Courts: Super-injunctions
Lord Bach Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord McNally
I have to confess that the Ministry of Justice does not have a figure on the number of super-injunctions. I understand that the Ministry of Justice statistician, a post I was not aware of—
Lord McNally
The noble Lord, Lord Bach, has more experience on this. The chief statistician is looking into the matter. We hope to be able to give those figures shortly.
Civil Legal Aid
Lord Bach Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Beecham for instigating this debate and all noble Lords who have spoken in it. There can be no doubt that this debate is both timely and vital. It is timely because the Government are, we are told, close to announcing their decisions on their consultation paper of last November. It is vital because if the Government stick to their Green Paper proposals, the system of social welfare legal aid will be decimated, if not destroyed. The situation is as serious as that. Nearly 750,000 people will no longer be eligible for legal help. Huge swathes of social welfare law—in housing, debt, education and employment—will be declared out of scope. Legal help that catches problems early will no longer be available in many cases, and the eventual cost to the state, as we have heard, will be much higher.
These proposals are nothing short of an attack on the poor—no more and no less. They are the wrong cuts at the wrong time and hurt the wrong people. It is therefore hardly surprising that many groups have banded together to try to persuade the Government just to think again. This debate is part of that process. I pay tribute to Justice for All, the umbrella group that covers many groups that have taken up this cause, and to the Law Society and the Bar Council. I also pay tribute to many Members of another place from all political parties, who have said: first, that this is wrong; secondly, that there are alternatives; and, thirdly, that to implement the proposals as they stand would be disastrous, uncivilised, discriminatory and hugely counterproductive.
Of course, there must be cuts. We accepted that when we were in government, and we accept it now. Indeed, we cut legal aid, controversially in some cases. If we had been returned to government at the previous election, we would have made some cuts, but not as many, nor as fast as the proposals that we are discussing. We would probably have made cuts in the field of criminal law following the publication of our White Paper Restructuring the Delivery of Criminal Defence Services, which was published in March 2010. Those substantial cuts would have been controversial, but not as substantial as this Government’s. However, when we were in government we refused point blank to cut social welfare legal aid. Indeed, we increased it from £151 million in 2007-08 to £208.4 million in 2009-10—our last year in office.
We also raised the financial eligibility limit for civil legal aid by 5 per cent in 2009, making it possible for many more people to receive the legal help that they needed. Now the Government propose to cut eligibility significantly. The ministerial achievement of which I am perhaps most proud was that of saving the South-West London Law Centre from closure. At a time of economic difficulty it is madness to cut legal aid in this way, but the Government intend to do so. If legal aid does not give at least some access to justice for those who are dispossessed or disadvantaged, whether through poverty, bad housing, unemployment, low wages, the colour of their skin or their mental and physical health, what is the point of having a legal aid system?
The case has perhaps never been as well put as by Helen Grant, the new Conservative Member of Parliament for Maidstone and The Weald, in an article in a national newspaper in February this year. The article states that,
“as civil liberty is to the freedoms of our nation, civil legal aid is to the protection of its citizens. For some of our most vulnerable people, it is the only sword and shield in their armoury”.
Common sense and the expert research of Professor Hazel Genn and others, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hart, tell us that early legal advice changes lives. We know that legal problems come in clusters and not singly and that a lack of such early and comprehensive advice can lead to problems escalating out of control, leading to relationship breakdown, unpaid and hopeless debts, and sometimes a decline into crime, with all the misery that that brings with it. Yet I fear that that will be one of the almost inevitable results of these proposals if they are implemented. Then there is the cost to the state and to all of us as taxpayers when no legal help is given. The savings that the CAB calculates would arise from spending £1 of legal aid money were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Beecham in his opening speech. The Government’s proposals are financially hugely counterproductive.
As has been said, the lawyers who practise this type of law are not well paid. Some of them have given up the possibility of well paid careers in other areas of law. Yet the Government plan to take 10 per cent from each modest fee that they receive for giving social welfare advice. We know that a number of CABs will not be able to carry on, and that private solicitors, who have been under pressure for some time, may be tipped over the edge. However, we should also state clearly that the law centre movement, which does so much for the dispossessed and underprivileged in our society, is likely to be crushed. There is a proposed 77.6 per cent reduction in funding for legal help and an 83.6 per percent reduction planned in the number of legal help cases, all at the same time as local authority spend is falling. Whether intended or not, these proposals may well destroy law centres, with a disastrous effect on their clients.
Why these proposals? On the whole, previous Conservative Governments have been generous in their support for legal aid. The Liberal Democrats have demanded more money to be spent on legal aid—they demanded that of us and criticised our cuts. They, too, have argued for social welfare law. How can Ministers have signed up to these proposals? My own view is not that Ministers want to play the role of the wicked uncle who wants to destroy anything good he comes across. It is simply, and here I follow my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, that they just do not get it. Their view of legal aid is very limited and old-fashioned, so they do not see its relevance to social welfare law. Ministers keep using the mantra that their proposals are to protect the most vulnerable when, quite obviously, they are the exact opposite. If implemented their measures would, far from protecting the most vulnerable, directly harm them. Whatever they do in the end, Her Majesty's Government should stop this 1984 Orwellian-type misuse of language.
In my view, however, the Minister who is to reply to this debate does get it. His whole political history shows him to be someone who understands the importance of what is about to be destroyed. Our request to him is: please fight these proposals within your department and do not let these fundamentally anti-liberal measures be implemented. He enjoys a huge reputation in this House, both personally and politically. If he were to succeed in mitigating these proposals, that reputation would soar even higher. Why should he bother, he might ask? Legal aid is not his portfolio but someone else’s. He should bother because this is not fundamentally a legal issue at all. It is not just one for lawyers, in government or outside it, and it is not one for non-lawyer Ministers and non-lawyers generally to shy away from. It is a simple issue about right or wrong and justice or injustice. In the end, I say to the noble Lord, it is a simple question of morality.
Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill
Lord Bach Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bach
My Lords, I can be brief on behalf of the Opposition. We support the Bill and warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, on the calm, reasonable and above all clear way in which he moved this debate. We have come to expect that of him over the years and he did not disappoint today. We are grateful to him.
