Lords, declaring yet again my interest as current chair of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council and the chair of the former Council on Tribunals, I rise to intervene—I hope quite briefly—to express my support for the order in front of your Lordships' House. I am glad to note in passing that there appears to be less obvious sign of difficulty and controversy than on the previous occasion when the Minister and I were discussing tribunal reform matters in this Chamber not so very long ago. The old Council on Tribunals had deep reservations about the system of the general commissioners. In 1987-88, long before my time, it published a report which was sternly critical of the system, particularly on grounds concerned with the organisation, administration and training of the commissioners and the extent to which they were identified in taxpayers’ minds with the Revenue. That was of course a long while ago. I acknowledge that great strides have been made since then in improving the work and, not least, the training of the general commissioners. However, the council that I chair supported the general thrust of various reports of the Institute for Fiscal Studies in the late 1990s which advocated a unified tax tribunal system dealing with both indirect and direct taxes, reports which—crucially, as my noble friend has observed—were then followed a few years later, in 2001, by the Leggatt report, Tribunals for Users. That report advocated reform on similar lines as part of proposals for wider tribunals reform. I should make it clear that the council and to a significant extent I as its chair have been substantially involved in subsequent years. We were involved in what was then the Lord Chancellor’s Department’s tax appeal reform project, which was subsumed in March 2003 in the work to take forward that wider post-Leggatt plan for reform which has been discussed in your Lordships' House on a number of occasions. We have had continuing involvement. I as chair have sat with observer status on both the modernisation project board and the associated stakeholder group in the intervening period. I should also say to the noble Baroness and others on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, and to my noble friend who referred to the procedural rules committee, that we are statutorily represented—I think that it is my name is on the piece of paper, but I do not do all the work—on the Tribunal Procedure Committee, which is drawing up the rules for the proposed new system. I make no secret of the fact that although one can find points of imperfection in the proposals, as there are in most proposals from most Governments in my experience, I and the council see clear benefits to users of a single tribunal structure with expert membership which is much more clearly independent of HMRC than in the current set-up, dealing with appeals in respect of direct and indirect tax. We also see—I shall listen with interest to the answers to some of the questions that have been raised—clear benefit to users of a single system of optional statutory review of decisions by HMRC along the lines proposed. Overall, the proposal is a worthwhile ingredient in the whole package of tribunal modernisation and reform which is now very well advanced. There are obviously concerns. Concerns have been expressed about the disappearance of so many lay or non-legal members, though we are pleased to see at least some part for non-legal members in the new set-up. As my noble friend and the noble Baroness from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench observed, there is some concern also about venues in the light of these changes. The council that I chair will want to monitor the effects of that in the interests of the public. One matter has not been adverted to. With the declining workload of the general commissioners following the introduction of self-assessment, there must be real questions about whether the present system would have been sustainable in the long term anyway with or without so many venues; and certainly the existing system would not have required so many commissioners. There are points like that which we all need to keep an eye on. I shall listen with interest, too, to the Minister’s comments on the points raised by my noble friend from the Front Bench about the working of the arrangements with regard to tax credits. Broadly, these proposals should have the House’s support. This has been a particularly complex part of the whole process of tribunal reform. It is appropriate to pay tribute to some of those who have been involved: first, the officials who started off at the Lord Chancellor’s Department, which became the Department for Constitutional Affairs and is now the Ministry of Justice, who have slogged away under all those hats on these proposals. Some of them may even be able to hear what I am saying at this moment. I think that they have done it very well. HMRC’s officials have also played a very constructive role. One thing that has been a pleasure has been the good working relationship that has developed between HMRC officials and MoJ officials, often starting with somewhat different perspectives. Tribute should be paid to Sir Stephen Oliver, who has led for the senior judiciary at the present tax tribunals, and not least to the National Association of General Commissioners, currently chaired by Henry Russell, and the clerks. They have been in the position of turkeys looking at Christmas, and although it cannot be said that they have voted with enthusiasm for Christmas, they have worked to make sure that it is an orderly celebration and an orderly translation of one system to the other. Finally, echoing something that my noble friend said, it would not be right for this order to pass without expressing the thanks of all of us in public service for the work of those many men and women who have given voluntary public service as general commissioners over many years. They are rightly proud of the contribution that they have made, even as the world moves on to a system which, overall, will be better than the one that we are leaving behind.