My Lords, the noble Baroness has opened our debate on the amendment with considerable eloquence and a beguiling argument. We have approached the question of whether an authorised member of staff needs to be a qualified lawyer of stipulated experience with an eye on what the extent of the delegated powers of authorised persons would be. In particular, the concern that I expressed in Committee was that the delegated powers should not extend to taking away a person’s liberty, or to ejecting a person from his or her family home, or the family from that home, or to granting an injunction or an order for preserving evidence, which can have far-reaching consequences, or authorise searches of private premises.
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It seemed to us that only a judge should have the power to take those serious steps, with the consequences that follow in relation to individual rights and freedoms. If the powers were to extend to any of those areas, it was abundantly clear that only a qualified lawyer of substantial experience should be entitled to exercise them.
However, in Amendments 5 and 12 in the next group, in the Minister’s name, which are in terms that we have sought and which we will support, the delegated judicial functions are to be restricted so as to exclude the removal of a person’s liberty, the making of possession orders in respect of a person’s home or a family home, or injunctions or orders for preserving evidence. In those circumstances, and given those amendments, we are not persuaded that it is necessary for the authorised person exercising the remaining powers—some of which are trivial, some minor and some of more substance—to be a qualified lawyer or one of particular experience.
We have concluded that we are content to rely on rules of court and delegation by the Senior President of Tribunals to ensure that authorised persons have qualifications that are commensurate with the tasks they are to undertake under their delegated powers. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, said in Committee:
“There will be many decisions where people with … requisite experience would be appropriate, but there will be others where less experience would be adequate for the decision-making.—[Official Report, 10/7/18; col. 882.]
It seems to us relevant that the purpose of this part of the legislation is to increase efficiency and—hopefully, and to everybody’s advantage—the speed of decision-making within the court and tribunal systems, while making some cost savings in so doing. Having a legislative requirement that all delegated decisions must be taken by qualified lawyers with a minimum experience requirement runs the risk of frustrating this objective. In spite of the noble Baroness’s eloquence, we will be abstaining on this amendment if she puts it to the vote.