I am sorry that he has just left the vicinity, but congratulations are certainly due to the right honourable gentleman Greg Knight, the Member of Parliament in the other place. He and I were young lawyers together in Leicester in a former life. He was even foolish enough on one or two occasions to instruct me in criminal matters. We were also colleagues on opposite sides of Leicester City Council for some time many years ago. He deserves congratulations particularly today because, when the Government refused—for good reason or bad, I know not—not to proceed with the draft Civil Law Reform Bill, he took it upon himself, having been successful in the Private Member’s Bill ballot in the other place to put into effect Part 3 of that draft Bill and to take it through the Commons. He deserves the thanks not only of Parliament but of the wider public.
I was privileged as a Minister to take through two Law Commission Bills—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, will remember them—under the new procedure that was experimented with and is now in practice. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Marks, Law Commission Bills can be brought forward by a shortened Committee method in this House and then go to the Commons. They have to be uncontroversial Bills, of course, but the procedure has worked twice so far rather well. I hope that it will be used again quite soon.
While I am on my feet, I will speak to the extraordinary high skill of the civil servants who advise the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord McNally, at the moment and me previously—on these complicated and difficult Bills. They have no doubt talked to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and to Mr Knight as well. They are a very high-powered group who are a great compliment to the Civil Service generally and play an important role that is sometimes understated. That needs to be said from time to time. It is a great reflection on the Civil Service that it can provide people such as them to advise Ministers. They give careful, skilful guidance on tricky matters of law. I would have been completely lost in the two Bills that I took through the House without their constant—I was going to say hand-holding—guidance. I am quite sure that it is quite different with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who will be on top of this brief completely without any help at all.
We think that the Bill deserves support. We hope that it is carried through this House as quickly as possible. It passes, as the other speakers all said, any tests of fairness or justice with flying colours. In the end, that is surely the important point.
I have two matters for the Minister, and I do not want to put him on the spot, but why did the Government not proceed with the Civil Law Reform Bill? Secondly, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote, asked how far the Forfeiture Act goes. That is a matter of some importance and needs to be sorted out, if not today then before the Bill becomes an Act. From our side, we wish the Bill well and hope that it gets its Second Reading.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, from the mild titter that went round the House when the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said that I would not need the expert advice that he had needed, we can all assume that there was a little irony in that statement. I know that there was no truth whatever in it. I share his admiration of the quality of advice that I and other Ministers receive on these matters.
I also pay tribute to Greg Knight for his success in piloting the Bill in the other place. I must admonish those colleagues who referred to the presence of Greg Knight in the Chamber today. That is quite against the code and therefore I would not dream of making that point. However, I am glad that he will have heard what has been said.
Lord McNally
Undoubtedly that is the kind of skill that made the noble Lord such a successful lawyer in Leicester, whether instructed by Mr Knight or any other solicitor.
I also pay tribute to someone who has always been my friend, but in the past year has been my noble friend Lord Hunt. It may not be commonly known that my noble friend and I were once on the executive of what I always thought was a modestly titled organisation called the Atlantic Association of Young Political Leaders. We have remained friends and close colleagues ever since.
I am very pleased to be able to respond to the debate. I am the Minister responsible for the Law Commission, so it gives me particular pleasure to confirm the Government’s support for the Bill, which will implement, albeit with some modifications, the recommendations made by the Law Commission in its 2005 report, The Forfeiture Rule and the Law of Succession. The Government are very grateful to the commission both for its expert work on this subject not only in the formulation of its proposals but in the ongoing support that it has given and continues to give to the Government on the Bill, and for its wider ongoing work. The expertise of the Law Commission and the House of Lords is a productive marriage in helping us to simplify, clarify and modify our law.
Before I turn to the Bill, let me respond to the points made, particularly by my friend Lord Marks and by my noble friend Lord Hunt in his opening remarks, about the Law Commission. The work of the commission has been a major success, but the commission is facing the inevitable difficulties posed by a 33 per cent cut to its budget. There is really no room for manoeuvre, given the scale of cuts needed. The cut of 33 per cent is consistent with what is being applied to administrative budgets generally.
However, we are determined to improve on the 68 per cent implementation rate. I am confident that the new House of Lords procedure for Law Commission Bills, along with the measures included in the Law Commission Act 2009—which my noble friend Lord Marks referred to—will help in that regard. While we must be realistic about priorities at a difficult time such as this, I hope that the protocol on best practices will go some way towards ensuring that delays become a thing of the past.
The Law Commission is currently considering proposals for its 11th programme of work, which will soon be put to the Lord Chancellor for approval, as set out in the Law Commission Act 1965. This programme of work will be the first to be agreed under the terms of the protocol. I am confident that in the future delays, both in responding to the Law Commission and in implementing proposals that are accepted, will be reduced as a result. I hope that that is helpful to colleagues. I frequently say in the department that the Law Commission is highly respected in this House, which is eager to use both the great expertise that it has and the procedures that we have adopted to help in expediting Law Commission recommendations.
On the intervention of my noble friend Lord Flight, I will try to respond but I hope that my noble friend Lord Hunt will fill in any gaps. It is interesting that, although the Bill looks like a very minor piece of law, 200 cases are affected by this anomaly each year, as my noble friend Lord Flight informed us. It is very difficult to say whether I can give him guarantees that there are no other unknown quirks or consequences because, if there are unknown quirks or consequences, I do not know about them.
As always, we will continue to keep a close eye on the consequences. The point about death by dangerous driving that was raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, is just one such issue that we will try to be alert to, as indeed is the issue of mercy killing. Those are two points where, clearly, there could be issues. I am not sure that the Code Napoléon is quite as close to being the law of our land as my noble friend Lord Flight in some of his darker moments might imagine, so I would not worry too much. As Fred Peart used to say when he was at this Dispatch Box, “Not next week”.
On the question whether there are unforeseen consequences or issues of the sort that have been raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, and by my noble friend Lord Flight, we have made a detailed study with the Law Commission. We also had a very full consultation, and we will continue to keep these matters under study.
