UK Parliament / Open data

Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Proceeding contribution from David Lammy (Labour) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 26 October 2021. It occurred during Debate on bills on Judicial Review and Courts Bill.

The right hon. Gentleman makes his point very well. He is absolutely right. In each of the cases that I mentioned, judicial review was able to correct a wrong decision by the upper tribunal and enable fundamental injustices to be prevented, as he indicates. If the Government were successful in abolishing Cart, that crucial safeguard would be lost. That would not affect anyone in this Chamber, but it would affect very vulnerable people. Again, one must ask why the Government are attempting to make this change, and why they are using legislative time now to do it.

When the panel that the Government set up to look at these issues first recommended abolishing Cart judicial reviews, it did so on the basis that only 0.22% of them were successful and that public money could be better spent elsewhere. We know now that that figure was based on wholly inaccurate data. Even the Government now accept that the success rate is likely to be at least 15 times as high as previously thought. It is indefensible for the Government to base decisions that could make the difference between life and death on evidence that is so hopelessly flawed.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

702 c199 

Session

2021-22

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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