Lord McNally
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Public Bodies Bill [HL]
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Lord McNally
That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 47.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, to assist the House, I will move the Motion on Amendment 47 formally because that will enable the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to move his Amendment 47A, to which I intend to speak in support.
Amendment 47A (to the Motion on Amendment 47)
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I too was going to speak about heaven and sinners, as did the noble Lord, Lord Elton. But I would like to put on record that the sinner in this case is not the Minister, who I know will have done a fantastic job in persuading the department of the folly of its ways. The Minister himself is certainly not a sinner; he is more heavenly.
We on these Benches are absolutely delighted that the Government are doing the right thing. It might seem churlish, but I have to say that I wonder why it has taken a whole year for them to reach that decision. It was a whole year of insecurity, not just for the Youth Justice Board but for the youth justice system itself. As we know, the Youth Justice Board does a splendid job. By any standard of measurement it is a success story. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and others have said, following this summer’s disturbances —when there is, properly, great consideration being given to the need to tackle youth crime—the need for this excellent body is even greater. We should heed the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and look at the increased potential of this particular body in the difficult times in which we live.
We should pay tribute to the work of the Youth Justice Board itself, but also to the work and the voice of noble Lords all around this Chamber, led by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland, my noble friend Lord Warner, the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and others, all of whom have played a huge role in persuading the Government that it would have been wrong to abolish this excellent board. Long may it continue in its excellent work, which is to the benefit of the youth of this country, but also to the benefit of each and every citizen of this country.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I will certainly wish to see in Hansard the description of me by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, as heavenly. I will see what can be done about getting the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, expunged, because they definitely would be career threatening.
I intervene briefly to make it clear that, as I said at the beginning, we will not be asking the House to oppose the noble Lord’s amendment, and therefore ask to insist upon the amendment to remove the Youth Justice Board from Schedule 1 to the Public Bodies Bill. Noble Lords will recall that this House removed the YJB from the Bill on Report in March. Subsequently, a government amendment reintroduced it to the Bill in the other place. The Government realise that the future of the Youth Justice Board is an emotive issue. It is an issue in which this House has always taken the closest interest. It has therefore not been a surprise that noble Lords have scrutinised and challenged our plans for the future governance of youth justice.
I want to be absolutely clear that this Government remain committed to maintaining a distinct focus on the needs of children and young people in the youth justice system. We have never proposed to remove youth offending teams, nor have we ever proposed to dismantle the dedicated secure estate for young people or to effect a takeover of youth justice by the National Offender Management Service. We always intended it to be kept separate. The Government have consistently made clear that we want to build on the strengths of the Youth Justice Board. We recognise that since it was established by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 the Youth Justice Board has helped to transform the youth justice system. It oversaw the establishment of local youth offending teams, and has fulfilled an important role in reducing offending and reoffending among young people. It has also driven up standards in the discrete secure estate for young people.
During the debate on the future of youth justice, the Government set out to persuade Parliament that now that an effective youth justice system was in place, the oversight provided by the YJB was no longer required and direct ministerial accountability for youth justice should be restored. However, we have listened to the debates in both Houses during the passage of the Bill. We have listened to the points raised by respondents to the MoJ consultation and in the responses to our Green Paper. We acknowledged that there was considerable opposition to our proposal to abolish the Youth Justice Board. I must be clear, though, that the abolition has never been about saving money—the MoJ does not have major savings contingent on its abolition. That is why we are no longer pursuing the abolition of the Youth Justice Board as part of this Bill.
The Government still believe that there should be more direct ministerial accountability and involvement in youth justice. We believe, as many in this House believe, that there is a strong case for reform of the Youth Justice Board, and we will consider our options for achieving reform outside the Public Bodies Bill. For example, we have wide-ranging powers already open to us under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and other powers, which the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and I think at an earlier date my noble friend Lord Elton, referred to. We will consider whether we can use these powers in the context of more direct ministerial accountability but will do so in consultation with the Youth Justice Board and with the intention of working harmoniously with it.
