Probate Service

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie [V]]

My Lords, I very much regret the personal experience that the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, suffered. However, particularly during the present crisis, the probate service is working effectively. There was a move in the last year to a digital system. That is bedding in and proving successful. Indeed, the average waiting time for a grant of probate in the period January to March this year was about four weeks.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]]

Are not inordinate delays and confusion, applications stuck for four months without explanation, people kept on the line for 50 minutes and staff unable to find relevant documents symptoms of an organisation that was already underfunded and whose staff were undertrained before Covid? Is this service not unacceptable for the families and charities that need assets released? Will the Minister guarantee that fees will not be raised while the performance of the probate registry is so poor?

[Lord Keen of Elie [V]]

My Lords, I do not accept that the performance of the probate service should be characterised as poor. No guarantee can be given regarding fees.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Howarth of Newport

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

As the noble Lord is aware, there is a level of courts, for example the Sheriff’s Court in Scotland, which is not bound by each other’s judgments, and therefore at that level one could arrive at inconsistency of decision-making, and we are conscious of that. The question is where we should best place the determination, and the whole point of this clause is to allow for the flexibility that is required, upon consultation with the appropriate parties, to determine how we can best achieve the outcome that everyone seeks. I am not in a position to say that it will be just the Supreme Court, as it is under Section 6, or to say that it will be just the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. However, one can see a rationale behind the approaches, both of which have been supported by various noble and learned Lords in the course of this debate. What we want to be able to do is to resolve that debate and achieve a consensus that will bring about the best result for the law of the United Kingdom, given its different legal systems. What we are seeking in the end is certainty for those who seek to litigate in our courts, and we would achieve that by coming to a consensus on how we should look at EU case law going forward.

I cannot accept the amendment and at this time I would urge the noble Lord to withdraw it.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

How does the Minister defend—if he conceivably can—the violation of the principle of separation of powers embodied in this clause?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I do not consider that this clause in any sense violates the principle of the separation of powers.

Bailiff Reforms

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, we appreciate the work done by the Justice Committee, which was published in April 2018, and have taken up some of its recommendations already. There are discrepancies over the number of complaints, but that may in part be explained by difficulties that some people perceive in following through on complaints. We are concerned when enforcement officers do not comply with the law and with regulations, but we must remember that there is not only a group of people out there who are “can’t pays” but a very large group who are “won’t pays”. Individuals and small businesses need the ability to recover money lawfully due to them. I am happy to meet the noble Baroness and her experts and associates to discuss the matter further.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, while creditors are entitled to take steps to obtain money properly due to them, does the noble and learned Lord agree that what is not legitimate is the harassment and bullying perpetrated by some bailiffs and some of the profit-driven organisations that employ them? Will he go beyond an expression of concern and tell the House more fully what the Government intend to do to improve this culture and to ensure that those bailiffs who commit excesses are brought to book?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, there are regulations in place and there are those—a minority—who do not comply with those regulations. The position at present is that there are about 2,500 civil enforcement agents. They have to appear before a county court judge every two years, where their conduct will be the subject of consideration. We are looking at further regulation and at the means of ensuring that a small minority of enforcement agents do not break the law. Clearly, we do not condone aggressive and inappropriate behaviour, no matter what the circumstances may be.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012: Review

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 12th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I say again that I am not going to anticipate the outcome of a review that is due to be published before the end of this year.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that justice delayed is justice denied? Does he also accept that, following the Chancellor’s Budget Statement, we are looking at the prospect of justice indefinitely denied, with further real-terms cuts to the already ravaged budget of the Ministry of Justice, continued gross underfunding of the courts and—the most flagrant systemic injustice—the continuation of the Government’s scorched-earth policy on legal aid?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, we face economic challenges. I remind the noble Lord opposite that it was the last Labour Prime Minister who announced the end of boom and bust. He did so without consulting either the markets or even the Delphic oracle. One Labour Minister pithily observed as he left government that,

“there is no money left”.

The coalition Government had to pick up the pieces of an economy blown to pieces by the last Labour Government and we have been putting it back together. We are doing so responsibly. We are not the cause; we are the cure.

