EU: Interpretation and Translation in Criminal Proceedings

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Coussins]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they expect to be in compliance with European Council directive 2010/64/EU, on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings, by the agreed implementation date of 27 October 2013.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the Government will take the steps necessary to ensure that the UK is compliant with the EU directive in good time for its implementation date.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I understand that the company that the Government have, under the framework agreement, contracted to provide services to courts and the police is supplying performance data to the Government which suggest that it is doing a good job. However, these figures come without any independent verification or audit and tell a very different story from the complaints we hear daily from judges and others about the failure to supply interpreters, or the sending of unqualified people with no experience of simultaneous interpreting and some people who were simply incompetent—in one case not understanding the difference between murder and manslaughter. Does the Minister agree that the UK is at risk of expensive legal action over non-compliance with the directive, particularly Article 5 about the quality of the service, and that we should therefore review the framework agreement now?

[Lord McNally]

No, my Lords, I do not think we are in danger of non-compliance. As I said in my Answer and, as the noble Baroness indicated, there are some months to go before the directive comes into play. In the mean time, the Ministry of Justice has a massive interest in making sure that Applied Language Solutions provides the quality and service for which it is contracted. We are making every effort to make sure that that happens.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Coussins]

21: Before Clause 44, insert the following new Clause—
“Exception for international human rights cases
The changes made by sections 46, 48 and 49 of this Act do not apply in relation to proceedings which include a claim for damages for international human rights cases as defined in section 58(C)(2B) (Recovery of insurance premiums by way of costs) of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, as inserted by section 48 of this Act.”

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, the other amendments in the group are clearly consequential, in the case of Amendments 22, 23 and 26, and directly consequential, in the case of Amendment 27. These amendments are designed to preserve the status quo in our justice system for victims of international corporate human rights abuse. I am very grateful to the Minister for the further meetings he has had with me and with others since Report, and for the correspondence we have had. I readily knowledge that he wants to achieve the same things as do I and my co-signatories to these amendments, who are from all sides of the House. Indeed, I had very much been hoping that at this stage we would be announcing an agreement of some sort, and I am very disappointed that this has not turned out to be the case. I am afraid that I have not even been able to persuade the Minister to see it as acceptable to put corporate human rights abuses on the same footing as clinical negligence, as Amendment 27 would do.

I do not believe that the Government have adequately understood the impact of the Rome II regulations, which are binding on the UK as an EU member state, let alone the additional restraint and restrictions that this Bill would provide. Figures to illustrate this are very hard to come by, because of the small number of cases of this sort that have been settled over the past decade, so many have included a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement.

However, I will illustrate the impact of the Rome II regulations with one brief example that is in the public domain: the Trafigura case, which is probably also the most well-known case, where toxic waste was dumped on a large community in the Côte d’Ivoire. There were 30,000 claimants in this case, who shared £30 million in damages—£1,000 per head. It is estimated that under the Rome II regulations, the damages would have shrunk to £6 million, making it £200 a head. Yet the “after the event” insurance premium would still have cost over £9 million. If £200 a head seems a very small amount of compensation for loss and damage to life, homes, health and community, how much less compensation would there be under the provisions of this Bill? It makes it far too costly and risky to bring the cases in the first place.

It is a question of straightforward arithmetic, added to which there is no cost to the taxpayer whatever as a result of these amendments. We have a very good system in place already, which is the envy of many other countries in the world that are looking to us to build their own system to deal with international corporate human rights cases. I appeal to the Minister even now to accept my amendments, but if he cannot then I hope that the House will support me in trying to prevent the clock being turned back for poor and vulnerable victims of human rights injustices at the hands of UK companies, which should remain accountable in practice as well as in theory. I beg to move.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, if the Government think it appropriate that the private disputes of Russian oligarchs should be settled in our courts, how much more appropriate is it that poor people in countries such as the Côte d’Ivoire, who have been treated utterly disgracefully by a large international corporation, should also be able to seek remedy in the British courts? Should we not be proud to make that a possibility?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate and the Minister for his very detailed and thoughtful reply. I am only sorry that, although we started from the same place, we have not reached the same conclusions.

There has been much reference in this debate to costs running into millions of pounds. However, the Rome II regulations provide for damages paid to successful victims to be calculated according to the costs in the country where the abuse took place, whereas legal costs are calculated according to what they are in the UK. Therefore, vast disparities are bound to occur. It was the UK Government who signed up to this, not the South African miners or the Peruvian campesinos. We need to take responsibility for that and for the additional restraints proposed by the Bill.