I also have to put on record that the Youth Justice Board will remain within the context of the Cabinet Office’s policy on public bodies and its stipulation that all non-departmental public bodies should be reviewed at least once every three years. I will also remind the Cabinet Office that your Lordships’ House will continue to keep a close interest in the Youth Justice Board, so if it wants to back into that bacon-slicer again in three years’ time, it is up to the Cabinet Office.
I know that at these times this House can get very self-congratulatory, but tribute has been paid and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, read out the roll of honour. I have been in this House long enough to know that when the Ramsbothams, the Eltons and the Linklaters coalesce with the Warners, you are in trouble as a Minister. That was true in the previous Administration as well. The other point that has come through in contribution after contribution is that the real influence and power in all this has been the reputation of the YJB itself. It has been able to call on friends in its time of need because of that reputation. I associate myself with the tributes that have been paid on all sides of the House to its response to the riots during the summer and the very effective way in which it dealt with the problems of young people at that time.
I assure the House that we will continue to work closely with the YJB on all our youth justice priorities. Indeed, I want to put on record, as others have done and as I did in Questions earlier in the year about this, a sincere tribute to the work of Frances Done, the chair, and John Drew, the chief executive, and all the staff of the Youth Justice Board, who have carried on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable groups of young people over the last year while under the threat of abolition. I fully appreciate that that is not a happy position to be in. However, I can also say with absolute certainty that, even through this difficult period, the working relationship between the Ministry of Justice and the Youth Justice Board has been maintained effectively and at the highest standard. That is a tribute to the leadership and the staff of the board. The Government therefore support the noble Lord in his amendment and ask that this House insists on this amendment as passed.
Lord McNally
That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 49.
Amendment 49A (to the Motion on Amendment 49)
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I am as delighted as anybody by what has happened on the previous amendment. I am also pleased that a concession has been offered to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, though I do not yet know what her reaction to it will be. I bound to say that that leaves me feeling slightly plaintive as the only one to whose modest concerns the Government appear to be unwilling to make any move at all. I have down an amendment in lieu but that is not the one that I am moving. I made it clear to the Minister earlier this morning that I would only move the amendment if it had any attraction to the Government as allowing them to make a move in my direction.
Lord McNally
I am advised that if the noble Lord is not going to move these, he should now speak to the amendment that he is going to move, which is Amendment 49C.
Lord Newton of Braintree
I am sorry. Because of the complexities of this process, on which I had taken advice earlier, that is certainly right. I am not moving Amendment 49A, a point on which I had given the Minister notice earlier. I intend to move Amendment 49C.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 49C, with which I also wish to speak to Amendments 50A, 51A and 54A, which are related to the other amendments in what I regard as a group.
These amendments are designed to preserve some amendments inserted into the Bill by this House on an amendment of mine at Report—an amendment on which I had strong support from various parts of the House, including my noble and learned friends Lord Mackay and Lord Howe of Aberavon, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, who I am delighted to see in his place. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay is manifestly not in his place, because I am. I do not want to read too much into that; he supported me before and I have not checked what his view would have been on this occasion, though I hope he would have continued to support me.
The purpose of my amendments was not to frustrate the Government’s original intention to abolish the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, if that is what they continue to wish to do, but simply to give them scope for greater flexibility if they wanted to do something more creative, on reflection. Let me be quite explicit in respect of the Civil Justice Council, which is named in some of these amendments. I say this particularly to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. I had neither wish nor intention to damage the Civil Justice Council in any way, but I have long thought that there could be scope for some rationalisation between these bodies, and I am encouraged by the fact that the Master of the Rolls appeared to indicate that view in his remarks to the annual conference of the AJTC last week.
