Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and James Morris

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Slaughter]

There has been no growth in judicial review. If one exempts immigration cases, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), the number of judicial reviews against local authorities and others has remained stable for the last 10 years.

[James Morris]

Whatever the statistics, the essence of the point is that the threat of and culture created by judicial review has had a distinct impact. Before becoming a Member of Parliament, in my previous life as chief executive of Localis, the local government think-tank, I spoke to many local authority leaders and chief executives about the way the judicial review culture that now surrounds local authorities was impacting on their decision making. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst pointed out, it has created to some degree a culture of risk-aversion in local authorities. A bureaucratic layer has been added to the taking of often very important decisions that have big impacts on local communities, resulting in long delays. One example is the politically controversial decisions taken on the potential closure of care homes in many different local authorities. The impact of the threat of judicial review is now being perceived as part of the decision-making process, and that has had a detrimental impact on the quality of some community services.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Morris]

There is a balance to be struck, and direct accountability is an issue. We want a culture in which local authorities and Government can be held to account democratically. That is how decisions should be taken. We should not be developing and enhancing a culture—

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[James Morris]

I will not give way again. I am drawing my remarks to a conclusion.

We should not create an environment in which people have the expectation that going for a judicial review will somehow impact on a decision. I welcome the changes in the Bill. We need to improve the balance between judicial review and local democratic accountability to enable public bodies to make long-term decisions on behalf of communities and constituents.