First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal (Composition of Tribunal) (Amendment) Order 2018

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Beecham

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has just mentioned the little question I was going to ask and I apologise if my noble friend covered the point while I was scribbling some notes and trying to listen to the technical detail. It is simply about the cost: is there any additional cost to this measure or is there a cost saving? That is all I want to know.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, there is no objection to reviewing the composition or indeed the working of tribunals in a system that covers significant areas of public policy and provision but which also extends to areas of law and practice in which the Government do not have a direct interest. The effect of the order as drafted is to enhance the role of the Senior President of Tribunals, notably in relation to the composition of panels, which hitherto has been the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor.

In many areas the tribunals will be adjudicating on claims and issues between the citizen and the state in relation to a variety of claims, and it may be that in many and even perhaps most of the cases in this category the proposed changes will not be controversial. There are, however, real concerns about the impact of the changes on the employment tribunal system in which the adjudication is between two independent parties, employees and employers, rather than the citizen and the state in one of its many manifestations. This is already an area in which the Government have intervened when they imposed fees for applications to the employment tribunals, an action which was of course struck down by the Supreme Court last year. The number of claims to employment tribunals has since risen by 60% with no perceptible increase in staffing and a consequential growing backlog in cases, to the detriment of both employees and employers. Can the Minister say what measures will be taken, and when, to address this issue?

However, there are issues about the application of the provisions of this order to employment cases. In a previous incarnation I had some professional experience of employment law, in all but one case on the part of employees. Employment law is, as the TUC has pointed out, a complex and specialist field of law. Among other things it is frequently concerned with equalities issues and, at least for the moment, the provisions of European law. There is therefore a very strong case for excluding these tribunals from the general provision in the order removing the requirement for the panels in the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal to have expertise in this area of law. In this I concur with what the noble Lord has said.

The TUC urges that the panels from which employment tribunals are drawn should be composed of people with experience of employment law, although not necessarily lawyers. This has the support of the CBI and other employers’ organisations. A majority of those responding in 2011 to a government consultation on the issue opposed the proposal to limit the role of lay members in unfair dismissal cases. Specifically, the TUC urges that lay members should sit in all employment-related cases, including fast-track cases, unfair dismissal and discrimination cases. It concedes, however, that where a case involves complex legal issues and, importantly, all the issues of fact are uncontested, employment judges should have discretion to sit alone.

The Government are keen, perhaps for understandable reasons, to promote virtual hearings and teleconferencing. Can the Minister say whether this extends to tribunals in general, and employment tribunals in particular? There are concerns about the reliability of these approaches and the stress on those who are unfamiliar with these systems, among whom I would probably have to include myself. There would need to be safeguards where, for example, the parties to an employment case give evidence of that kind rather than in a conventional forum, and there are some doubts about the ability of panel members to assess the credibility of witnesses or parties when such approaches are used. At the very least, will the Government pilot such methods before requiring them to be applied across the piece? Finally on this aspect, do the Government agree that virtual hearings of this kind should have to be agreed by both parties?

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Beecham

Monday 21st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra]

I thank the noble Baroness. I think that the comments of Lord Justice Carnwath are what the lawyers would call obiter dicta—they did not go to the heart of the judgment. He was making an observation that it might be nice if the Government considered it, but there was no suggestion that the Government’s action in imposing the benefits cap was somehow contrary to the European Human Rights Act because we had failed to look after the interests of the child, as set down in the UNCRC.

[Lord Beecham]

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, prayed in aid the state of public opinion about the benefits system. My noble friend Lady Hollis rightly corrected that. In addition to opinion polls, which have proved less than infallible in recent times, we should have a fact poll. We could then gauge what people really know about the issues that the country and individuals face. As my noble friend pointed out, there is a wide misapprehension about this issue as well as many others affecting the benefits system.

We are moving from a position in which the cap was related to average earnings to a different system. By sheer coincidence, perhaps, that move is taking place at a time when, after a long period in which average earnings have not risen, they have at last begun to rise. I suspect that this overdue rise in incomes, which would otherwise have affected benefits, has triggered the change that the Government are proposing. As other noble Lords have pointed out, and as we shall no doubt hear again during the Bill’s proceedings, one of the principal problems that families face is the very high level of rents in the private sector and the difficulty of obtaining alternative accommodation at a reasonable rent. So these incomes are very much under pressure, with or without benefits. We are not talking about excessive amounts of money; £20,000 for couples and lone parents outside London is not the kind of money that enables people to live a life of luxury—far from it.

