Draft Competition Appeal Tribunal (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2022

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 General Committees

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again, Mr Rosindell. I thank the Minister for outlining the purpose of this order so clearly and concisely. Like him, I will not delay the Committee very long. He mentioned the Newcastle United case. It is a shame that the Competition and Markets Authority did not share the views of many Newcastle supporters, but we will leave that to one side. I am not particularly a Newcastle fan. It is a north-east team and I would support it, but I certainly support the Middlesbrough team.

Labour Members pride ourselves on campaigning and working for open justice and access for broadcasters to show the world what we and the courts are up to. It is now 32 years since broadcasting of the Commons began. Although many of us might say at times that we would like to see more publicity, there is no doubt that television, radio and online commentators have driven a huge increase in the coverage of our proceedings. Perhaps we will even see more of it with today’s great news that ITN and ITV will extend their evening news programme from 30 minutes to an hour.

I think we have been too slow in opening up the courts and tribunals to such scrutiny, so I welcome another step forward with today’s order, which will offer the public an insight into yet another tribunal taking decisions that affect them. The Opposition believe firmly in the principles of open justice. We believe that the public should have a right to witness proceedings unless it is in the interests of justice for them not to do so. That is why we supported clause 166 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in Committee, although we expressed concern about the fact that regulations could be made only if the Lord Chancellor agreed, and that no external stakeholder would be consulted in that process.

One particularly sensitive aspect of the decision-making process is how regulations will impact on the privacy of court users. During proceedings on the Bill, the Legal Education Foundation explained that if regulations were introduced without input from external experts, they could have serious unintended consequences. Can the Minister outline what risk he foresees for those who take part in proceedings in the Competition Appeal Tribunal, what consideration he has given to unintended consequences and how they might be mitigated? With that, I confirm that we will not be opposing the order.