Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Judge

Committee stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I had no intention of intervening in this debate, but the question that seems to arise is this: why are we giving a presumption which is in favour of the wrongdoer?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I entirely support the removal of the presumption. I will never try to achieve the brevity of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, but he is absolutely right: this is a presumption in favour of the wrongdoer.

The only reason my name is not on Amendment 13 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is that I failed to secure a place among the first four supporters who were rushing to support the amendment. There is no getting away from the fact that, by new Section 29A(9), the Bill proposes making the exercise of the Clause 1 powers, prima facie at least, mandatory. If the “adequate redress” condition is met, and unless the court sees good reason not to do so, it must exercise both powers—not just one of the powers, according to the statute—both to suspend to suspend or delay the quashing order and to make it prospective only.

I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, that this presumption colours the approach that is required to be taken by judges. I believe that understates the position. He was also right to say that it was dangerous and wrong in principle.

The Minister’s position on behalf of the Government is that the court is not bound to exercise these powers if it sees good reason not to do so. It follows from that that these are therefore wide discretionary powers and that any judges worth their salt—if I may paraphrase what he was saying at Second Reading—would find ways of not applying the presumption. If that is right then the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is right that subsection (9) is entirely unnecessary. If the judge were to be entitled to exercise a wide discretion, there would be no reason to mandate the exercise of the powers in any particular way and we would be back to the position taken by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that the Government should trust the judges. I fear that the only reason the Government want to have the powers exercised on a mandatory basis is to ensure that there is a default position. That is why it has been correctly labelled a presumption. My noble friend Lord Beith’s analogy is absolutely right: if you have a toolbox, you should not be bound to use any particular tool, whether it is right or wrong for the job in hand.

My noble friend Lord Beith was also right on the question of “adequate redress” as an unsatisfactory and difficult-to-interpret test. Not only would it encourage unnecessary appeals, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, but it is also entirely unclear for whom the redress has to be adequate. The natural meaning of the words would be adequate for the applicant, but that is wrong in a public law case; it has to be adequate for every person materially affected. That is the point made in the amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, although she modified her position on it slightly in addressing it today. Other parties affected need to be protected, not just because that is at the essence of public law but because those other parties are, by definition, not before the court and not personally represented when the judicial review application is made.

The Minister’s approach that judges will not regard themselves as bound by the presumption because they have this wide discretion, I suspect, underestimates the loyalty to the law felt by judges. Where there is a paradigm case that calls for the exercise of the power, under the compulsory wording of the Bill judges will strive to give effect to the will of Parliament and the principle that the law is there to be obeyed. That is embedded in their DNA. Therefore, the Government’s view that judges will bend over backwards to find ways around the presumption so as to avoid legalising unlawful acts of government is deeply cynical. It may shed significant light on the Government’s view of the rule of law, but it is completely inaccurate about the approach of the judges, who will apply the presumption if it becomes law lawfully and in so doing will considerably weaken the effect of judicial review.

Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill

Debate between Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Judge

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 12th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her efforts to improve the Bill and her courtesy in accommodating my concerns, meeting me and discussing various amendments. I am particularly grateful to her—I emphasise this—for her amendment, which we will consider later, that delivers us from the tyrannous shackles of King Henry VIII. Perhaps this might be the start of a new understanding that the ghost of that monstrous ogre should no longer walk about the corridors of power in this country. Chance would be a fine thing but I commend a little touch of Blackwood to the House.

However, although the Bill has been significantly improved, it is still not good enough. We are faced with nine major regulatory powers, which are put before us as examples of regulations that the Bill might have in mind, or extend to. It works on the basis that we must—as we must—recognise the need of our citizens living in the EU to have their healthcare properly attended to. That puts great pressure on all of us. If it were not for that pressure, I would not accept that the scope of the Bill should be allowed to extend as far as the EU and Switzerland but I understand why it must be so. We are brought, in effect, to face up to the creation of unacceptable powers, and we have no choice, so far as the EU and Switzerland are concerned.

However, we have a choice in relation to international places other than those in the EU. There are many countries to which these powers could be extended, payments made and so on. Last time I said I was being modest. My real worry is about the creation of legislation for such places as Guadeloupe and the Galapagos; and these powers would extend to Venezuela, where the present Government may not be in power indefinitely. We therefore need to think carefully. Introducing out of the blue nine regulations, which are only examples of the powers that would be given to Ministers, goes too far. It is not the way in which we should legislate.

