My Lords, I apologise to noble Lords for not being here for the opening speeches of this debate. I informed the Minister earlier today, and he was generous enough to accept that.
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hacking on his entertaining speech—I do not know whether we are calling it a maiden speech; I am new here, and it struck me that he made his maiden speech before I was born. I had not previously heard the term “Peeress”, so that was a new one. I do not have a hat, although I am very happy to explore the option of wearing a hat in the Chamber. I look forward to seeing him in a hat of his own in the future.
Unfortunately, we on these Benches do not agree with the Government on the need for many of the sweeping changes that they are proposing in the Bill.
Colleagues in the Commons tell me that the Ministers there worked collaboratively with us but, unfortunately, were unable, at those stages, to agree the changes that we had hoped to see and that, we maintain, would vastly improve the Bill.
I will be completely straightforward about it: we do not quite understand why changing the judicial review process is a government priority at this point. The Ministry of Justice is trying to fix something that is not broken, and, as my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said, judicial review is a vital protection, founded on the rule of law. The Government are doing this while failing to deal with issues that are a problem, such as the horrendous backlog in access to justice. We are concerned that the Government’s changes to judicial review could deter members of the public from bringing claims against public bodies, leaving many victims of unlawful actions without redress.
It is always interesting to think through how we get to places. An expert panel was set up to advise us, and we have heard from the leader of that process this evening. It seems to me that Ministers were not completely satisfied with the conclusions of that process. Many of us can detect that the reforms now proposed are not as far-reaching as initially heralded, and we wonder whether, in the near future, there is to be another Bill that the current Secretary of State will initiate. We sincerely hope that that will not be the case.
The proposals are based on figures that the Government have accepted are inaccurate in that they underestimate the number of successful cases. With the Government’s review of the Human Rights Act on the horizon, as others have referred to, this is only the latest proposal to make it harder for ordinary members of the public to hold public institutions to account.
Where the Bill deals with coroners, we are optimistic that reforms will help, but the Government have missed the opportunity, as the noble Lord, Lord Beith, observed, to take sufficient advantage that this Bill allows. Particularly, we want to return to the issue of support for bereaved families at inquests where the state is represented. At the moment it is not justice: it is justice denied, and we will be returning to this.
As we have heard, there are reservations—if I can put it that way—about the Bill. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, were to bring forward an amendment, as he outlined, we would be minded to support it.
The equalities statement that the Government very recently produced—it was only published after the conclusion of the Commons stages—states on page 5 that
“the removal of the Cart JR route is applied uniformly to any attempt to challenge a permission to appeal decisions of the tribunal, regardless of the subject matter at issue, the chamber of the First-tier Tribunal, from which the appeal originates or the protected characteristics of the claimant. We acknowledge, on the basis of the evidence and analysis, that there will potentially be a large number of claimants with certain protected characteristics of race and religion or belief in the affected group—i.e. those who are presently entitled to bring Cart JRs and would no longer be able to.”
The Government said that these indirect impacts are likely to be very small, given the low number of cases in which the claimant achieves a successful outcome.
It may be true that the number of people affected is small, but if the consequence of the impact on that individual is as serious as imprisonment or worse, we would argue that it is right for the Government to consider this further.
The Law Society president has said that
“removing the option of recourse to judicial review in any area, let alone one as complex as immigration, risks injustice, not only for those people whom the court would have found in favour of, but also for the much larger number of cases where settlement is achieved only under the threat of judicial review.”
These are not reflected in the figures to which the Government have been referring.
We are concerned about access to assistance with digital procedures for those who may struggle. We want to know how this will be done and what safeguards the MoJ intends to put in place to ensure that nobody is disadvantaged. The Government say they are aware that some users might not have the means or the skills to access digital services and that they are going to provide assisted digital support designed to prevent those who have difficulty engaging with digital service being excluded. This is welcome, but it is vital that this good intention is supported by well-planned and accessible support, available at the appropriate time and of sufficient quality. We are yet to be convinced that the Government have properly thought through, in sufficient detail, how this is going to happen.
We do not want to stand in the way of improving our courts. We know that there needs to be substantial improvement, but overall, we are not persuaded that the Bill addresses the right issues or delivers the right solutions. We will seek to remove Part 1 and improve Part 2. We look forward to working with noble Lords on all Benches and, I hope, with the Government as well in this endeavour.
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