Queen’s Speech

Lord Flight Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baronesses, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie and Lady Merron, and congratulate them on their excellent speeches today.

I want to make some comments on events since the referendum and their impact on essentially constitutional matters. I am sure that many of those who voted in the referendum to stay in the EU are subsequently shocked, or at least disappointed, by the behaviour of France and the EU. Many expected Brexit to lead to a new era of co-operation with Europe, but the ideologues in Brussels do not do friendship—you are either under their control or their rivals, to be undermined and exploited. Breaking up our union is now an important objective of theirs. The PM has so far refused to respond blow by blow to behaviour by the EU. We have had the astonishing threats made by the EU to confiscate vaccine shipments contracted to the UK, the EU’s counterproductive demonstration in respect of AstraZeneca, a ban on the export of shellfish, threats to disrupt the City of London and, especially, the irresponsible dealings with the Northern Ireland protocol.

Our Government have bided their time, first at least to see the trade and co-operation agreement ratified and signed off. Now Britain can fight back and commence. Ironically, the opening of the eyes of British citizens to the EU’s appalling behaviour has slashed British citizenship ratings of the EU. The UK Government now have the support of a substantial proportion of British citizens to take tough measures if necessary and if they see fit. It is now clear that we need to diversify our economy away from Europe as quickly as possible. We need to set taxes and regulations to maximise our global competitiveness regardless of whether this triggers EU retaliation.

The EU is regulating itself into digital oblivion and its moral authority is crumbling on the back of its behaviour. Amazingly, Macron and Merkel are now in discussions with Putin about collaboration on Sputnik, a Russian vaccine, less than a fortnight after the head of the EU vaccine task force stated:

“We have absolutely no need of Sputnik.”


While Sputnik has still to be licensed, the AstraZeneca vaccine has already been licensed by the European Medicines Agency. Macron and Merkel have continued to criticise AstraZeneca on unsubstantiated safety grounds. At the same time, Brussels-based Eurocrats have criticised the UK for blocking EU access to AstraZeneca.

The current politics of Europe are of the EU backing a belligerent France against the UK, even though we continue to behave as if France is an ally. We have had a continuing sequence of hostile gestures and behaviour from France and the EU, with, latterly, the vindictive blackballing of Britain from the Lugano Convention and the EU’s refusal to recognise the important regulatory vehicle of equivalence for the financial services industry.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Flight Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Baker and congratulate him on his wit and wisdom, but I cannot agree with his diagnosis. I am disappointed that the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, contains the words,

“a no deal outcome … must be … rejected”.

As I see it, and as has been articulated by many who have spoken today, the reality is that the WTO arrangements facilitate the best outcome for Britain where otherwise we are potentially in a dangerous constitutional mess. We have a bad deal in which we would remain a rule-taker under an ECJ jurisdiction covering large areas, with no influence on drafting EU laws; we could not negotiate our own trade deals; and, as we are well aware, the deal creates unacceptable border problems in Ireland. I commend in particular recent contributions of my noble friends Lord Lilley and Lord Bamford, and express my agreement with what my noble friend Lord Ridley said this evening.

My noble friend Lord Lilley was, as I think everyone knows, the Trade and Industry Secretary involved in setting up the WTO. I urge those who remain concerned about a WTO deal to talk to the noble Lord and get the views of a professional on what are and are not serious problems. He has no fears of our operating under the WTO and cites 30 reasons to embrace it. This would end uncertainty and provide a clean break. It would provide a safe haven for businesses and consumers. Moving to WTO rules also makes it easier to take up Tusk’s Canada-style free trade offer, under which we could control how we trade. In short, WTO is the correct and positive response to the referendum vote and to the position in which we now find ourselves.