In a case with thousands of claimants, of course the costs will run into millions. If there are 1,000 claimants, there will be 1,000 medical reports and 1,000 toxicology reports to get. There will be travel and translation costs. Of course it will be expensive. The firm of solicitors to which the Minister referred, Leigh Day & Co, which has conducted most of these cases, routinely cross-subsidises its human rights work by taking on many other types of case. That enables it to take on those human rights cases. In the case of Trafigura, for example, in which each victim was awarded £1,000, it was not extraordinarily disproportionate for the company to have achieved £3,000 in costs, given the kind and amount of work and the length of time that such cases involve.

The disparities and the inequalities are too great. Justice is justice, whatever the cost. I want to test the opinion of the House.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Coussins]

132ACBefore Clause 43, insert the following new Clause—
“Exception for international human rights cases
The changes made by sections 43, 45 and 46 of this Act do not apply in relation to proceedings which include a claim for damages for international human rights cases.”

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, In moving Amendment 132AC, which was added as a manuscript amendment this morning, I shall speak also to Amendments 134, 135 and 138, which I believe are consequential to that first one and appear in the Marshalled List under my name and have the support of Members on all sides of the House. My amendments would ensure that in this country we retained effective access to justice in our courts for overseas victims of human rights abuses or environmental harm caused as a result of the operations of UK companies. These amendments would not involve any expenditure whatever from the public purse. I remind the House of my interest as a non-executive adviser on corporate social responsibility to various companies and I acknowledge the work of CAFOD, Amnesty, Oxfam and other organisations in the corporate responsibility coalition which strongly support these amendments.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, for meeting with me and others to discuss these amendments and for the subsequent letter the noble Lord, Lord McNally, sent. I am only sorry that I do not seem to have persuaded him of the need for these amendments but I will have one more go here today and make four brief points in response to the reasoning set out in his letter of 29 February 2012 to me and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson.

First, the Government are clear that the effect of Part 2 of this Bill should be, and I quote from the impact assessment,

“a transfer of resources primarily from claimants and claimant lawyers to defendants. For many of the cases in scope, the defendant is a public body, funded by the taxpayer”.

There is the critical difference. In the type of cases that I am referring to, the defendant is not a public body. It is not the NHS, for example. The defendants here are multinational companies, often with huge resources and large teams of their own very expensive lawyers. The claimants, by contrast, in past cases have included rural farmers from remote areas of Peru or Colombia, South African asbestos miners, or citizens of the Côte d’Ivoire, one of the poorest countries in the world. So my amendments are about an exceptionally different type of claimant from those this Bill is really about, and I think that that must be acknowledged.

Secondly, the Minister has said that damages-based agreements, or DBAs, are the answer, but in my view he has not backed this up with evidence as to how DBAs would work specifically for these types of cases. Without my amendments, lawyers’ success fees would not come from the losing company; they would be taken out of the victim’s damages. Shifting the burden of payment for fees and insurance costs from the defendant to the victim risks substantially reducing or even wiping out the damages that victims receive. In such situations it is hard to imagine it being financially viable to bring the case in the first place.

Thirdly, the Government acknowledge that a potential impact of the Bill’s proposals is that fewer cases may be brought, especially where there is a lower probability of success or where cases involve highly disproportionate costs compared to the amount being disputed. That is exactly the case with these international corporate human rights abuse cases. This does not mean that such cases are not worth pursuing. It is still vital that vulnerable victims should get justice and at least some compensation. Companies need to know that they can be brought to account if they act irresponsibly. The proposed amendments to Clauses 43 and 45 would retain the current funding system for international human rights cases. I want to make it clear that creating this exception would not gut the overall aim of the Bill. It would not fundamentally undermine the Bill’s purpose at all. The offending company would have to pay out only if the case met all the existing prescribed criteria to do with public interest.

Finally, other countries will be looking to the UK to follow our lead in working out how to implement the United Nations’ guiding principles on business and human rights. What kind of example are we setting to other countries if we change our laws now to make it even harder for poor victims of corporate abuses to seek redress? I urge the Government to agree to carve out an exception for these rare cases, which the Bill was surely not intended to be about in the first place. I beg to move.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I strongly support and endorse this amendment. We have been reminded that a number of very significant organisations in this country which are working in the front line in the countries concerned feel passionately that this amendment is necessary. I declare an interest as a former director of Oxfam. All my experience during those years at Oxfam and since in my work with similar organisations has underlined the importance of this amendment. Not infrequently I found myself in a situation in which we were being asked to respond to need. In effect, by responding to need we were masking injustice because we were dealing with the consequences of what had happened instead of getting to the roots of what had happened. This seemed in a sense dishonest in that if we were serious about the issues that confronted us, we had to get to the underlying cause that had brought about the lamentable situation.