As I said, the Government support the Bill. The law of succession in this instance governs who inherits what when a person dies. Where there is a valid will, the general policy of the law is that the deceased person’s last will and testament should determine who is to inherit what from his or her estate. In other cases, where there is no valid will, the statutory intestacy rules prescribe the order of inheritance. In brief, the general policy of the intestacy rules is that a surviving spouse or civil partner has first call on the estate for his or her statutory legacy and that otherwise the property of the deceased should pass to closer blood relatives of the deceased before more distant ones. The children of the deceased, for example, should be preferred to siblings of the deceased.
The Bill does not seek to change these general principles. In fact, despite its technical complexity—I might say that I thought that I understood the Bill clearly until my noble friend Lord Hunt started explaining the technical complexities—this Bill is a very modest measure that addresses three specific problems in the law of succession and proposes clear solutions to all of them.
First, the Bill addresses the question of who should inherit when a person is disqualified from inheriting because he or she has caused the death in question. This disqualification is automatic and is effected by the rule of law known as the forfeiture rule. The operation of this rule is not affected by the Bill. As my noble friend Lord Hunt explained, the problem with the existing law was highlighted in the 2001 Court of Appeal decision. Put simply, the problem is that, where a person forfeits an inheritance on intestacy because he or she has actually killed the person from whom he or she would have inherited, his or her children will also be disinherited because the statutory trusts that apply under the intestacy rules prevent them from doing so. The forfeiture rule thereby seems to disinherit not only the criminal but the innocent grandchildren of the victim.
This problem is not confined to intestacy. For example, if a parent leaves a will giving property to his or her son and the son kills the parent, the son cannot inherit. If the parent’s will also said that the son’s children were to inherit if the son died first, the children would not be able to inherit in place of their father because he did not die before their grandparent. Of course, if the will said that the grandchildren could inherit in place of the son, then, irrespective of the reason why the son could not, the children would be able to inherit, but I doubt that many wills are made with the consideration that the proposed recipient might turn out to be his or her killer. Similarly, if there is a will giving a gift to a child of the testator without any further provision, the law implies a term that the gift will pass to his or her children if he or she predeceases the testator. If the testator’s child forfeits his inheritance, his or her children—the testator’s grandchildren—will not be able to inherit, because their parent did not die before their grandparent.
Secondly, the Bill addresses the very similar issue of what happens when the inheritance is rejected by disclaimer. Here, just as in the case of forfeiture, whether the succession is testate or intestate, anyone claiming through the person who rejected the inheritance, such as his or her children, will not be able to inherit unless the will provides to the contrary.
Finally, there is a rather unusual situation, which I think is extremely rare. It occurs where a person under the age of 18 is prospectively entitled to inherit property under the intestacy rules, perhaps from his or her parent, but dies before reaching the age of majority. If he or she dies without having married or entered a civil partnership and leaves children who were alive, or at least in the womb, at the date of the death of the original intestate, the children, who are the grandchildren of the original intestate and who are necessarily minors themselves, cannot inherit from their grandparent in place of their deceased parent. This is because under the technical rules that apply to the statutory trusts applicable on intestacy, their parent did not attain a vested interest in the property of the original intestate. This anomalous outcome, rare as it might be, discriminates against those children.
In all these three cases, the Bill will solve these problems by deeming the person who loses the inheritance, by forfeiture, by disclaimer or by dying too young, to have died before the person whose estate is being distributed. This means that if the person in question died intestate, the children of the person losing out will be able to inherit under the statutory intestacy rules and, if there is a will, that the actual or deemed wishes of the testator will prevail. This will bring the outcomes in these three situations more into line with the general policy of the law by giving priority to the wishes of the testator as expressed in a valid will or in other cases by preferring closer blood relatives over more distant ones.
Both the noble Lords, Lord Flight and Lord Bach, referred to the fact that the Bill differs in some respects from the draft Law Commission Bill published in 2005. It also differs from the equivalent provisions in the draft Civil Law Reform Bill, published by the previous Government in 2009. The main difference is that those earlier draft Bills contain specific trust provisions that are intended to ensure that in forfeiture cases the criminal was prevented from gaining any benefit from the inheritance that would, under the terms of the draft Bill, pass to his or her children. These special trust provisions attracted a good deal of criticism from witnesses to the Justice Committee in the other place and from people who replied to the consultation from the Ministry of Justice on the draft Civil Law Reform Bill. We have also discussed them in detail with the Chief Chancery Master, Jonathan Winegarten, at the Law Commission. We agree with the Justice Committee that minors who inherit following forfeiture should have their inheritance protected and that all minors should have suitable protection under the Bill. However, from our more detailed consideration of how the special trust provisions originally proposed would work, it is clear to us that they would be problematic and expensive to operate.
In our view, the existing law, which already imposes a trust for the benefit of minor children and gives the court power to supervise the administration of estates, gives effective and adequate protection. The proposed special trust provisions would not in fact increase this protection. The Law Commission, I would add, is content with the Bill in its present form.
The issue raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott, about dangerous driving and mercy killing will need to be kept under review. The courts will have a discretion to disapply the rule of forfeiture in the case of mercy killings and will consider the individual circumstances of the case in all cases other than murder. That has been a long-standing approach. However, this underlines the benefit of a debate such as this on a measure such as this one, because in addition to enabling us to support the Bill, which I warmly do, it allows us to tease out some of the issues that need to be kept under review as we move forward. It has also given me the opportunity to lay out—I hope clearly—to the House the ongoing support of the Government for the Law Commission and its work.
Youth Crime and Anti-social Behaviour
Lord Bach Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bach
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, on securing this debate, and all other noble Lords who have spoken in it. It is all too short but it is appropriately timed in a week when the House has overwhelmingly voted against the abolition of the Youth Justice Board.
Time for a fresh start is a remarkable report and the commission is to be congratulated on its hard work, its passion and its insistence that, although the problems of youth crime and anti-social behaviour are complex and difficult, we should never give up the struggle to find better ways of dealing with these issues. A central theme of the report is the need to expand restorative justice, an approach whose time has come, in the words of Anthony Salz, the chairman, in his introduction.
