My Lords, I always read the noble Lord’s speeches carefully and I am certainly willing to do so on this occasion. I am grateful to the Minister for his reply, and I suspect that this short debate will be seen as something of an aperitif for the rather more weighty matters that we are about to discuss when the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, moves his prayers to annul two other orders.
The Minister fails to acknowledge, however, that a negative procedure might be sufficient when one is dealing with a stable situation, but the Government are here proposing an entirely new basis for the levying of fees: in the first place, to ensure full-cost recovery, but, more significantly, potentially going beyond that to ensure more than full-cost recovery. That puts a whole different perspective on the likely impact of fees
on litigants or applicants to tribunals. In these circumstances, a different procedure than the conventional negative procedure is required, at least in the early stages. This is a matter to which we may wish to return on Report.
The consultation effectively comes after the completion of the process of enacting this Bill, which will allow the Government to introduce new principles. It is the wrong way around: the consultation should have taken place and we should have had the result of that before we discussed this clause, which makes a significant difference to the way our courts operate. It is now too late for that to happen and that is a matter of regret. I am afraid that I do not resile for a moment from the criticisms I made, not of the Minister, who is not personally responsible—he is well aware of that—but of others occupying, perhaps, more senior positions, who ought to reflect on the way they are treating Parliament and its due processes when they push forward proposals of this kind in this way. Nevertheless, in the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.