I shall not rehearse the arguments, as I set them out pretty fully on Report and noble Lords are slightly past wanting to hear them. But I shall make 10 points. First, good administrative justice—a fair system accepted by citizens for resolving disputes between the citizen and the state—is part of the bedrock of a society like ours. The second is that the Ministry of Justice has a sort of responsibility in this area, but its main specific responsibility is simply for that part of it that is covered by the Tribunals Service, not by much other essential machinery. It is not responsible for local authority tribunals, including those very important ones, to many citizens, that deal with education, exclusion and appeal matters and other local authority issues. It has no policy responsibility for ombudsmen, who are a key part of this whole set-up, and it has no policy responsibility for decision making and complaints handling of individual government departments, which is another crucial factor in administrative justice.
My next point is that the Council on Tribunals, now the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, is agreed to have played a major part over 50 years in improving a system of administrative justice that was bordering on a disgrace in the middle 1950s. There have been major improvements to which the council, under both titles, has contributed, not least the creation of the new Tribunals Service.
I am not sure which point this is—I have 10 in all. My next point is that the creation of the wider remit of the reformed Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council was fully supported less than four years ago by every group in this House, including the then Conservative opposition Front Bench and the then Liberal Democrat Front Bench. So to an extent this is going back to something that was committed to very shortly before the election. There was no manifesto commitment to its abolition and no mandate that can be claimed for its abolition.
My next point is that a key ingredient was the need for an independent voice for the interests and needs of the user of administrative justice systems. That cannot and would not be done by the Ministry of Justice—by people whose primary day-to-day accountability is to the Minister, not to the user or the stakeholder.
My next point is regarding the Parliamentary Ombudsman, whom people may like or not, but the Ombudsman’s comments on the proposed abolition in relation to the consultation document is worth a guinea per minute and quite short. I am not going to read it all out, but one paragraph of it says that her extensive contact with the Ministry of Justice in its various guises over many years gives her no confidence whatever in the ability of the Ministry to assume the functions of the AJTC. She goes on to say that however well-meaning and diligent individual officials may be, the Ministry simply lacks the institutional history, capability and technical knowledge to do that. I say hear, hear to that.
Then there is a devolution angle, which the Minister may not even have thought about. The Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council has a Scottish Committee and has always had one, based in Edinburgh. Since its reincarnation as the AJTC, it also has a Welsh Committee. Both these bodies are valued by the devolved Administrations. Nobody has made any decisions, but the Scottish Administration is looking at the possibility of creating a civil justice council, embracing the work of the Scottish Committee of the AJTC. Northern Ireland, which at present has nothing much at all in this field, is also looking at a model of that kind. From what I was told on Thursday, Wales, too, is looking at a council that would take on the work of the Welsh Committee. Would it not be ridiculous if, as a result of this, England—which started all this—became the only part of the United Kingdom without a body to provide what has been provided in England by the council and tribunals of the AJTC for more than 50 years in respect of oversight and a voice for administrative justice? I think it would be almost unbelievable.
Finally, not everybody will know—I hope the Minister does, certainly his departmental colleague, Mr Djanogly, does—that the Public Administration Select Committee in another place is conducting an inquiry into this abolition proposal. Having attended the hearing yesterday, I make the following points. First, the Ministry, according to the Minister in the other place, Mr Djanogly, as I heard him, intends to take in all the AJTC staff alongside building some modest increase in its own previously non-existent capability even to offer policy advice in this area. I must say that casts huge doubt on the savings figures we have been given, and it was clear yesterday that nobody knows what those figures are.
Secondly, it appears to be accepted by everyone that the MoJ cannot replace much of the work that the AJTC does, especially on the user front and in creating effective stakeholder relationships on a wide scale, as represented by the conference that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, attended and spoke at with great distinction last week. I do not believe the MoJ can do that. I do not know what the report will say, of course, because it has not yet been written, but from what I heard yesterday, I think it is highly likely that the Public Administration Select Committee will say that the Government need to look again at this. If they do, that means that an important committee in another place will in effect be saying that another place itself needs the opportunity for further reflection on this proposal. I suggest that your Lordships should give it that opportunity and I intend, subject only to the miracle of the Minister saying something that I do not expect him to say, to seek the opinion of the House.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I had better intervene now so that I do not keep my noble friend Lord Newton in suspense for too long. Alas, as he knows, because we have discussed this on a number of occasions, I am not able to deliver the kind of assurances that I was able to deliver for the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, can the Minister clarify whether he is seeking to wind up the debate?