The organisation Victim Support—we should never again forget the importance of victims and the need to make them part of our criminal justice system—believes that restorative justice should be an important element of the youth justice system. At present, police forces use restorative justice for out-of-court disposals, but there is a lack of consistency nationwide in their approaches. Victim Support complains that it is not routinely used in serious crime when it could be. While the Government’s Green Paper, Breaking the Cycle, contains warm words, it seems to lack detail on how restorative justice will be delivered and implemented. No doubt the Minister will help us with that. Indeed, Victim Support is supporting a pilot called Restorative Justice, Gloucestershire, which I think all those who have spoken will want to know more about.
I do not know how widely it is known in the Grand Committee that in the first few years of the previous Government the Treasury in particular, under the then leadership of the right honourable Gordon Brown, gave a large sum of money to the Youth Justice Board to fund a large-scale inquiry into the value of restorative justice. Some years later, a seminar was held at 11 Downing Street, where a collection of very distinguished people, including judges—I see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, in his place; he was one of those present— distinguished academics, public servants and others in this field were present to hear about extraordinary examples of restorative justice from offender and victim alike. I am told that those who were present will never forget the young offender who had taken a pistol into his school because of bullying and, in fact, nearly got shot himself by the police. They heard about the youths who trashed a village store and came face to face with the shopkeeper and the other villagers, and, above all, about the house burglar and the burgled who fought on the stairs in the burgled person’s house and afterwards became best friends. That is all great stuff but it is important not to romanticise restorative justice. It must be a hard-headed, realistic alternative to other disposals. I want to ask the Minister a question. It has come to my attention that restorative justice projects in London are to come to an end because funding is no longer to be given to them. Can the Minister confirm or deny that in his response?
In the context of this report, the proposed abolition of the Youth Justice Board is an outrage. Indeed, it was described in the debate the other day as a “sacrilege”. I am sorry that neither the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, nor the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, were able to vote against the abolition, but I understand party loyalty too. However, they did not vote for it either and, if I may say so, I respect that view very much. I know that their hearts are in the right place. However, how can the Government be taken seriously when they are, I am sure, keen to find ways of improving youth justice and helping young offenders, while at the same time they are set on abolishing the Youth Justice Board—a body that has proved its value over the years, as Ministers themselves have said in debate? It is by actions, not warm words in documents, that this Government, as with all Governments, will be judged.
I end by talking about prevention, which is one of the aspects referred to frequently in the report. In a summary under the heading “Prevention”, the report says:
“It is important to involve a young person’s family in solutions to their problems. Sometimes a young person gets involved in crime partly because of problems at home, for example, they may have parents who struggle with parenting, who don’t provide good role models, who are abusive, neglectful or not around, who have mental health problems or are addicted to alcohol or drugs. Some parents need help with things such as these. Responses that involve the family can be a good way of solving some of the issues that push a young person into crime”.
I emphasise the line:
“Some parents need help with things such as these”.
However, the Government intend to remove legal aid from early advice on a whole range of issues that so affect those types of parents. Welfare benefits will be removed from scope as will debt, much of housing, employment and education.
Everyone who has spoken in this debate knows how early advice to families and individuals can save much worse from happening later on, including family breakdown, homelessness and—for the purposes of this debate—that descent into anti-social behaviour and then more serious crime. This sort of advice is to be decimated. To remove the advice that is available at the moment is both morally wrong and hugely counterproductive in helping and keeping young people out of trouble. The Government should now abandon those proposals because they are very much linked with youth crime.
Justice: Civil Litigation Reform
Lord Bach Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bach
I begin by thanking the Minister for repeating the Statement made by his right honourable friend and for giving us advance sight of it. We have a number of questions, mainly around the first part of the Statement. We look forward to the second part on the commencement of the consultation period, and broadly welcome the fact that there is to be a consultation period on those issues.
As regards the first part, we of course accept that costs in civil proceedings are very much worth investigating; indeed, we did so when in government. I am sure we all agree that those suffering injury through the negligence of public and private bodies and who cannot afford to fund actions privately must have recourse to the civil justice system. Our fear is that these plans go so far in trying to keep down costs that some claimants with good cases will find it difficult, if not impossible, to find a lawyer who will take on their case. Of course, the devil will be in the detail of today’s announcement, and I ask when it is intended that legislation will be introduced. Will it be part of a Bill that is rumoured to be coming from the Ministry of Justice within the next few months?
To justify his announcement, the Justice Secretary refers in his Statement to Lord Justice Jackson’s monumental report. However, have Her Majesty’s Government taken into account Lord Justice Jackson’s view that his proposals should be seen as a package and should not be subject to cherry-picking, although is that not exactly what the Government have done in this announcement? Will he also take into account Lord Justice Jackson’s strong desire to keep civil legal aid for clinical negligence and housing cases, which are currently very much under threat from the Government’s proposals? I quote from page 70 of his final report:
“I do, however, stress the vital necessity of making no further cutbacks in legal aid availability or eligibility”.
Is it fair to allow claimant solicitors to recover up to 25 per cent of their costs from the damages that a claimant recovers when the increase from defendants to claimants in compensation will be only 10 per cent and will apply only to general damages, which as the House will know, are sometimes only a fraction of the total damages? Why should someone who has suffered the trauma of an injury at work be told that some of the money they have justly received to compensate them is to go to their lawyer? Do we really want to go down the route of contingency fees? I know that they existed under our law for a short time but they no longer do. I think that at some stage the House will want to debate the whole issue of contingency fees and whether they are an appropriate course for the English and Welsh legal system.
Has the Justice Secretary had a chance to assess the road traffic accident portal scheme introduced by the previous Government to reduce costs? This uses fixed fees and efficient processing to limit costs, and it came into force in March 2010. Does the Minister accept that it has reduced by half the cost of 75 per cent of personal injury cases? Expanding the scheme to cover personal injury claims would, we believe, save costs. Do the Government agree?
The Government have said that an aim of the reforms is to reduce the costs that defendants have to pay. Of course, many defendants are insurance companies. In the light of the reforms, can the Minister say what reductions the Government expect in insurance premiums? Can he confirm whether there is an impact assessment of how the changes will affect access to justice, costs to defendants and reductions in insurance premiums?
