Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Horam and Lord Phillips of Sudbury

Tuesday 9th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, when I intervened on the Minister and asked for the evidence or indications to underpin the need for this amendment, he, as the House heard, declined to give the same. It was important to add evidence or indications. I perfectly accept that a lot of the matters with which we are dealing in this amendment cannot be susceptible to simple adding or subtracting.

I want to make one point. I believe that we live in a time of democratic crisis. The public are voting for UKIP and, to some extent, they voted in droves for Scottish independence because there is a real breakdown of confidence in the main parties. We all know that there is a breakdown of trust in the great institutions of our state, in business and in us. We cannot brush aside the expenses tragedy of a few years back as if it is all forgotten and done with. It is not. I went to Clacton and canvassed. My goodness, it is not. There is a breakdown in trust. Of all the times to bring in a provision as contained in Clause 64, this is absolutely not the time.

Surely it is a simple point that the one thing that controls and contains any Government, however strong or however wrong, is the instrument of judicial review. I do not think that it is justifiable at all to reduce the extent and power of judicial review to any extent. That is the rule of law. If the proposal were to be brought forward, it surely could be brought forward with any semblance of decency only if the evidence for the need for it—the essentiality of it—was abundantly plain. We all know that it is absolutely as miles from that as it could be.

I am completely persuaded that there is only one thing to do tonight. I regret voting against a heavy whip but sometimes we all know that we have to do that, which is what this House is here for. I say again, we cannot take the step proposed by the Government to reduce the extent and power of judicial review.

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may add an element of balance to this debate, although balance may not be exactly the right word since I probably am the only person who is going to speak in support of my noble friend the Minister in order that the debate may be not wholly, completely 100% unbalanced but a little bit balanced. I want to explain to noble Lords what worries us. I am not a lawyer so I cannot comment on some of the technical points that have been made. I am worried that there is considerable abuse of judicial review.

My noble friend Lord Deben—who was kind enough to say on a previous occasion that we have never disagreed on anything even when we were in different parties, which is largely true—said, in relation to the example brought forward at the beginning of the Minister’s speech, that it was not very convincing. I remind the House of the example which is, I think, shocking and a defining example of how judicial review can be abused. That point is made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in his book, Education, Education, Education. He wrote:

“As soon as academy projects became public, opponents seized on judicial review as a means to stop them. Ultimately they failed, but only after years of lengthy, expensive and immensely distracting court actions, mostly funded by legal aid with the real opponents—the National Union of Teachers and anti-academy pressure groups—masquerading as parents too poor to afford to pay legal fees”.

That is an example of some years ago.

My understanding is that that is happening today not only in education but in rail. For example, the Government have already had to spend £460,000 in outside legal fees to defend the judicial reviews against HS2. I am aware of judicial reviews in regard to roads. Development was rather scoffed at by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, but in many instances it means housing projects and we need more housing in this country.