Lord McNally
No, I am not seeking to wind up the debate. I thought that it would be useful for me to say something now so that there would be something for the noble Lord to attack me on afterwards—and then I can attack him after that. No, I thought it would be useful at this stage to state where we are coming from because, as I say, I had a number of conversations with my noble friend Lord Newton. I had a meeting with him and my noble and learned friend Lord Howe and I took their concerns back to my colleagues.
However, I have to make it clear that the purpose of the Government today is to restate their intention to abolish the AJTC outright, using the powers in Clause 1. I also make it clear that the Government have no intention of merging the AJTC with the Civil Justice Council. There is no appetite within Government or the senior judiciary to add to the CJC to the Bill. I am pleased that following a Division in Committee, noble Lords agreed to the proposal to abolish the AJTC. I am conscious that what my noble friend Lord Newton has been trying to do—I still use the term noble friend, as I hope he will—is to give the Government some wriggle room on this matter. Sadly, as I have just explained, the Government do not want wriggle room on this matter but to abolish the AJTC.
The Government’s rationale for abolition has been made in both Houses and on a number of occasions. The Government are committed to this reform because the AJTC is an advisory body whose functions are either no longer required or, in the case of its policy functions, are more properly performed by the Government themselves. The abolition of the AJTC will have no direct impact on judicial independence or—
Lord Borrie
My Lords, an intervention by the Minister may well have been useful but he is using every sentence he now utters in opposition to any move of any kind. Does that mean that there is no point in any of us intervening further in this debate after he sits down?
Lord McNally
Absolutely not. I have heard Ministers make such speeches in this House but I will take advice from the Clerks. I am very willing to sit down and to listen to all the debate but the idea was to make it clear where we were coming from. As is shown by the Marshalled List, the Government do not intend to accept any of the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Newton. That is abundantly clear. Whether the noble Lord wants to hear that at the end of the debate or now is a matter of choice but I will look to the Clerk for guidance.
I understand that if I want to speak early for the assistance of the House, it is fine. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, will accept that and that we can go on. I do not see where it disrupts the debate and I look forward to his contribution, as I always do.
As I say, the abolition of the AJTC will have no direct impact on judicial independence or judicial decision-making. I want to make it clear that the AJTC is not a tribunal or any other form of judicial body. While it has observing rights, it is not an inspectorate and does not have the range of monitoring and reporting powers that an inspectorate would expect to have. The AJTC was set up to advise the Lord Chancellor, Ministers of the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales and the Senior President of Tribunals on administrative justice. One of the council’s functions is to keep under review the constitution and working of tribunals. However, we have moved on from a structure in which tribunals were funded by the department whose decisions they reviewed. We now have the unified Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service supporting the majority of central government tribunals and ensuring that tribunal users have access to timely and effective justice. Previously disparate management, procedures, appeals and funding mechanisms are now administered centrally by the Ministry of Justice. There are also a number of ways by which ministerial accountability is assured for the performance of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, further reducing the need for the kind of oversight that the AJTC provides.
The Ministry of Justice is committed to maintaining and developing its overview of the end-to-end administrative justice system. It is working with other departments and the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales to ensure that there continues to be a UK-wide overview of administrative justice. It also has close links with the Cabinet Office, which leads on ombudsman policy.
Much is made of the AJTC’s ability to offer independent advice and I understand the principle; it is an important one. However, independence must be weighed against the effectiveness of such bodies if being so far removed from the centre means that they lack the ability to influence and drive change. I urge this House to view the Government’s proposals for administrative justice policy in this light.