Next, is the Minister concerned that, although there will be limitations on claimants’ ability to bring a case and on the costs incurred by their solicitors, there will be no such controls on a defendant in defending a case? Does that not raise the question of possible inequality between the two sides in a case?
In this House we all agree that a fundamental principle of our justice system should be proper access to justice. As a Government, we agreed with senior judges such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—the Lord Chief Justice—as well as Lord Justice Jackson and others, that the costs of civil litigation were sometimes excessive. We would all like reduced litigation costs and, very importantly, alternatives to litigation and particularly to the courts to be found wherever possible.
Our fear is that the proposals could restrict access to civil justice, particularly for those who do not have their own means of funding—rather like the Government’s proposals on cutting legal aid in social welfare law. It could reduce access to justice rather than the opposite, which is our desire—to improve it. It will be on that key issue of access to justice that we will hold the Government’s actions to account.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, both for his welcome for the discussion on the county court proposals and for the general level of his questioning. I think that if we are to touch a system like this, there is bound to be some concern about whether there will be a reduction in access to justice. We are looking at that carefully in our impact assessment and in other approaches. On the question of legislation, we intend to legislate as soon as possible and as soon as there is a suitable vehicle.
I do not think that we have cherry-picked Lord Justice Jackson’s report. We have retained a certain hold-back on protecting clinical negligence claimants in the help that they will get. Lord Justice Jackson made 109 recommendations, and the Government are taking the reform of conditional fee agreements as a matter of priority because of the potential cost saving for the Government and others. He conducted a year-long review of current arrangements and considered the likely impact of these proposals. Much of the necessary data are held in private hands by lawyers and defendants in civil litigation. Data were provided during Sir Rupert’s review and further data were received by the Government during the consultation. The Government’s initial impact assessments were published alongside the consultation and comments were specifically sought on the assumption. A final impact assessment was published alongside the Government’s response. Our impact assessment shows that successful claimants in personal injury cases will generally end up in a similar position to now, although overall most will gain.
As the noble Lord said, the road traffic scheme, to which the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, also referred in his report, seems to have been a considerable success, and we are examining ways of how it could be extended. On the impact on insurance it is difficult to be precise, but it is interesting that today the Association of British Insurers has issued a statement saying that it expects insurance costs to fall as a result of these reforms.
Why should claimants pay? Claimants with meritorious claims will still be able to bring them. The Government believe that it is important that people with serious injuries should be able to receive compensation for negligence. That will continue. Indeed, the general damages for non-pecuniary loss, such as pain, suffering and loss of amenity, will be increased by 10 per cent under these proposals and there will be an incentive to reduce costs compared with now, such as improving incentives to settle. This will improve justice overall.
As the noble Lord will know, one of the main criticisms of the post-2000 operation of this scheme was that claimants had no real incentive to put a check on their legal costs on the assumption that they would never be responsible for it. The Government also believe that damage-based agreements will provide an additional method of funding for claimants. Like conditional fees, they are a type of no-win no-fee agreement under which lawyers are not paid if they lose a case but may take a percentage of the damages awarded to their client if their case is successful.
I hope that I have covered most of the points that the noble Lord covered. If I have not, I will give him opportunity to intervene again. In aid of these proposals, I call upon two statements. One was made by Mr Jack Straw, who originally commissioned the Jackson report.
Lord McNally
Did he not? Sorry. You were there; I was not. Thank you very much. Mr Straw said that the Jackson proposals,
“are designed to reduce the costs of civil litigation overall. Those costs have risen too high, and that is a bar to proper access to justice”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/2/10; col. 740.]
Perhaps he was pointing to what the noble Lord, Lord Bach, just said. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger—the Master of the Rolls—commented:
“Critics do not appear to have been able to provide an alternative model for a comprehensive package to tackle what seems universally acknowledged to be a non-sustainable problem of rising civil litigation costs. The time for analysing the problem has come to an end. The time for action has come”.
The Lord Chancellor has brought these proposals forward in that spirit.
Young People: Custody
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Lord McNally
My Lords, on the first part of the noble Baroness’s question, the whole thrust of departmental policy is to try to ensure that in all parts of the secure estate there is consistency of training and application in these matters. We are continuing to take advice on this. On the matter of legal advice, the Youth Justice Board commissioned Voice and Barnardo’s to provide an advocacy service in every part of the secure estate. Secure children’s homes also have advocacy services under contracts held by the relevant local authorities.
Lord Bach
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Youth Justice Board is a crucial player in this whole difficult area of young people and custody? The Government intend to abolish the YJB and take its functions into the Ministry. The Minister uses the strange but certainly novel argument that it should be abolished not because it has been a failure but because it has been too successful. Is it not time to stop this nonsense and accept that Her Majesty's Government have got this wrong and that the independent Youth Justice Board should be allowed to get on with its vital job?
Lord McNally
That is a little wide of the mark, but I am very happy to say that we will return to this matter on Monday next, when I am sure that that question will be in the noble Lord’s opening speech. He can look forward to my response on what the Government’s policy will be.
Access to Justice Act 1999 (Destination of Appeals) (Family Proceedings) Order 2011
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Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in the debate and I congratulate the Minister for the succinct way in which he put these orders. It is not always easy to put orders before the Committee so succinctly, but he has managed it with great élan this afternoon. It is very good to have the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, with his experience of the family courts, joining in the debate even on fairly uncontested orders. His experience will be very valuable to the House. I am also grateful to my noble friend Lord Jones for his staunch defence of the magistracy and the detailed questions that he asked about the orders. Let me say straight away that we do not oppose the orders at all; indeed, they seem to demand support and to make sense. As I understand it, they had general support from the other place and from the outside world.
The whole area of family law policy is being examined by the Norgrove committee as we speak, of course. We began that in government and the present Government have wisely carried it on. It is an important committee; we look forward very much to its report and the Government’s decisions on that report. Some of us feel that our family law needs to be brought up to present times and that many changes could usefully be made, but that is not the issue for today. These orders deal with procedure and rules and are a vital and much respected part of our legal system, which is widely—and rightly—admired elsewhere. Our procedures and rules must be known, exact and kept up to date; these orders certainly do that.