From that standpoint I reached a very firm conviction during my time at Oxfam and since that very frequently people in the Third World are not primarily asking for handouts or support, they are asking for justice. If they have not got justice, how on earth can they get themselves together to start self-generating progress and the rest because they are burdened by the consequences of what has happened to them as a result of abuse of one kind or another? That is fundamentally wrong. Of course, if people are desperate to start taking their situation forward themselves, we should ensure that that is possible and that they are not artificially and unnecessarily hindered.

I really do not know how a Government who set so much store by their commitment to the overseas aid programme—which is a great credit to them—in saying that it must be ring-fenced in the current economic situation do not see that the logic of that position demands that an amendment of this kind should be accepted. Failing to accept this amendment would be working against the very commitment of the Government. From that standpoint, I applaud the amendment and hope that the Government will feel able to take it seriously, even at this late stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate and I appreciate everyone’s support. I particularly appreciated the powerful contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, who helped us to envisage what these amendments would mean to real people in the real world rather than just considering the administrative and legalistic matters that are set down on paper. I also thank the Minister for his thoughtful, if disappointing, response. It is all very well to support something in principle, but if in practice you cannot get at it, that support becomes meaningless. However, I appreciate the Minister’s offer to engage between now and Third Reading, and I can assure him that I will pursue that offer in order to look very carefully at what could be brought back at Third Reading. That is because if this Bill remains unamended, I fear that what we will end up with are poor, vulnerable people in developing countries who not only will be the victims of corporate human rights abuses, but the victims of the unintended consequences of this Bill. For now, however, I am content to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 132AC withdrawn.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 74A and 74B about legal aid for debt, and in so doing I declare an interest as chair of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service. Under the proposals in the Bill, all legal aid for debt issues, including advice, is excluded from the scope of legal aid, except for legal services provided in relation to a bankruptcy order against individuals, under Part IX of the Insolvency Act 1986, where the individual’s estate includes their home. The purpose of our amendments is to reverse that proposal. We believe that it starts from the wrong premise, that it will not save money and that we will lose an effective and well used remedy, the debt relief order, which helps the poorest and most indebted in our society.

Debt problems are sadly increasingly common, and unless dealt with promptly and effectively can have a major impact on individuals, families and communities. A recent report from the Legal Services Commission confirms that there are a variety of causes of debt problems, the most common being changing circumstances such as ill health, relationship breakdown and loss of employment. Qualitative interviews, and I confirm this from my own experience, often reveal particularly distressing impacts on parents’ relationships with their children and on the wider family. More generally, debt problems have been found to make it difficult for people to carry on living normal lives.

In the same report, the average cost to the public and in lost economic output is estimated at over £1,000 per debt case, with more serious problems involving costs of many times this amount. So we can say with some confidence that debt problems are serious and that they can, and often do, have direct consequences. We therefore reject the premise that debt cases should be removed from the scope of legal aid.

When we debated this issue in Committee, the point was made that all debt problems are underpinned by complex contractual obligations and that, in the majority of cases, such advice and support take place within a legal framework that will involve issues of liability, consumer credit contracts, creditors’ enforcement powers, statutory debt remedies and enforcement processes within the court system and beyond.

As I have mentioned already, there is another dimension to this, which is that most, if not all, of those who contact my charity and other providers of debt advice almost always have other issues, such as illness, employment problems or relationship problems that have either caused the debt problem or contributed to it. It is this compounding effect that makes the withdrawal of legal aid for all debt issues such a simplistic proposal. Therefore, my second point is that debt problems should not be removed from the scope of legal aid because the economic and social consequences far outweigh the savings that are being proposed.

Our third point is expressed in Amendment 74B. We think that the withdrawal of legal aid for debt will in effect lead to the closure of the debt relief order system, which is operated by the Insolvency Service. DROs can be considered only by application via approved intermediaries working for organisations that have to be approved by the Insolvency Service. Approved intermediaries are usually experienced debt advisers, the vast majority of whom are based in citizens advice bureaux around the country, and they are currently funded by legal aid.

In 2011, nearly 29,000 debt relief orders were made, of which 70 per cent were processed by CAB debt advisers in their role as authorised intermediaries. Citizens Advice has made it clear that it will not be able to employ a sufficient number of approved intermediaries if legal aid is withdrawn. If the Bill goes ahead in its present form, it is clear that the DRO system will not survive. More than 20,000 families a year who would otherwise be able to write off their debts will not be able to do so.