It is my belief that officials are well placed to provide Ministers with objective, expert and impartial policy advice on administrative justice matters. That is what officials do in every other justice policy area. Officials have forged links with stakeholders in the administrative justice field that will enhance their role and capability. Indeed, the department intends to establish a group of administrative justice experts and key stakeholders, particularly those who represent the views of users. In practice, that will likely include those who practise or have practised in relevant fields. Such a group will provide a valuable forum for sharing information and best practice and will be used to test policy ideas and, initially, to help prioritise the administrative justice work programme.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
In the light of the concerns that have been forcefully expressed on a number of occasions in this House, will my noble friend consider whether the new arrangements could be made rather more transparent than has been the case in respect of some ministries in revealing what the consequences of these inquiries are? Perhaps an annual report could be produced for a number of years so that we can judge how effective the proposed changes are in the event.
Lord McNally
I am happy to take that suggestion back. It sounds a reasonable idea although I do not know what the cost would be. All I can promise my noble friend is that I will take it back and let him know, via a letter that I can put in the Library of the House, what the reaction is to that. The AJTC’s budget for the 2010-11 financial year was £1.3 million, compared with the Civil Justice Council’s budget of a relatively modest £312,000. That reflects the fact that AJTC members are paid while CJC members are not.
So it is for reasons of efficiency, economy and effectiveness that the Government are not seeking to modify any of these proposals. There is no other public body that could easily take on the functions of the CJC, which is why we retain it. However, I insist that the reasons for abolishing the AJTC are as sound now as they were when this House took that decision some months ago. Although I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Newton for offering us the wriggle room, it is not wriggle room that the Lord Chancellor wishes to take advantage of. He wishes for this House to confirm the decision that it initially took and proceed as soon as possible with the abolition of the AJTC. I hope that is of help to noble Lords in the contributions that they want to make to this debate.
Lord Woolf
My Lords, I wonder if I might add my support to each of the points made by my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Newton. With the greatest respect, the Government have misunderstood why his latest proposal would be very positive indeed. The approach that has been developed over the period for which I have been concerned with administrative law in different capacities is to see that access to and the administration of justice are both significantly influenced by what happens in tribunals. Therefore, there has been a policy of ensuring that there is no geological gap between what the tribunals and other bodies of that sort, including the ombudsmen, do and what the courts do.
At various levels and in various parts of the administrative justice system to which the noble Lord, Lord Newton, and the Minister referred, there are now judges in place who play a leading role either directly or indirectly. They play it indirectly through the increasing incidence of direct appeals to the Court of Appeal from certain bodies and, where that is not possible, through judicial review. It is important to the rule of law that these bodies should be doing what is required of them.
What we have found is that both the criminal and civil courts need a council of the sort that the Civil Justice Council provides—one that brings together those who have personal and direct experience of the sharp end of running these bodies as chairmen, deputy chairmen or in some other such capacity, and very experienced practitioners. They should provide a brains trust, which could feed back from these bodies into the justice system as a whole. They can then perform their immediate responsibilities of improving the criminal or civil law, taking into account the position of these other bodies, and of improving the quality of what happens in the bodies to which I have referred,
The Minister made a case that all this could be done by the Ministry of Justice. No one has greater affection or admiration for the Ministry of Justice than I have, but I have to admit that there are certain fields in which practitioners have a greater insight than the ministry has. In the field of criminal justice, which is very important, and in the field of civil justice generally, which is equally important, it is now accepted that there should be a council, in addition to what the ministry can provide, to provide this extra insight into the subject. It is no answer to say that this insight can be achieved by the Ministry of Justice because such a body would supplement the ministry’s task and shine a light on this important area of providing justice that would otherwise not be available.
There has been a great improvement in the Bill—thanks to the debates on it—regarding the ability of the Ministry of Justice to listen. Having listened in turn to what the Minister had to say, I would to say to him, with the greatest deference and respect, that although there has been listening there has been no understanding of the nature of the body being put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Newton. For the reasons that he gave, I urge caution before deciding that this body should receive the chop. It should not be a sacrificial lamb.