There is an interesting argument around family proceedings courts in the magistrates’ courts. I understand that the orders give the equivalent power to those courts as they do to the county court and the High Court. That is no doubt a good thing, but will the more serious cases still go to either the county court or, if they are even more serious, the High Court? I am sure that it is still the position; it ought to be, and I would not want any change to it.
My query is about Article 38 in the Family Procedure (Modification of Enactments) Order. This is not a trick question, and the noble Lord is welcome to answer at his leisure if he wants. The Explanatory Note states that:
“The amendment removes the reference to the exercise of the power to transfer where there is a real risk that a party to proceedings may lack mental capacity within the meaning of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 as the FPR now make provision (in Part 15) for protected parties in relation to all three levels of court including the magistrates’ courts”.
Do I take it that, where that issue has arisen until now, the family proceedings court has not been seen fit to be an appropriate venue or forum for those cases? Obviously, the cases are made more difficult if someone lacks mental capacity within the meaning of the Act. Is it really appropriate that those cases be heard in the family proceedings court?
Apart from that, we support the orders and are grateful to the Minister.
Lord McNally
My Lords, the House is extremely generous in its comments about my command of the subject. I am not a lawyer, so I feel like a lion in a den of Daniels when I look round and see the contributors. I am grateful for the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, about the Norgrove review. We hope that Mr Norgrove will give an interim report in March and his final report in the autumn. I agree with the noble Lord that it will be a useful opportunity to review family law.
I also agree that we will be well aided in that review by the presence of my noble friend Lord Marks, who has already made his impact both in the Chamber and here in the Moses Room. His contribution today might be better read by the practitioners than by the House, in that he said that due notice for documents required would speed up and simplify processes. In looking at our criminal justice system over the last 10 months in my limited experience, I have frequently been amazed at how easy it is to disrupt the smooth running of the system. I hope that we can make the system work more efficiently. I am sure that his fellow practitioners will duly note his opinion about the value of the experienced district judges compared with others.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked whether the destination of appeals order will apply to appeals from district judge magistrates’ courts, and whether magistrates’ courts have been consulted. The draft order relates to family proceedings in the High Court and county court only and does not apply to magistrates’ courts. On the wider issue that he raised, both the Magistrates’ Association and the magistrates’ clerks body responded to the consultation and were fully consulted. The draft destination of appeals order applies to all family proceedings, including adoption proceeding, and revokes the 2005 destination of appeals order. If that does not cover the points raised, I will gladly find out more.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, widened his remarks a little more to ask about the magistracy. That gives me an opportunity to say that we have carried out a rationalisation of the number of magistrates’ courts. I believe that we have retained the essential strength of magistrates’ courts and of the magistracy, which is their localism. This is the 650th anniversary of the magistracy, which we will be celebrating later this year in Westminster Hall. On the attitude of the Ministry of Justice, my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor is certainly looking very actively at how magistrates can be given more work—not less—and take on more responsibilities. We will be looking at that in various pieces of legislation later in the year.
Regarding the query on Article 38, prior to the coming into force of the Family Procedure Rules 2010, magistrates’ courts did not have the power to appoint such representatives. Only the High Court and county courts had such powers. However, under the 2010 Rules, magistrates’ courts will be able to do so. Therefore, the fact that a person lacks capacity will not require a transfer of proceedings so that a representative can be appointed. It follows that it is appropriate to omit sub-paragraph (h) from Article 15(1) of the Allocation and Transfer of Proceedings Order 2008. The Family Procedure Rule Committee considers that it is appropriate that magistrates’ courts should have these powers to avoid unnecessary transfers. However, complex cases can still be transferred in accordance with the allocation order. I have taken note of the concern that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, raised, which I hope is covered by that assurance about complex cases.
I hope that my response has covered the points that were raised during the debate—if it does not, perhaps colleagues would remind me. Like others who have spoken, I think that the order provides for a welcome consolidation of the courts and a welcome increase in responsibility for the magistrates’ courts, and I hope that, as in the other place, we can adopt these measures.
Data Protection (Subject Access Modification) (Social Work) (Amendment) Order 2011
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, never underestimate the value of the Whip because, but for the intervention of my noble friend Lady Northover, I would have been well into this speech and would not have moved the Motion on the previous order. I am most grateful to her.
Lord McNally
The draft order before us today amends an order made in 2000 with regard to the data protection rights of individuals in the context of social work. Specifically, the order brings the data protection obligations of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service in Wales—CAFCASS Cymru—into line with those of its counterparts in England.
The purpose of the draft order is to ensure that officers of CAFCASS Cymru are exempted from the requirement to disclose personal data to an individual—known as a “data subject” in the Data Protection Act 1998—when they consider that to do so would be likely to prejudice the conduct of social work by causing serious mental or physical harm to the individual or a third party. As a result of an order made in 2005, CAFCASS Cymru’s counterparts in England can already use this partial exemption when replying to requests for personal data made under Section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998. In 2000, when the DPA came into force, the Government brought forward such an exemption by order, which could be relied upon where the disclosure of the information would prejudice the carrying out of social work by causing harm to an individual or a third party.
I should explain that, even without this exemption, in certain situations data controllers may be able to rely on the principle that information shared with a social worker was given in confidence. Therefore, it might not be fair, or even lawful, to release the information, as to do so would be in contravention of the first data protection principle in the DPA. However, the social work exemption in the 2000 order gave a strong, certain and very explicit legal basis to withhold information and ensure that social work is not prejudiced. The schedule to the 2000 order listed those organisations and functions to which the exemption could be applied. This important exemption—the subject of our debate today—ensures that individuals’ rights to see their personal data do not inadvertently prevent social work from being carried out effectively.
With that background in mind, I will turn to the reason for the order before us today. In 2005 an order was approved by Parliament which added certain functions of CAFCASS in addition to those in the 2000 order. The 2005 order allowed CAFCASS to apply the social work exemption in appropriate cases. As Members will know, CAFCASS works with children and their families who are involved in family proceedings, and advises the courts on what it considers to be in the child’s best interests. Matters in which CAFCASS may become involved include where parents are separating or divorcing and cannot agree on arrangements for their child. The role that CAFCASS officers perform means that they routinely process information related to social work.
