Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [ Lords ]

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Thank you, Sir Gary. I am sorry for catching your eye a bit late.

The point of amendment 1 is to spell out in the text of the Bill that there is the ability to change pathways of submission during a proceeding. What the Minister has said is reassuring, but we are to have a new Government, probably with many new Ministers, in a few days’ time, and the Bill will last for many generations, so it is prudent to ensure that in 10 or 20 years’ time, when new online systems have superseded the online systems that the Minister talks about, it is very clear in the text of the Bill that people can still change. The amendment is friendly rather than hostile. It does not take anything away, so the Government could simply accept it rather than ask for it to be withdrawn.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I, too, apologise for rising at the wrong point, Sir Gary.

I support this friendly amendment. Last year when the Government considered the future of the magistrates court in my city of Cambridge, I visited the courts. A comment consistently made was that new technology was not always reliable. Is the Minister confident that any new system will be robust? In the absence of such confidence, having an alternative is reassuring for many people.

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown for his observation about the new Government. I hope the Bill is not the first to fall victim to a catastrophic U-turn, because that would be a great disappointment to us all.

On the point about the reliability of technology, the Bill is an insurance policy against any unreliability, not because of any particular system being inherently unreliable, but because occasionally someone might not plug something in—it could be as simple as that. I recognise that it is important to have alternative means available.

We could put many provision in the Bill that do not necessarily need to be in the Bill. We cannot see where technology will take us in 10 to 20 years’ time. Who knows? Who foresaw the internet in the early ’80s, for example? The point is that whenever anyone engages with the online systems, the opportunity to use non-electronic means is a clearly advertised joined-up process. It does not need to be in the Bill. Indeed, such a provision might be outdated in a few years’ time.

Also, and more important, the Bill sets up an online procedure rules committee. I do not want to fetter the decision-making powers of that committee on the correct online procedures for every type of case that it deals with. It will have to deal with this question on a case-by-case basis. As much as I love Christmas trees, turning every Government Bill into a Christmas tree on which we hang our own individual baubles is equivalent to erecting a gravestone over our political efforts, so I once again ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

We think amendment 8 is important to ensure that there is no control by the Executive. If it is asked by the Minister to change the rules, the committee that has been charged with the task of preparing the procedures should be able to decline the request. That is important because it ensures that the committee is independent of the Executive, the Lord Chancellor and the Ministry of Justice. The committee should be free to do as it wishes. The Opposition therefore believe that the amendment is an important safeguard for the OPRC to be able to determine the rules as it wishes. It will give written notice to the appropriate Ministers, and I am sure it will explain its rationale. We believe that it should ultimately be a procedure committee’s decision whether to change a procedure because of a request from a Minister; the Minister should not be able to take control of that. It is a power grab by the Executive, and we have to avoid that as far as possible.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am one of the few people in the room who does not have a legal background. I have an IT background, and I used to spend a lot of my time trying to explain to people that IT cannot always do the magical things that they think it can. One of the flaws in this discussion is that there is nothing about the digital infrastructure that underpins the Bill. The proposed amendment is actually rather sensible, given that the only IT expertise in this process seems to sit with the OPRC. I would like reassurance from the Minister that some thought has been given to the processes that will underpin the Bill. Has he considered whether it would be sensible in some cases for the Committee to say, “Actually, this is not going to work.”?

[Andy Slaughter]

I strongly disagree with Government amendment 9. It is very common practice for there to be dual control—the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice—in relation to a variety of matters. It seems sensible and is an important safeguard. Nowhere should that be more self-evident than when one is dealing with the practical operations of the courts and ensuring, as the Bill does, that new systems coming into operation have that practical guidance. Having perhaps accepted in principle the arguments that were very well made in the other place, particularly by Lord Judge, I cannot see that the Government now wish to weaken that by simply having consultation rather than concurrence. As the Minister often says to our Front Benchers, I would urge him to think about this again and see what he is gaining or has to be worried about in these provisions. It seems an unnecessary bit of control-freakery by the Government.