Wales Bill

Debate between Nick Thomas-Symonds and Hywel Williams

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I will speak in favour of amendments 9, 7 and 10. It is always a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies). I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) to the Front Bench. He follows in a fine tradition of octogenarians serving in the Labour Front-Bench team. The one who sprang to my mind was Lord Addison, who left the Attlee Government in 1951 at the age of 82. I am sure that in my hon. Friend we have a fine 21st century successor to Lord Addison. When I first came to this House, I thoroughly enjoyed reading my hon. Friend’s book “How to be an MP”; I look forward to the sequel, “How to be a Front Bencher”.

I will speak on the issue of a separate legal jurisdiction for Wales. The hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) spoke about the wording of amendment 5. When the Wales Bill still contained the vast number of necessity tests that it did, there was a more powerful argument for a separate legal jurisdiction, but now that the necessity tests have been all but removed, save in two very specific circumstances, I do not think that any urgency for that remains. That allows us the chance to move forward far more pragmatically.

We have to be absolutely clear about the consequences of having a separate legal jurisdiction. I should say that prior to coming to this House I spent 11 years as a practising barrister in Cardiff and am still a door tenant, though non-practising, at Civitas Law. I have looked at situations where the permission of the court would be required to serve outside the jurisdiction—in other words, an additional barrier to access to justice would exist—if there was a separate legal jurisdiction. The list includes interim remedies, contracts, claims in tort, enforcement, claims about property within jurisdiction, trusts, claims by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, claim for costs order in favour of, or against, third parties, admiralty claims, claims under various enactments, and claims for breach of confidence or misuse of private information. All those areas would require permission to serve outside the jurisdiction. That may have been rather a legal list, but let us think of its practical consequences. For example, let us suppose a constituent from Torfaen goes to Bristol and falls over. They will be put in a complicated legal position.

Health is also a cross-border issue. If someone who lives in Wales crosses the border for treatment, there will be complications in cases of medical negligence. When people from Wales drive to London on the M4 and if they have an accident on the other side of the Severn bridge, that will have suddenly taken place in a different jurisdiction. If someone buys a washing machine or some other product from England, consumer protection law will cause complications for someone in Wales who is seeking a remedy for a problem.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

In his research, has the hon. Gentleman come across figures for how many cases are held in Wales compared with the number of cross-border cases?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

At the moment, anyone who issues a claim would have a choice about where to issue it. For example, when I practised in Cardiff, it was easy for me to issue something to my client in Bristol if I wanted to, so in a sense those statistics do not really add any meaning to my argument. Companies would have an element of uncertainty introduced to their business if they were to trade on a cross-border basis—the last thing I want is for Offa’s Dyke to become an additional barrier to access to justice.