Lord McNally
My Lords, when one gets advice from people ranging from Confucius to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, it is necessary to take a pause. However, I would like to House to return to the first principles of the Public Bodies Bill. The intention was to look at a range of bodies that had grown up to perform various functions. The philosophy behind it is one that I support. Over the past 20 to 30 years, Governments have got into the habit of passing the buck. When in doubt, one should set up an advisory body, an inquiry or a tsar—anything to prevent a Minister having to stand at the Dispatch Box and take responsibility for something that has been done. It is partly against that trend that the Public Bodies Bill set off on its journey some months ago.
Although it is always very tempting to take up the kind of options offered by my noble friend Lord Newton, as I said in my helpful opening guidance remarks the Lord Chancellor and the other place have listened. Both Houses came to a firm conclusion on abolition and therefore I am not tempted to go down the side road offered by my noble friend, however attractive it might be. We have mentioned the public expenditure aspect of this. Whenever one addresses problems, there is a tendency to say, “It is only £1.3 million”. However, that is more expenditure. Perhaps I may humbly say that you always know when a lawyer is insulting you because they are very polite about it.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I wish no disrespect to the noble Lord. I have just two comments. First, I wish he had taken part in our debates on the Health and Social Care Bill. His noble friend Lord Howe is busily seeking to hand over all responsibility for the NHS to the biggest quango there will ever be. Secondly, on the question of cost, will he reflect on the evidence that the council gives about poor decision-making, poor communication and delay because of overly complex or incomprehensible rules? Surely, the impact of the council is to help the Government to reduce expenditure. Does he think that his department will be publishing advice like that on the performance of itself and other government departments?
Lord McNally
Indeed. One of the thrusts of our argument is that the sooner the Government get back into the habit of taking responsibility for their own inefficiencies, the better. My department and HMCTS are already working closely with DWP on a range of initiatives to improve initial decision-making. It is about time that government departments took responsibility and I concede a whole range of areas where initial decision-making is poor and causes expense. But that is not a reason to pass the buck to some other body. The job is for government to get on with improving the efficiencies.
The Ministry of Justice is well placed to ensure that administrative justice is a key part of the wider justice reform agenda. We are committed to developing a strategic UK-wide approach. We are also committed to ensuring that the right decisions are made the first time. When disputes arise we will provide proportionate, timely and cost-effective solutions and drive ongoing improvements in the system. The MoJ already has strong links with the devolved Governments and other government departments and is already demonstrating the benefits of this. The department is currently considering priority areas and the resources needed to take them forward. At present there is a core team consisting of staff of a range of grades which has access to the wider justice policy group. The team can freely call on legal and analytical experts.
Other issues were raised. Any idea of a merger with the CJC has been ruled out by the judiciary. I mentioned in my initial intervention that we would establish a group of administrative justice experts and key stakeholders to draw on their views. As for the Public Accounts Committee inquiry, my honourable friend Jonathan Djanogly gave evidence yesterday. We will certainly take note of any recommendations that the committee makes. However, I do not think that it will remove the central piece of our analysis, which is that the AJTC is an advisory body that is no longer required in the field of administrative justice. Robust governance and oversight arrangements are now in place with regard to tribunals and the development of administrative justice policy is properly a function of government. A source of advice that is independent of government is not a prerequisite. Civil servants in the MoJ already offer Ministers balanced, objective, impartial advice, and they can draw on expert advice on administrative justice reform.
The Government will ensure that they exercise effective oversight of the administrative justice system in a way that best serves its users. They will develop, maintain and enhance a UK perspective of the system as well as enhancing their links with stakeholders. The Government will expand the channels by which best practice can be shared and collaborative working developed across the administrative justice system.
I have been asked to think again but I say to the House that we have had ample time to think about this. This House has already made one decision on this body. The amendments of my noble friend Lord Newton may be either helpful or ingenious, whichever way one likes to approach them. However, at this stage of a Bill, when the other place has had ample time and ample consideration of these matters, the Government are entitled to say to this advisory House that we have listened to this advice but that we want to abolish this body.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I started off slightly plaintive and have ended up more than slightly depressed. I can assure the Minister that I do not wish to become personal non-chums with him. Actually, I rather sympathise with him having to trot out all this stuff for the third or fourth time. He said he thought that the arguments were as sound now as they were at the beginning. From my point of view, they are as weak now as they were at the beginning.
