My Lords, I am conscious that there is another amendment in this group, Amendment 39, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. I hope the Committee will find it helpful if I speak to my amendment and then respond in the normal way to the noble Lord’s amendment.
Both amendments relate to the new Online Procedure Rule Committee, OPRC, created by the Bill. Amendment 38 seeks to give, by way of a new clause, greater flexibility to the Online Procedure Rule Committee when it comes to establishing standards relating to dispute resolution conducted online before court proceedings are initiated. This will enable parties who try to resolve their dispute online prior to commencing legal proceedings to then transfer into the legal process in a seamless and efficient way if it proves impossible to resolve some or all of their dispute. The key point is that the IT processes will enable these pre-action dispute resolution processes to roll over into the online legal processes where that is necessary, saving parties time and cost in preparing a new claim. I am grateful to members of the Committee who have taken time to engage with me on this proposed government amendment.
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The Master of the Rolls, as the Committee may be aware, has on a number of occasions laid out his vision for a more modern and efficient justice system which makes maximum use of new online processes. The Bill as drafted without this amendment allows the Online Procedure Rule Committee to establish standards which external dispute resolution providers must satisfy in order for data to be transferred into the court process. That committee will also be able to provide rules for the court or tribunal to take into account regarding the compliance or otherwise of parties to proceedings with pre-action standards. That is similar to what already happens under the Civil Procedure Rules, where the court can look at the compliance of parties with pre-action protocols.
In future, we anticipate that there will be a range of pre-action dispute resolution services which meet these standards, so that prospective litigants will be able to select and engage in online dispute resolution before any formal proceedings begin, with a view to resolving their dispute. Enabling and encouraging parties to resolve disputes out of court is something this Government are very focused on, and I am sure it is not a party-political issue: I think there is general support across the Committee for that. Incentivising parties to engage in online dispute resolution before commencing legal proceedings means that only cases which really require judicial consideration will come before a judge. That reduces pressure on courts, reduces backlogs, resolves cases more quickly and, frankly, enables litigants to get on with their lives. The effect of this amendment is therefore modest, but it is important because it enables the committee, rather than having to maintain in the rules a list of individual dispute resolution services, to instead signpost to third party online dispute resolution services that meet the standards laid down by the committee.
As I said at the start, there is another amendment in the group and if the Committee is happy, I will respond to it after other noble Lords have spoken to it.