Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, I find myself in unfamiliar territory today as criminal justice is not my usual stomping ground, but I feel an urgency to raise again my deep concern about the cumulative impact of the Government’s reforms—let us call it death by a thousand cuts—on the lives of disabled people. I am aware that many fine legal minds might also be taking the Minister to task, so I will be in good company.

Less than two months ago I spoke in support of a Motion laid by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to regret the Government’s changes to legal aid for judicial review. Having looked very closely at Part 4 of the Bill, I realise how critical the connection is between these two debates.

The Government have presented their changes to judicial review as no more than tinkering with dusty and irrelevant procedures. Nothing could be further from the truth. Judicial review and access to justice have never been more important, particularly for people with disabilities, who, let us face it, are financially challenged. Disabled people have far more contact with public agencies, whose decisions may have a devastating impact on how we live. It is not surprising, therefore, that the means of ensuring that those decisions are taken lawfully, fairly and as Parliament intended is so highly prized. The Government tamper with it at their peril.

Much has been made of a few high-profile cases to make the case for this change. The bread and butter of judicial review is not about Richard III; it is about ordinary people and their relationship with administrative and organisational power. As I said in the Motion of Regret,

“judicial review … is about people standing up to public bodies when”—

and they do—

“they get it just plain wrong”.—[Official Report, 7 May 2014; col. 1549.]

Take the Tracey family, who established at the Court of Appeal that an NHS trust had acted unlawfully by placing a DNR—“Do Not Resuscitate”—order on their mother’s records without consulting her. In a landmark judgment, the appeal court stressed that the duty to consult is an integral part of respecting patients’ dignity. That case could have been mine. I know only too well how frightening it is to have a DNR order placed on my hospital notes. Ten years ago, I faced it myself when admitted to hospital with pneumonia. Luckily, the DNR order was spotted early, and on that occasion the situation was resolved—I am here—but I was always afraid that this could happen to other disabled people. The Tracey family judgment has gone a long way towards allaying our fears and making us feel safer—judicial review.

As noble Lords will know, I served for many years as a commissioner on the Disability Rights Commission and then the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I oversaw the cases they supported or intervened in. I know how important those cases were: for example, the decision that a local authority’s blanket ban on manual lifting and handling, which deprived two seriously disabled sisters of any control over their lives, was unlawful. That ruling has had a life-changing impact on the practice and procedures of all local authorities.

Although we are not here to discuss legal aid today, the proposals in Part 4 of the Bill must be considered in that context. The legal aid changes will make it harder for people to secure advice and representation. Increased fees already make it more difficult for those without means to access judicial review. Part 4 will introduce further barriers, and may restrict judges’ discretion to act fairly in cases that should be heard in the public interest.

I have questions to put to the Minister in two areas of these proposals. The first relates to the “no difference” test. Clause 64 will require judges to refuse judicial review where, even if a local authority acted unlawfully, the outcome would be “highly likely” to have been no different. Consider a failure by a local authority to consult the community in its decision to withdraw a service. Are the Government really asking a judge to “guesstimate” what the outcome of that consultation might have been and what disabled people might have said in response? Will he then guess how the local authority might have responded? Is second-guessing part of the judge’s role?

The second area for the Minister relates to the disclosure of financial information. Under Clauses 65 and 66, judicial review claimants will have to provide information on their financial resources before their claim can proceed. The Government say that they want to stop claimants being used as “human shields” by unscrupulous persons trying to avoid court costs. That really does not ring true to me.

Of concern is the worrying effect of these measures on poorer claimants and those who are willing to support them if they cannot get legal aid. If my cousin gives me £5,000 to help me challenge a decision about my support, will that open up the spectre of an order for court costs, putting her home at risk? What about lawyers volunteering their services pro bono? Would their gifts in kind put them at similar risk? If not, where is the reassurance in the Bill? I hope that the Minister will clarify this.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has published a powerful critique of these proposals. I had the privilege of serving on that committee and I know how hard it works to reach a cross-party consensus on politically contentious cases. I wholeheartedly endorse its conclusion that the case for change is not made and that Part 4, if not heavily amended in Committee, should be rejected. But I am heartened today by the Minister’s comments that having listened to concerns raised on this in the other place, he may consider amendments in Committee. I look forward to holding the Minister to this when he returns in Committee, and I will be back too.

Disabled people, more than any other group, have experienced the cumulative burden of myriad government reforms in recent years. Please let us not make access to justice the final injustice.