I will make very few points as there is no point in going over all the ground again. I am hugely grateful to those who have spoken in my support. Rather unusually for this kind of debate, they have not only supported me and repeated some of the things that I have said, but all of them have added something significant to the arguments in the debate. I will not pick noble Lords out except for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, because the Minister said that the judiciary rules out any idea of this being combined in some way—the noble Lord used the word “merging”—with the work of the Civil Justice Council. At least in historical terms, you cannot get much more senior than the noble and learned Lord Woolf. I also have from three separate sources a report that the Master of the Rolls, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, who is also pretty senior, said at the AJTC conference last week that he could easily envisage an administrative justice committee of the Civil Justice Council and he seemed to think that it would be a good thing if the set-up were right. I see the noble and learned Lord the former Lord Chief Justice nodding. I do not think that it is right to say that members of the senior judiciary have set their faces against this. It seems to me that that is not the case. I believe that efficiency, economy and effectiveness have been covered with the figures that I gave and that have been given by others.
I must make the point that remarks about Ministers taking responsibility for decisions are completely irrelevant. This is not a decision-making body. This is an advisory body. The Minister said that the department would need to assemble some kind of stakeholder group. I do not recall his exact words. He put the emphasis on practitioners. That means reinventing the AJTC, in one way or another, when it already broadly carries out this function and more, because it links with users, not just stakeholders, judges and advocates. This ties in with the fact, as I learnt on Thursday last, that the tribunal service, which in my time asked the AJTC to run two of its user groups because it was thought that we did it better, has now scrapped all its user groups on the grounds that it cannot afford them. Where does that leave this argument?
There is very little else that I want to say. I do not think that the case stands up. I do not think that the Minister’s arguments stand up. I think that we need a body like this. I wish to seek the opinion of the House.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester)
My Lords, I should point out that there is a misprint in Amendment 50A, and that the words, “and insert ‘disagree’”, should appear at the end.
Amendment 50A (to the Motion on Amendment 50)
Lord Bach
My Lords, it does not seem like a year since this House decisively rejected the Government’s firm plan to abolish the position of chief coroner by a majority of 112. It was a vote in all parts of the Chamber of which the House could be proud then and can be even prouder today. Of course I join in congratulating the Government. However, in this instance the congratulations must be slightly modified. The Government have given in at the 59th minute of the 11th hour. They deserve credit, but as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, will recognise from his position at the Ministry of Justice, there is an analogy with someone in the dock who does not deserve the credit that someone who makes an early admission of guilt deserves. This is the equivalent of a change of plea at the moment when the jury is being sworn in. It is worthy of credit, and the judge will pass a lesser sentence, but he will not show as much leniency as if the Government had given way some time earlier. It is better late than never—but it is pretty late.
Of course, this is all immensely to the credit of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. She deserves huge congratulations on her success today. She will be the first to say that it is not just her success, but that of others as well. However, she deserves particular praise for her brave refusal to back down over this long period. So does the Royal British Legion—I declare my membership of a local branch—and other organisations that the noble Baroness mentioned such as INQUEST and Liberty, and those on all sides of the House and elsewhere who stayed firm and argued the case for the chief coroner.
Noble Lords should make no mistake—sometimes these things ought to be said—that the Government over the past 12 months used every means and blandishment, and a few extra, to persuade, if I may put it gently, those who dared stand out of the error of their ways. Individual meetings with the Lord Chancellor were not the worst of it. Seductive compromises were offered one day and a hard line taken the next. There were meetings and letters galore. I hate even to contemplate the pressure that the brave Conservative Member Andrew Percy, who dared to challenge the Government in another place, must have come under at a certain stage. I do not want to sound churlish—I hope that that is not my style—but I do not think the congratulations are quite as deserved in this case as perhaps they were earlier this afternoon.