It is a classic Catch-22; you can proceed with a DRO only through an authorised intermediary approved by the Insolvency Service. If the legal aid funding is cut, there will be no authorised intermediaries and the DRO scheme will simply wither on the vine. This is not just a cut in the legal aid bill; it is the end of a good and effective debt solution introduced in 2007 and used since then by thousands of families faced with disaster. It simply should not happen. I beg to move.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I support Amendments 74A and 74B, to which my name has been added. I declare an interest as president of the Money Advice Trust. In that capacity I have sat in as an observer at the National Debtline and the telephone helpline service that the Money Advice Trust runs, and I have heard first hand some up-to-date examples of the complexity of debt problems. This has brought me to the conclusion that the problem here—which these amendments are designed to resolve—is that when this proposal was framed in the Bill, sufficiently careful attention was not paid to the distinction between legal advice for people with debt management problems and general debt advice.

The Money Advice Trust tries to prevent existing debt problems running out of control, especially when they are tied up with other issues such as mental health problems or the threat of repossession. While we are talking about complex problems that require the advisers to be quite expert—and certainly sensitive—we are nevertheless talking about first-stage generalist debt advice. This is way beyond the point at which the client needs legal advice.

My understanding is that the Government view debt advice as “not strictly legal work” and feel comfortable about the withdrawal of legal aid because they expect that services such as the Money Advice Trust’s debt helpline will provide appropriate advice services instead by phone—the withdrawal of legal aid is neither here nor there. As I understand it, this shift in service responsibility has not even been discussed, formally or informally, with the Money Advice Trust, and it is precisely because the kind of debt advice that the Money Advice Trust provides is different from advice that is “strictly legal” that legal aid needs to be retained.

The Money Advice Trust describes what it provides as “assisted self-help”—preparing budgets, helping clients seek additional benefits, helping them calculate acceptable repayments to creditors, and so on—but this is not legal advice. The Money Advice Trust is not equipped to provide legal advice; for example, it cannot advise clients on their chances of success in court or prepare them for court hearings, or how to get statutory debt relief or challenge collection and enforcement actions. If people needing formal legal advice were to rely on the Money Advice Trust, it simply would not have the capacity or the expertise to help them. The 200,000-odd people who go to that service every year would get much poorer outcomes.

In the long run, the cost of the gap in provision that would be created by the withdrawal of legal aid in these circumstances would end up being far greater, and would therefore frustrate and subvert the Government’s perfectly reasonable objective of saving money. People with debt problems need the services of organisations such as the Money Advice Trust but they may also need formal legal advice, and when and if they do, it would be uncivilised to deny them access to legal aid.

I urge the Government to think again carefully about the distinction between legal advice and more generalist debt advice of the sort that this charity provides, and to accept these amendments.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Coussins]

136: Clause 43, page 30, line 18, at end insert—
“( ) After subsection (7) insert—
“(8) The Lord Chancellor may by order prescribe that sections 58(4A) and (4B) and subsection (6) shall not apply to any conditional fee agreement where all of the following conditions are met—
(a) the proceedings include a claim by an individual or group of individuals for damages, (b) the loss or injury allegedly caused has occurred in a developing country,(c) a judge of the High Court has certified, whether before or after the commencement of court proceedings, that—(i) the proposed litigation raises issues which ought, in the interests of justice, to be considered by a court in England and Wales;(ii) the resources of the proposed claimant or claimants are significantly less than those of the proposed defendant or defendants; and(iii) in the absence of the provisions of this subsection there would be a significant risk that the proposed claimant or claimants would be unable to secure effective legal representation in England or Wales.(9) In subsection (8) “developing country” means a country, not being a member state of the European Union, whose per capita gross national income was less than 50 per cent of the per capita gross national income of the United Kingdom in any of the three years prior to the year (or if more than one year, the first year) in which the injury or loss is alleged to have occurred.”.”

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, Amendments 136, 137 and 140, which are in my name and supported by others, are designed to protect access to justice for vulnerable victims of human rights abuses committed in developing countries by UK multinational companies. I thank the Minister for meeting me to discuss these amendments, and I know that he shares my commitment to ensuring that this Bill will do nothing to undermine or impede access to justice for some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. Unfortunately, without these amendments—or amendments along these lines—there will be a serious risk of doing exactly that. I am grateful also to CORE, the corporate responsibility coalition which includes CAFOD, Amnesty, Oxfam and other leading international NGOs, for their support for these amendments. I should also declare an interest as an independent consultant on corporate responsibility.

