Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Archer of Sandwell Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

That links with my second point. Why preserve the Civil Justice Council, which I am in favour of, and the Family Justice Council, which I am also in favour of, but abandon the one council which is concerned with justice between the citizen and the state and which has a 50-year-plus track record of bringing about improvements in that area? Let us be clear: we are not talking here about great judicial reviews or developers seeking to get their plans past a planning refusal. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of social security claimants, people claiming disability benefits, people who are under compulsory orders going to mental health tribunals and a whole range of others. I have the figures here—I was going to cite them but I will not—and the figures, particularly for those who are on social security and disability benefits, are rising all the time, partly because of the economic problems that we have. Why is this the Cinderella? Given that we are talking about the interests of many of the least articulate and most vulnerable people in our society, this is totally in conflict with coalition rhetoric.

[Lord Archer of Sandwell]

Since the noble Lord was kind enough to tempt me to my feet, would he agree that many local tribunals and public bodies lead lonely lives, and that the great contribution of a central body is that it can collect and disseminate experience and best practice? If that were missing, everyone’s performance would suffer.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

I agree. It tempts me to extend my remarks a fraction further to a point I had omitted. The Ministry of Justice knows nothing—and, frankly, as far as I can judge, cares less—about large amounts of administrative justice that relates to local authorities, including, in education, school admissions and exclusion appeals. Many people may regard this as trivial but it also includes the whole area of decriminalised car parking. These are things that affect citizens. They have nothing to do with the Ministry of Justice but they amount to important areas of administrative justice.

I made the point in my earlier speech—I will not repeat it in extenso—that the terms of reference of the Civil Justice Council are, in effect, identical to those of Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council. I will make a few further points before I conclude. Notwithstanding the disappearance of the CJC from Schedule 7 to the Bill, the Government have already cut its secretariat and merged it with that of the Family Justice Council. In respect of the various procedure rule committees, including tribunals, all of which were in Schedule 7, the Government have already put all the secretariats into the same team. They argue that this makes better use of resources. It probably does. However, my amendments simply go with that flow. They create the possibility of what I regard as rational alternatives to abolition, but they do not prevent the Government going for abolition if that is what they continue to want to do. Even if I cannot claim a reward for good behaviour, I can claim a response to rationality, reasonableness and a powerful argument.