On 1 April 2005, the functions of CAFCASS in Wales were devolved to the Welsh Assembly, making CAFCASS in Wales—CAFCASS Cymru—a separate organisation to that of CAFCASS in England. Unfortunately, this was not taken into account at the time of the 2005 order, and therefore CAFCASS Cymru has not been able to apply this exemption, although its counterpart in England has. As a result, the intention behind the 2005 order that this exemption should apply across England and Wales, as agreed by Parliament, has not been fulfilled. It is important that this inconsistency in the subject access regime between England and Wales is rectified and that CAFCASS Cymru is able to use this exemption as was originally intended.
CAFCASS Cymru has told us that, between 2007 and 2009, there were 23 cases where it would have considered using this exemption, had it been available. In these cases, CAFCASS Cymru relied on the principle, mentioned at the start of my remarks, that there would have been a reasonable expectation that information that children share with a family court adviser would remain confidential and therefore would not disclose the information because it could give rise to an actionable breach of confidence. However, this approach has not been tested, either by the courts or by the Information Commissioner. The extension of this exemption to cover CAFCASS Cymru will provide it with parity and will ensure a stronger, more certain and explicit legal basis to withhold information if CAFCASS Cymru considered that this would be likely to prejudice the carrying out of social work, by causing serious harm to the physical or mental health of a child.
I want to emphasise here that the Government take the issue of individuals’ rights to access their personal data very seriously. Just as we have made clear our commitment to transparency in terms of public data and official information, we are also committed to upholding people’s rights to see what information is being processed about them in both public and private sectors. Indeed, the Ministry of Justice’s recent call for evidence sought views on how the current subject access regime is working. Responses to this confirmed that individuals see this as an important right and that data controllers by and large take their responsibilities in this area seriously. But there can be no doubt that in certain, specific circumstances, such as those we are considering today, releasing information may not be in the interest of an individual, or indeed of others, including the children of the individual concerned, or those involved in protecting them.
I should make clear to noble Lords that a right of appeal remains for those individuals who believe that a subject access request has not been complied with fully. As with any subject access request, there is a right of appeal through the courts under Section 7(9) of the Data Protection Act. Alternatively, individuals may approach the Information Commissioner, who may investigate whether the data controller has complied with the obligations under the Act. In addition, this order, should it be agreed, will add employees and contractors of CAFCASS Cymru, acting in their professional capacity, to the list of “relevant persons” in the 2000 social work order, as is the case with CAFCASS in England.
Section 7 of the Data Protection Act acknowledges that there may be times when the personal data of another person may be released as the result of a subject access request. In most circumstances, the data controller will need to seek the consent of that other person or assess the reasonableness of disclosure before giving out the data. However, the personal data of a “relevant person”, as defined by the 2000 order, is not subject to these conditions of consent or reasonableness. This means that CAFCASS Cymru must disclose personal data given by its employees in the course of their professional duties if this is required to provide the data subject with personal data under the terms of a subject access request. Consent and the reasonableness test are not factors in the disclosure.
A concern was raised in another place about how relevant persons will be protected from harm by having to release their personal data to others. It is important to remember that this draft order would allow CAFCASS Cymru to withhold information if social work was to be prejudiced by causing harm to the individual or any third party. This could include those who work for CAFCASS Cymru. CAFCASS in England, which must already adhere to this when replying to subject access requests, has told us that it is not aware of any harm caused to employees. In all cases so far it is only the name of the employee that has been released and it is highly unlikely that the individual making the request will not already know the name of that person—most likely to be a social worker—who has been dealing with their case. As such, it would probably raise more suspicion if the name of the employee in question was redacted and therefore the name is almost always released. Officials in CAFCASS Cymru have said that their approach would be similar to that of CAFCASS in England. Again, this provision would bring CAFCASS Cymru into line with CAFCASS in England to ensure consistency in the two bodies' approach to releasing personal data.
The principles about the need to maintain a strong subject access regime while protecting individuals were agreed by all parties in 2005 and these principles still hold firm. In any case, there is no reason why they should apply in England but not in Wales. Including CAFCASS Cymru in the list of organisations able to apply the exemption will not only protect individuals and ensure that social work can be carried out effectively; it will also ensure coherence and consistency between the organisations in England and Wales, and correct the error made in 2005. I therefore commend this draft order to the Committee.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I thank the Minister again for explaining these orders—perhaps not quite as succinctly as in the previous case, but I understand why—and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for raising the point that he has raised.
Of course, whenever exemptions are made to data protection regarding people’s fundamental right to know what data are held about them, how those data are used and what safeguarding processes there are, it is right that they should be very carefully examined. This order has been examined very carefully in another place and I have read the transcript of those proceedings. On that occasion, the matter was tested by a number of questions, particularly about the frequency of exemption already in place for England. However, Members of the other place were content and satisfied with the answers that were given; in my view, we should also be content with the order and with the way in which the Minister has outlined the order today.
There are occasions when it is not just right but important that exemptions are made to the normal rights under data protection legislation. That is common sense and is appropriate. What makes the exemption satisfactory is that, first, there is a right of appeal, which is very important in our view. Secondly, it is absolutely right that social workers, who are not very well paid but who do a pretty demanding job that is absolutely crucial and much underrated by the rest of society, should get the protection that they deserve, and anything that can make their difficult task easier should be done by Parliament, if possible. I believe that that is what these exemptions have done so far in England and will now do in Wales. Our view is that this order is sensible, reasonable and absolutely appropriate.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am sorry that my explanation of this instrument was succinct. I turned over in my mind whether to adopt the attitude exemplified by my noble friend Lord Sassoon and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, in the earlier debate by reducing the issue to some party barn-storming by announcing that this was the coalition cleaning up a mess left by the previous Government, but I have been around this place long enough to know that we will probably make similar mistakes in legislation.
Lord McNally
This just shows how these matters are dealt with in the justice system. I also note that, as one QC eased himself out of the Benches, another QC eased himself in. I deal with these matters with great trepidation.