My objection to the Bill, and the reason why I support the amendment, is simple. We must not legislate in this way. We need time to think, reflect and ponder on what limitations and constraints should be put on the power of Ministers. We are therefore being asked to go too far under the pressure of events surrounding Brexit.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I have in my name Amendment 4, which has a great deal in common with the other amendments in the group. It is intended to achieve two objects, the second of which is to restrict the operation of the Bill to the EU, the EEA and Switzerland—as do other amendments of the group—by ensuring that the object of any regulations under the Bill would be limited to replicating existing arrangements. The first sentence of my amendment would delete subsections (2) to (4) and thereby drastically narrow the regulation-making power to replicating the reciprocal healthcare arrangements we have now. That part of my amendment fits more sensibly with the amendments in the second group, and I shall address it then. I will be brief in speaking about this group because I agree with every word that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said.

This House has shown conclusively that it supports ensuring that we can continue to provide EHIC cards to the 27 million British citizens who enjoy them and guarantee continuing healthcare to British pensioners living elsewhere in the EU along with the other arrangements for reciprocal healthcare that we enjoy as members of the European Union. Those arrangements are in place. They work extremely well in providing guaranteed healthcare across the countries that they cover. They enjoy very wide public support and are clear. Millions of our countrymen and countrywomen would be very unhappy to lose them as a result of Brexit, but there is absolutely no urgency for introducing legislation now for healthcare deals around the world.

Throughout the debates on this Bill, the Government have not come up with a single reason why we should not now pass this legislation limited to agreeing the continuation of our existing reciprocal healthcare arrangements while deferring legislation for new healthcare agreements with third countries to another time, and then considering the Secretary of State’s powers in the context of those arrangements in another Bill. Before we legislate for new international healthcare agreements, we should be able to consider in detail the criteria for making them, what should be their objects and limitations, what they should contain, who should be in charge of monitoring them and how we might seek to improve them. We should also have clear arrangements in place for their parliamentary scrutiny better than exists under the existing CRaG rules for consideration of treaties by the House of Commons.

It may be, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, that international healthcare agreements could be beneficial to Britain and British citizens, but they could also be detrimental, with unacceptable increases in pressure on the NHS and with the potential for healthcare agreements being offered without proper scrutiny in exchange for trade deals on terms that many would find offensive. All we are asking on this side of the House and, as we have heard, from some of the Cross-Benchers, is to give this Bill a fair wind and pass it quickly only to enable the reciprocal arrangements that we have to be continued but giving Parliament a chance to consider carefully the far wider and more difficult issues involved in agreeing new healthcare agreements across the world. This Bill does not do that.

Civil Liability Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Judge

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 10th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judge (CB)]

Perhaps I may add a few words. Of course the definition of whiplash has to be made by doctors—that is how the world works—but we are engaged in legislation. This word must have a legal meaning and it must be enshrined either in a statute or in regulations. The Bill approaches the problem by putting the legislative cart before the legislative horse. If we are being asked to enact legislation in which we do not know precisely what the word means, we are being asked to do something that we should not be asked to do.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may add to what the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, has just said. I agree with her and stress that this is not just a case of racketeering lawyers. One problem that we need to grapple with at this stage of the Bill is that the cold-calling racket and the encouragement of claims comes from claims management companies as well, often from abroad. They can also come from those who offer free hire cars to those who will pursue claims, and they can add a personal injury claim. The same applies to people who repair cars. There is all that potential for racketeering to jack up these claims, and we accept that there is a very serious problem.

I come back to the point about the definition. I agree with all those speakers who have said that the definition has to be in the Bill. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, very concisely just explained why it has to go in the Bill and why it is insufficient for it simply to be in draft regulations at this stage.

Perhaps I may say a word or two more about the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I served on it for three years when my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester chaired it. The general practice then was for the Government to accept the recommendations of that committee. We took the responsibility of considering the delegated powers in every Bill that came through this House extremely seriously and in an almost entirely non-partisan manner. We were guided and assisted by clerks who were astute to ensure that their advice was based on precedent and on principles, and the principles were published.