My Lords, the Government have been working closely with the senior judiciary to ensure that we have the relevant judicial manpower and resources to deal with the workload. I am not, as of this moment, in a position to give specific details but one of the reasons for allowing the judges of the First-tier Tribunal to sit in the Upper Tribunal, which gives us a pretty wide pool to draw upon, is that it enables us to draw upon recorders, retired judges and others. The Government are at the moment satisfied from the discussions they have had that there will be sufficient judicial capacity to meet any reasonably foreseeable workload, but that is a perfectly good question and I thank the noble Lord for raising it.
I will come in a moment to the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, about judges in general, but I will first deal with government Amendment 115A, which provides for the first set of tribunal rules effectively to be made by the Lord Chancellor rather than, as would normally be the case, by the Tribunal Procedure Committee. That committee normally takes quite a long time to make new rules—maybe 12 months or more—so, since we are working to implement the Bill as soon as practicable, government Amendment 115A provides for the first set of tribunal procedure rules, including these time limits, to be made by the Lord Chancellor so that we have the relevant tribunal procedure rules in place as soon as possible after Royal Assent.
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To make those rules, the Lord Chancellor will have to consult the Lord Chief Justices of England and Wales and of Northern Ireland, and the Lord President of the Court of Session. These rules will be subject to the “made affirmative” procedure—that is, they will take effect but lapse after 40 days unless approved by both Houses of Parliament. It is a temporary measure; the matter will then revert to the Tribunal Procedure Committee. This is similar to a procedure adopted under the Justice and Security Act 2013 where a similar situation arose; rules were made by the Lord Chancellor
and they have been in place ever since, as no one has objected to them. That is the basis on which the Government put forward Amendment 115A. There is an equivalent Amendment 115B relating to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, so that those rules can similarly be in place in good time.
Having dealt with those points, I will comment on Clause 49, which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, referred to as the ouster clause. It simply provides that there is no further appeal from the tribunal in relation to a refusal of permission to allow an out-of-time claim or to entertain new matters. That is all it is doing. In the Government’s view, that is in line with contemporary practice; these are particular decisions where you need permission but have not got it—where you have had two bites of the cherry, as it were, and are trying to appeal out of time or to introduce late matters. That is what Clause 49 deals with, although, even then, if the tribunal has in some way acted in a procedurally defective way, those exclusions do not apply. There does not seem anything particularly unusual in the Clause 49 power.
Clause 50, as I have said, enables the flexible deployment of the senior judiciary. It will be for the judiciary to ensure that there are sufficient judges with appropriate training, standing and expertise. The Senior President of Tribunals will be in charge of that, so we should have no fear about the quality and availability of judges to decide these matters.
All in all, this is a coherent and logical framework for appeal. It is true, if I may use the word colloquially, that it is relatively tough in terms of time limits, subject to the possibility of extension, but the procedures are essentially fair and will result in just decisions.