Judicial Review and Courts Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Antony Higginbotham and Alex Cunningham

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Antony Higginbotham]

Q Can I just follow up? I understand what you are saying about treading on toes, but it is not also the case that we must ensure our ways of working evolve as technology evolves. To your point, that is why it is important, as the committee establishes itself, that it does so in a careful and considered way—not to step on toes, but to take the best of new ways of working and carry the profession with it.

Richard Leiper: I could not agree with that more. I think it is exactly the right concept to have. It will help litigants. There is provision so that those who do not have the means of doing things online would have the alternative of doing so through more traditional mechanisms, but I completely agree with the process because it should simplify the system to enable people to access justice more freely.

I could not agree more with the underlying concept. It is more a matter of ensuring that the infrastructure is in place to carry that through, so that it can become effective. That has two parts. First, it means having a properly composed committee with the expertise that can be brought to it and, secondly, having the infrastructure behind it so that it is not just a rule committee setting what needs to happen on high, but it gets the buy-in of everyone who will implement it and of how it will operate.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Q Mr Leiper, you talked about the size of the committee being inadequate at six members. What is your opinion about how we build that particular committee? Are you suggesting 16 members like other committees or do you think there is a middle ground? Who should the committee comprise?

Richard Leiper: I am not one for large committees, which can be counterproductive, but we are talking about an enormous amount of work that will need to be undertaken across a wide range of practice areas. I suggest that the composition was akin to that of the civil procedure rule committee and of family law, so having more judges and more practitioners. The committee has only one person who can bring the knowledge of the lay-advice sector, whereas I think both the civil procedure rule committee and the family procedure rule committee each have two lay members. It needs a wider composition akin to those of the existing rule committees—which seem to operate perfectly successfully—where people are able to bring together the knowledge and direction of what they want to achieve through the online rule committee, but also bring particular practice or individual knowledge to the development of those rules.