Pensions Appeal Tribunals (Late Appeal) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her incisive and always-informed remarks.

At paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, the word “consistent” is used. A consistent approach is to be welcomed. However, can the Minister tell us about the ASG—that is, the advisory steering group? Who heads it? It looks very formal. It is advisory but shall its members be paid? Do we know what amount the group’s members receive? Are there any names of which the Committee might be informed? We need information regarding the names concerning the representative ex-service and service communities. One does not want the high and mighty of law and government ministries leaning heavily on the humbler members of the ASG. If the MoD is involved, rank will be a consideration. The judiciary also carries weight. On membership, does everyone have an equal voice?

At paragraph 7.2, we learn of appeals. Might the Minister flesh this point out by instancing an appeal case? What might it entail?

On paragraph 7.4, how many appeals were heard in 2021 and, if it is possible for the Minister to say, 2022? Again, I thank the Minister for her remarks.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, often in your Lordships’ House—and I mean your Lordships’ House, not Grand Committee, as I have not forgotten where I am—we spend a lot of time looking at primary legislation and saying that we need better scrutiny, that we should not have Henry VIII clauses, that we do not want framework legislation and that we need to be able to scrutinise statutory instruments very closely. The assumption is that the Government, on occasion, are perhaps trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

We do not get framework legislation with lots of Henry VIII clauses from the MoD, but we do from other ministries, so we will perhaps exonerate the MoD from this. Here we have a statutory instrument that looks so straightforward that one almost wonders why it needs to be here, other than that we had agreed in the Armed Forces Act 2021 that we should scrutinise such a statutory instrument. In asking whether this should be considered debated and approved, it is a straightforward statutory instrument, as it is only right that service personnel and veterans who are seeking to appeal, whether they are from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, are treated in the same way. The basic principle seems straightforward: everyone in the four nations of the United Kingdom should be treated the same.

I have a similar question to one from the noble Lord, Lord Jones, about the number of appeals we are thinking about—not necessarily in 2021 or 2022. Are we talking about very large numbers or is this seem primarily as a tidying-up exercise? It would be useful to know that and have a sense, looking back 15 years from 2008 to 2023, of whether many people have been done a disservice because they were in Scotland and Northern Ireland and were not able to appeal between months 13 and 24, whereas they would have been able to in England or Wales.

I like the idea of the Lord Chancellor’s steering group but agree that it would be interesting to know more about its basis and whether it is intended as a long-term body.

I have a final question. We have occasionally had other tidying-up amendments. Is the Minister sanguine about the fact that other tidying-up legislation might need to be brought forward if there are other disparities that could be doing a disservice to service personnel or veterans from one part of the United Kingdom compared to those from other parts?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this instrument. It seems simply to bring appeals in Scotland and Northern Ireland into line with those in the rest of the United Kingdom, which is a good thing. I am curious, because this anomaly presumably sprang up in 2008, which was 15 years ago, about why it has taken so long to alight upon it and address it. That is the first of my two questions.

Secondly, the hierarchy for whether an appeal is allowed involves a step at which the Secretary of State may choose not to allow it. Does the Secretary of State have to respect any criteria in making this decision or is it absolutely at his discretion? I cannot see any guidance on the criteria in the instrument, but there may be a general criterion. I recall some discussion of this in the past and the requirement of Secretaries of State to behave reasonably, but I cannot see any criteria. Clearly, the stopgap—the thing that makes this reasonable —is that the tribunal may override the Secretary of State in the interests of justice, so it is not that important a point, but I am curious.

Just to make sure I have not got this completely wrong, would the Minister confirm that this measure is favourable for appellants in Scotland and Northern Ireland?