On our call for evidence, the preliminary result was published in January of this year and I shall ensure that my noble friend receives a copy. We are undertaking an interesting exercise in trying to future-proof as much as we can the whole of data protection. The call for evidence will be extremely useful in making what we hope will be a positive contribution to the review of the European directive. The capacity of data protection of the exchange of data has changed dramatically, even in this still young century. Therefore, the need to take a new look at data protection is extremely timely. We shall be making a contribution to the review going on in Europe and we shall also review exemptions and applications under the Data Protection Act as part of that process.
Perhaps I might associate myself with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bach. One was that it is important that there should be a right to access data. Successive Governments have now been committed to greater transparency, but there have to be safeguards along with that. I also therefore associate myself very much with his tribute to social workers—a group sometimes quite outrageously pilloried in our popular press—who carry out extremely difficult responsibilities on behalf of our whole society. If they are to carry out such responsibilities, the kind of protection that this order provides for them is no more than they deserve. Certainly, in this case it should apply both in England and Wales.
Public Bodies Bill [HL]
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Lord Bach
I have played a very limited part in this Bill so far, so I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I do not get the spirit of it straightaway. I have been involved in other matters that have taken up quite a large amount of the House’s time.
I make it clear at the start that this is a probing amendment. However, that does not imply that we on this side are satisfied with the way in which Her Majesty’s Government are supporting victims of crime. It has often been said in this House, in particular, that for years victims were the forgotten people of the British criminal justice system. Sometimes they were not listened to; sometimes they were not consulted; and quite often they were not given the information that they were entitled to know. To sum that up, they were not treated as seriously as they should have been. However, I believe that there has been something of a revolution during the past 15 years or so, largely down to some fantastic victims’ organisations that have grown in strength over that period, becoming effective and powerful players, but also because of the work and extra resources that the previous Government—the Labour Government—put in to this part of the criminal justice system. In the past, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has been graceful enough to acknowledge that resources and effort were put in by the previous Administration.
As I understand it, victims’ panels, with which the amendment is concerned, have worked well and, importantly, they have been able to give victims direct access to government in its widest sense but to Ministers, too, and of course vice versa. However, we are told that the Victims’ Advisory Panel is to go. Some suggest that it may have gone already and I would like the Minister to comment on that.
Lord Bach
I thank all those who have spoken in this debate. The Minister has clearly persuaded at least one member of the governing coalition of the wisdom of his words, and I congratulate him on that. I thank him warmly for his full answer to this amendment and for dealing with the other questions that I asked. I look forward to his letter. I thank my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, too, for asking a very pertinent question. Like all good cross-examiners, he knew the answer to his question before he asked it.
Victims are a serious and substantial issue and I make no apology for talking about them in more general terms when I introduced my short amendment. I cannot say that I am totally satisfied with the Minister’s answer because I do not believe that the Victims’ Commissioner, a post that we set up and that the present Government very much support, was necessarily meant to be at the expense of the advisory panel, which is due to be abolished. There seems to be no reason why the two should not work hand in hand. Maybe there would not be as many advisory panels as there were before the commissioner was appointed, but the direct contact that there was between Ministers and victims of crime under the advisory panel system should be encouraged; it was of considerable use and advantage to Ministers.
My noble and learned friend Lady Scotland, who is in her place today, reminds me that she used to chair one of the panels. She says that she got a great deal of information and knowledge from it that might not be so available to Ministers in the future. This is meant as no criticism of the Victims’ Commissioner, who is an outstanding public servant, as the Committee knows well. I just ask the Government to think again about whether they should get rid of the concept of this advisory panel altogether. They should ask themselves whether the panel did not add something to the very difficult relationship between victims of crime and government.
Lord McNally
On the point about the thinking behind this, I note that a year before the Victims’ Commissioner took up her post the then Minister wrote to all the members of the advisory panel, whose terms were all coming to an end, asking them to stay on for an extra year until the commissioner was appointed. The panel members agreed to work on until May 2010, which suggests that even the previous Administration might have thought that the arrival of the Victims’ Commissioner would call into question the future of the panel. That relates to the question that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked me earlier about whether the panel had already been abolished. There was this hiatus because the previous Administration had not appointed a new panel. I suspect that it was thought somewhere that there would be an overlap between the Victims’ Commissioner and the work of the advisory panel.
Lord Bach
The Committee will be grateful to the Minister for mentioning that point, but it does not take away from the fact that the previous Government were not committed to scrapping the Victims’ Advisory Panel. At the time, it would have been quite understandable for a Minister, knowing that an election was due and that whoever became the Victims’ Commissioner would want to look at the position once he or she had taken their place, just to write that letter. Is it really the main, or an important, motivating force of the Government that it is worth saving £50,000 or whatever per year and that the good work done by the Victims’ Advisory Panel should be put on one side? There is a case for saying that the Victims’ Advisory Panel should continue in some form—perhaps a modified form. However, I am grateful to the Minister for his response. We will consider carefully whether we will bring this back again on Report. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Bribery Act 2010
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Lord McNally
My Lords, I agree entirely with the noble Lord’s last point: the legislation was subject to very careful scrutiny. Since coming to office, we have also subjected the Act to a wide range of consultations aimed at making sure that the Act, which passed both Houses with all-party support, was fully understood and could be implemented fully. I take the noble Lord’s point, as I think that the Government do, that any suggestion that British industry can only make advances in overseas trade by bribery does unjust damage to our reputation as a fair-trading nation.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I had the privilege of taking the Bill through this House. The Minister is quite right: it was received with widespread and vocal support from all sides of the House. That does not always happen with Ministry of Justice Bills. One criticism, however, was that legislation should have been put in place sooner, not as late as it was. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has reminded us, one year after the Bill became an Act of Parliament, we still do not know when it will be implemented. Does the Minister agree that this is totally unsatisfactory and that he needs to go back to his department and insist that the Bill be implemented as soon as possible?
Lord McNally
I hear what the noble Lord says. During the period we are talking about we have not been idle. My right honourable and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice has met representatives of the CBI, the multinational chairmen’s group of the International Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce and Transparency International. We are trying to make sure that this is understood and it is going to be implemented effectively. I certainly will take note of the comments made in this House today about the sense of urgency.