I have no doubt that our Justice Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, played an important role in this. I also am in no doubt that the Sun, which I know many noble Lords read regularly, also played a pretty important role at the last moment. For anyone who has forgotten what they read in the Sun yesterday: they will have seen a story and then an editorial that condemned the Government in no uncertain terms for the stance that they were then taking. No. 10 reacted extraordinarily quickly. The Prime Minister’s spokesman spoke early yesterday afternoon and the change was announced yesterday evening—perhaps coincidence; probably not.
Whatever the result, the Government have done the right thing. They have accepted the chief coroner. That was argued for on all sides of this House during the passing of the Act, which was only two years ago. It is a great pleasure to be able to congratulate the Government on what they have done, but I ask the Minister who will answer this debate why Section 40 on appeals is being removed. If I remember rightly, many noble Lords took part in those debates, so why is it being removed? Among the strong and powerful arguments in report after report in the past decade, and eventually during the debate on the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 for the setting up of this post of chief coroner, the possibility of appeal on a number of issues, which is not huge, was set out in Section 40(2), as it was well nigh impossible to appeal under the present system. The only remedy, as we have heard, is judicial review, which is time consuming. As the Public Law Project argued:
“The cost of bringing a judicial review claim is considerable: in the region of £10,000 to £20,000 for a straightforward case, higher for a more complex matter. If a claimant is unsuccessful, they are likely to be liable for the defendant’s costs as well as their own. They are therefore looking at a legal bill of upwards of £30,000 if they lose, and they must be prepared for this eventuality, bearing in mind the unpredictability of judicial review proceedings and costs orders”.
We believe that it would be preferable for the chief coroner to have the power that Parliament gave him or her during the passage of that Bill, which was agreed on an all-party basis. That sensible step which we all agreed should not be implemented straight away—that is perhaps the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury—and that there should be a delay between the time the Bill was enacted and this section was implemented. There was no intention from any party that the appeals process would begin at once. If it remained in the Act it would be there if some time in the future a Lord Chancellor felt able to bring it in under the guidance of the chief coroner at the time. To abolish Section 40, which is what the Government propose, is the wrong thing to do.
If the noble Baroness were to put the matter to a vote—I can understand if she does not wish to do so—we on this side would support her. We regret that Section 40 is being taken out. However, I do not want to end on a depressing note. We are grateful to the Government for the action that they have taken.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for that non-churlish response. He must have been thinking of some earlier Administration when he talked about the main drive of government policy being an attempt to please the Sun.
This has been a very useful debate and I hope that I can give some reassurances. I cannot give reassurances on the question of appeals. As my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor said in his letter, to extend,
“the appeals system was by far the most expensive element of the original Chief Coroner role proposal”.
The noble Lord, Lord Bach, as with most of the proposals, including that in the Division we had today, is rather cavalier about costs. I am afraid that the Government cannot be. I also think that enough doubts about the idea of appeals were expressed in the responses to make it prudent not to proceed with that at the moment. We have all been in politics long enough to know that simply to leave the appeals system hanging there would almost certainly invite the next campaign on this issue to commence straight away.
Lord McNally
My Lords, this amendment concerns a technical matter which has to go on to the record. It should have been moved in an earlier grouping. It refers to Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. I made my maiden speech in this House on the privatisation of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. On Report in March, your Lordships’ House passed government amendments that inserted the Advisory Council on Public Records, the Keeper of Public Records and the Public Record Office into Schedule 5 to the Bill. The intention was and is simply to put the administrative entity of the National Archives and one of its advisory bodies on a statutory footing, thereby strengthening its ability to perform an important cultural function. This further amendment, to insert Her Majesty’s Stationery Office into the same schedule, serves a similar purpose and therefore represents a minor technical amendment rather than a substantive policy change. It is supported by the chief executive of the National Archives, who is also Keeper of Public Records, and has been agreed with Buckingham Palace.