These amendments do not destroy the system but try to impose some criteria by which the benefits cap should be assessed. What on earth can be wrong with the suggestion in Amendment 92 that the Secretary of State must take into account,

“the relationship between the level of benefit cap and median household income”,

the impact of the cap on households, local and public authorities and registered social landlords? What is there to object to in that proposal being a matter for consideration?

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Blencathra and Lord Beecham

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I break the habit of a brief parliamentary lifetime by suggesting that the Secretary of State retains the two powers which she proposes to dispense with under Clause 82. This amendment would restore the power of the Secretary of State to issue codes of practice for and to secure reports from police authorities. It seems to me that there ought to be a standard code of practice, not necessarily covering everything, but at least covering the basics in the operation of the police force to provide a degree of uniformity across the country or countries—Wales is, of course, included in the provisions of the Bill—rather than different forces operating significantly differently in the way in which they conduct the crucial area of public policy in crime and community safety. It is perfectly reasonable for the Secretary of State to issue such guidance, obviously after the appropriate consultation.

Similarly, accountability is repeatedly averred to be the core of the Bill. At some level the Secretary of State needs to be informed about what is going on nationally in terms of policing so that, in Parliament, she can answer issues that are her responsibility, particularly when they relate to strategic concerns. My noble friend Lord Rosser will be moving an amendment precisely relating to those strategic priorities. There are national and local priorities and it seems to me axiomatic that the Secretary of State should have the information available in the form of reports which she can digest and which Parliament can also read and discuss. This is another aspect in which transparency and accountability can be reinforced, somewhat paradoxically in this case, by restoring to the Secretary of State powers which, at the moment, she is happy to lose. I hope that the Minister will consider this modest accretion to the functions of central government in the wider interests of accountability and transparency in respect of these matters.

[Lord Blencathra]

We now make rapid progress because my amendment jumps to Clause 80 but it is in this group for discussion. Clause 80 contains the general duty of the Secretary of State and states that it is to be best used,

“to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of the police”.

I take a quite different view. It is not the duty of the Home Secretary to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of the police because this Bill seeks to have elected police and crime commissioners to do that. Even if the first amendment on which we voted were to be accepted in another place and by this House when the Bill returns, and we had the continuation of police authorities, surely it should be their duty to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of the police.

I say to my noble friend that I would not dream of pushing my amendment to a vote because I seek to use perhaps an extreme form of words. I take the totally contrary view, suggesting that it is not the duty of the Home Secretary to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of the police but that she should interfere only to prevent the safety of persons in a police area from being put at risk. I suggest that the Home Secretary should intervene and use her powers generally in the Bill only in those dire circumstances. I accept that that goes to a more extreme position than even I might believe in at times. However, somewhere between that position and the general power which, I suggest, continues in Clause 80, of total interference by the Home Secretary in anything that he or she likes, there may be a balanced, happy medium which would permit an elected police and crime commissioner or a police authority to exercise their proper duty of efficiency and effectiveness.

As soon as I got the Bill, I turned to look at what powers of the Home Secretary would be abolished. I found Clause 82 and thought, “Jolly good. What about the rest?”. Unfortunately, I could not find many other powers of the Home Secretary that were being abolished, and there were still too many powers for the Home Secretary to call for reports from chief constables and elected police and crime commissioners, to call for statistics and to call for this, that and the other. Members of this House who have served in another place will know that if a Member of Parliament asks the Home Secretary for a single statistic about a police force, inevitably it will be replicated for other police force areas. The Home Office will then invent 10 forms so that the Home Secretary is never wrong-sighted, and we will build up a plethora of information gathering that will be excessive and unnecessary. This is not germane to the amendment, but I use it as an example to say that the Home Secretary's powers could be further circumscribed in the Bill without any risk to national policing and the proper co-ordination of policing throughout the country—a role that is better promoted by HMIC than by the Home Secretary.

I conclude by referring to Clause 80, much further down the line, which gives the Home Secretary the power and duty to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of the police overall. If the Home Secretary has and exercises that duty, what is the point of police authorities, and what is the point of the elected crime commissioner? That is what their job was supposed to be. I do not suggest that my amendment is perfect—it is far from that—but it adopts an extreme position in the hope that I can make a point to my noble friend and that, possibly by Report, we may have a slightly different form of words for what the duty of the Home Secretary may or may not be.