Courts and Tribunals (Judiciary and Functions of Staff) Bill [HL]

Lord Flight Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, the Bill seeks to make reforms to the rules regarding the deployment of judges and to provide for the undertaking of some judicial functions by HM Courts and Tribunals Service professional staff. It contains three substantive clauses and one schedule. Clause 1 changes existing legislation to remove restrictions on how judges can be deployed, Clause 2 makes minor changes to the law concerning some judicial titles, and Clause 3 and the Schedule provide for court and tribunal staff to carry out some judicial functions and provide legal advice to judges. They would establish a unified system for the judicial oversight of staff carrying out those tasks across the various jurisdictions.

The changes are part of an ongoing programme of reform of the Courts and Tribunals Service and comprise some of the provisions previously in the Prisons and Courts Bill, which was dropped due to the calling of the 2017 election. But the Bill does not make much progress towards the logical solution of what is needed: establishing a dedicated housing court. The Bill has been criticised in Parliament and the press for including only some of the proposed reforms, and especially for failing to advance the use of online technology. In a recent report on the private rental sector, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee agreed that,

“A specialist housing court would provide a more accessible route to redress for tenants”,


and urged the Government to issue “more detailed proposals” as soon as possible.

I had intended to table an amendment to give the Lord Chancellor the necessary powers to bring a single unified housing court into being, but apparently this has been ruled outside the scope of what is a two-topic Bill, although I would have thought it was the logical conclusion of those two topics. Anyway, it was intended to deal with business that relates to residential tenancies, which are currently split among the county courts, the First-tier Tribunal Property Chamber, the First-tier Tribunal General Regulatory Chamber, the Upper Tribunal and the magistrates’ courts. The intent was to make such a court modern in outlook, using online processes as far as possible and sitting flexibly according to needs.

In a speech in May, Sir Geoffrey Vos, Chancellor of the High Court, outlined the problem of there being multiple bodies that can be approached when things go wrong between landlord and tenant:

“Property legislation in recent years has bifurcated the responsibility for determining specific property disputes in numerous areas between the courts and the tribunals, such that in a significant number of cases, the parties have no choice but to engage in both types of proceeding. This increases the costs, causes additional delay, and in some cases, stress and frustration associated with an illogical judicial process. … But the great prize nonetheless remains an absence of duplication – in the modern jargon – a one-stop shop. For my part, I think a rationalisation of how we resolve disputes is overdue”.


The Residential Landlords Association has found that there are over 140 Acts of Parliament containing more than 400 regulations affecting the private rental sector. A landlord or tenant can go to one of two tribunals, the county courts, the High Court or the magistrates’ court to uphold their rights, depending on what their specific complaint is. In some cases, there is a need to go to more than one of these bodies. The Government propose, moreover, to increase the complexity with a further body, a new PRS housing ombudsman. It takes an average of 22 weeks to regain possession of property where a tenant is not paying their rent or is committing anti-social behaviour. I understand that average figure is from housing association and individual situations.

When Sajid Javid was CLG Secretary, in his speech to the Conservative Party conference last October, he pledged to look at establishing a new housing court as called for by the Residential Landlords Association,

“so that we can get faster, more effective justice”.

Since then, there has been little discernible action.

The Residential Landlords Association believes that the most efficient way of developing plans for the new court would be to build on the work of the existing First-tier Tribunal Property Chamber. The advantages of this would include: capitalising on the large number of cases decided on paper by the tribunal, making the process easier to access; using the mediation and enhanced alternative dispute resolution procedures the tribunal operates; enabling the use of the tribunal’s in-house surveyors and inspectors and thereby saving costs; and being able to integrate with and take full advantage of the new online court, so the majority of records could be dealt with online. The more informal operation of the tribunal should make it less daunting for tenants and landlords. The tribunal currently holds hearings in local public buildings, making it physically easier to access. The tribunal tends not to award legal costs where there would be advantages if the current cost-limited model were retained.

I had hoped the amendment, which I am not able to table, would be a useful probing amendment to explore how and in what timeframe the Government plan to progress with establishing a dedicated housing court, which is much needed.