Law Commission: Funding

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Howarth of Newport

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am not familiar with the evidence to which the noble Lord refers, but I assure him that at present Ministers have the highest regard for the work of the Law Commission, and that I have the highest regard for those who carry on that work. We are always amenable to its proposals. In its current, 13th programme, we were happy to approve a list of 14 projects that it submitted.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

In that case, why have one-third of the recommendations not been implemented?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

Not every recommendation made by the Law Commission is accepted by the Government as appropriate for legislation. There may be circumstances in which the Government have a policy on legislation that is not entirely in parallel with its recommendations. That does not take away in any sense from the quality of the recommendations made.

Employment Tribunal Hearings

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

When the coalition Government introduced tribunal fees to employment tribunals, they did so in the belief that they were taking a proportionate step to meet the costs of our courts and tribunals. Indeed, the totality of fees income is still less than half the cost of our courts and tribunals. Going forward, we will be conscious of the need to ensure access to justice—a point made by Lord Reed in his judgment in the UNISON case.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is considerable sympathy for him having to keep returning to this House to defend the indefensible situation that the Treasury, being apparently unaware that justice delayed is justice denied and that access to justice is beyond price, has imposed on his department? What does he think of the Treasury’s custom of hiding behind the skirts of the spending departments?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, in what may be my last statement from the Dispatch Box, I observe that the Treasury has had to respond to the dramatic economic turnaround that occurred after 2008. That has had an impact on spending departments, but we require to maintain a coherent economic policy for the whole country.

Legal Aid

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Howarth of Newport

Thursday 19th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, the matter of third-party litigation funding is of course a matter of contract between two parties, and the Government would be slow to interfere in that contractual process.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, further to the excellent question from my noble friend Lord Beecham, will the Government now at last admit that they have denied access to justice to hundreds of thousands of people, with cuts to legal aid taking people with social security, homelessness, mental health and other extremely important issues out of scope; widespread confusion as to who remains eligible; difficulty in proving financial eligibility; and a very damaging fall in the number of legal aid providers? How does the Minister explain the collapse in the number of private practice and not-for-profit organisations undertaking legal aid work? Will the Government now act to restore access to justice as a basic right of citizenship?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, we recognise the need for access to justice; it is a fundamental common-law right. We seek to ensure that there is a legal aid scheme that is affordable but allows for access to justice. That scheme is currently the subject of review by the Ministry of Justice.

Investor Visas: Money Laundering

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Lord Howarth of Newport

Monday 9th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

With respect to the noble Lord, the proposition that no proper checks were carried out prior to April 2015—or, indeed, November 2014 —is not well founded. I believe that Transparency International, in one of its important pieces of work, referred to what it termed a “blind faith” period, but there was no such thing because persons wanting to invest in the United Kingdom pursuant to a tier 1 visa application were required to do that through either a broker, a bank or a lawyer, who would be regulated under the FCA and therefore bound to carry out relevant financial due diligence and anti-money laundering checks.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, how effective does the Minister think that any checks will be as long as they are carried out by the very banks which the National Crime Agency informs us are laundering billions of dollars every year? If the anti-corruption summit, which we are told the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and Jersey have declined to attend, is to be anything more than gesture politics, will the Government follow it immediately by effective action: legislation to abolish the tier 1 visa racket and to require transparency of beneficial ownership of offshore companies and trusts?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The Government have no plans to abolish the tier 1 route.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

There are a number of reasons for the reduction. It is noteworthy that the reduction in the number of applications from Chinese nationals began in 2013, before any of these changes were made, and has progressively lowered thereafter. It may be attributed in part to capital controls being increased and improved in some of those countries.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

The Minister said that the Government had no plans to abolish the tier 1 visa system. How does he justify that to ordinary Londoners, who see themselves priced out of the London housing market in consequence of large quantities of ill-gotten capital being imported into this country through the tier 1 visa system and invested in London housing?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The premise underlying the question is fundamentally wrong. It is not necessary to have a tier 1 visa or visa application to invest in property in the United Kingdom. Conversely, an investment in property in the United Kingdom is not a qualifying investment for the purposes of a tier 1 visa application.