Civil Proceedings Fees (Amendment) Order 2021

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this is the sort of instrument to slip under the radar at the end of a Session. The proposal is to increase the fees for bringing money and possession claims, for the benefit of the Treasury.

It was a benefit to individuals, and to businesses both small and large, to commence proceedings by way of an online application. I can remember my days as an articled clerk when I made out the paperwork, physically took it to the registry of the High Court or the county court, handed it over the counter and payed the fees. Obviously, it is infinitely preferable to do all this online, not only for the poor old solicitor’s clerk but for the court staff in the registries up and down the country.

There must be an enormous saving in efficiency and time. It is not surprising that, as the Explanatory Notes made clear, 90% of claims are now launched online. To incentivise this increase in efficiency, fees were reduced for online applications, presumably still covering the reduced costs of filing. So there were, and are, two levels of fees: those for online applications, which are efficient and take less time, and those for paper applications in the old way, which obviously consume more time and resources.

One might have thought that in order to help, in particular, individuals and small businesses, who are the people most often chasing money from larger clients such as government departments, the Government would have equalled the fees by choosing the lower figure, but not at all; the watchword is “levelling up”. So this instrument is brought forward to make sure that individuals and small businesses pay more in order to pursue their claims. At a time when small businesses in particular are suffering greatly, many unlikely to survive the pandemic crisis, the Government are loading more expense upon them to the tune of up to an expected £25 million next year.

To add insult to injury, the note accompanying this instrument and the impact assessment proceed upon the curious premise that there is no impact at all on businesses and individuals because this is not an inevitable business expense. You can choose to pursue the money that you are owed—or recover the premises, if it is that sort of application—or, on the other hand, you can decide to do nothing. If you decide to do nothing then you do not have to pay any fees. That is the incredible argument for saying that there is no impact.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, asked a very pertinent question: what is the actual cost of the filing of these proceedings? I have other questions. What percentage of the stakeholders on the consultation that took place responded to say that they were in favour? How many said they were willing for the fees for the more efficient online commencement of proceedings to be raised to match the fees for the less efficient paper service? I hope the Minister will answer those questions.