The sort of cases I am referring to are few and far between. There have been only nine or 10 in the past 15 years, which reflects the high cost and high risk of bringing such cases in the first place, so we are not looking at a situation where any floodgates are likely to be opened by retaining the current system. We are talking about cases such as the one against Trafigura in 2006 on behalf of 30,000 residents of Côte d'Ivoire who were affected by the dumping of toxic waste, or the one against Monterrico Metals in Peru, where 28 people who objected to the mining company's development plans were detained and tortured. That case was finally settled in 2011, five years after the incidents.

I will not recite details of all the other cases but I assure your Lordships that whether we are talking about asbestos miners in South Africa, campesinos in Colombia or Peru, or communities living in Abidjan, these are people who face indescribably difficult hurdles in seeking justice against the multinational companies which have harmed them. In a context where there is a clear imbalance in influence, economic clout and access to legal expertise, the odds are stacked against them already and it is vital that we do not close off the route to justice in the UK courts that occasionally can be pursued.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

Part of the problem of answering a debate such as this is the horror stories, abuses and problems raised about the capability of multinational companies to misbehave. No one denies that. I have spent most of my life in politics being greatly suspicious of many such operations. We cannot funnel that down to a change in an area that, it has been admitted, has covered 10 cases in the past decade. I understand noble Lords’ commitment to take on those abuses, but to suggest that the English legal system is in any way able to meet the point is to put too much of a burden on it.

As I told the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, I do not believe that such cases will not be brought because often the motive is not profit; it is many of the motives that have been explained tonight. What is at stake for the companies concerned is often not money but reputation. I do not believe that we are creating an insurmountable barrier to take cases where English or Welsh companies are at fault, but I will draw the debate to the attention of my right honourable and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, because the speakers list should be respected. My right honourable and learned friend and I believe that the fear of the effect of what we are doing is exaggerated. The opportunity that the Bill offers for other forms of financing of litigation is underestimated, but I will ask him to read the debate, look at the arguments deployed and consider the amendments. For the moment, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and the Minister for his reply. I remain convinced that it would be much better to avoid an undesirable, unintended consequence than to worry about adding something to the Bill that might not be 100 per cent technically, strictly necessary. If the lawyers behind CAFOD, Oxfam and Amnesty are convinced that the amendment is necessary, the Government should take them seriously. I look forward to the Minister's response after he has spoken to his colleagues. This issue will not go away, but, for now, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 136 withdrawn.

Legal System: Translation and Interpreting Services

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Coussins]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the provision of translation and interpreting services for the legal system in the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare interests as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages and honorary fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the Ministry of Justice has been looking at this matter for some time and has identified a number of issues that call for change. They include the limited number of linguists available for use, an inefficient and costly booking process, and concerns over the quality of service and complaint investigation. The ministry has therefore announced that it will be moving to a framework agreement with a single supplier. We anticipate that this will resolve current problems while saving the taxpayer at least £18 million a year on current spending.

[Baroness Coussins]

I thank the Minister for his reply, but would he be prepared to review the framework contract in the light of an independent study commissioned by the Association of Police and Court Interpreters, which predicts that the new arrangement is unsustainable and, far from saving £18 million a year, could end up costing £200 million a year? Secondly, is the Minister aware that more than half the existing number of qualified interpreters have refused to sign up with the new single supplier and take very substantial pay cuts, and that this situation could well result in the employment of less competent interpreters, to the detriment of witnesses, defendants and victims?

[Lord McNally]

No, we will not review the framework or the agreement that we have made. We have looked at the report—which, in any lobbying exercise, is quite legitimate—and examined the figures in it, but we do not believe that they stand up. We have always been clear that translation and interpretation services of the appropriate quality should be available, where they are required, for all those who come into contact with the justice system, while obtaining value for money for the public. Let us see how it settles. There are many threats and ideas that people are not going to sign up or that it will not work out. Obviously the noble Baroness is far more expert than me on this issue, but there is no doubt that the present system was not working, which is why the previous Administration initiated the inquiry, which has now culminated in this decision, as far back as 2009.

Elections: Voting Systems

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 5th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My noble friend has raised that issue before and I share his concern. Proposals have been brought forward for individual registration and identification of postal votes. He is on the right road and I assure him that the Government will continue to pursue that course to make sure that our register is accurate and, as far as possible, fraud-free.

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, will the Government agree to give an open-minded look at the case for adopting the Australian system of compulsory voting?

[Lord McNally]

I can give the assurance that we will give an open-minded look. My suspicion, however, is that in both Houses and in general there will be reluctance to bring an element of compulsion into voting, although all parties would like to see greater participation.