Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Debate between David Davis and David Lammy

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. That ought to be a principle across the House, not a party political issue.

To return to the review of administrative law that the Government set up, in their consultation response, the Government acknowledge that presumptions were not recommended by the review panel, and they were generally met with scepticism from respondents to the consultation. Indeed, it is not even certain whether prospective-only remedies would withstand a challenge before the European Court of Human Rights for failure to provide an effective remedy. Given the Government’s own panel of experts, and the sector, are opposed to that change, and given the harmful effect that it would have on victims of unlawful decisions, as well as on governmental decision making, we must ask why the Government are keen to make this change. Is it really, as they suggest, to provide courts with greater flexibility, or is it simply to insulate the Government from being held to account, and to weaken the power of claimants to seek compensation?

Clause 2 seeks to abolish Cart-type judicial reviews. For Members who may not be familiar with what those are, Cart judicial reviews allow individuals to ask the High Court to review decisions made by the upper tribunal to refuse a right of appeal. The vast majority of Cart reviews are sought by those who find themselves in horrendously desperate situations and they invoke some of our most fundamental human rights, including in some cases the difference between life and death. During the review of administrative law that the Government set up and the consultation stage, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association provided the panel with 57 case studies of when Cart judicial review has been used to put right an incorrect decision made by the upper tribunal. Those case studies included parents’ applications to be reunited with their children, a child’s application to remain in the UK to receive lifesaving treatment, the asylum claim of a victim of human trafficking and female genital mutilation, and many other deportation and asylum decisions where, if deported, individuals faced persecution or their lives would be at risk.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and I am pleased I have provided half his speech for him. I have an important point in support of his argument. Much of the Government’s argument on Cart appears to be that there are very few successful cases. First, I think they got that wrong—they thought it was less than 1%, but it is probably 6%. Secondly, the point the right hon. Gentleman is making is that, when they get it wrong, the consequences for the individual are dramatically bad. We must always think that through. When dealing with law, we must protect the weakest from the worst consequences.

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Gentleman makes his point very well. He is absolutely right. In each of the cases that I mentioned, judicial review was able to correct a wrong decision by the upper tribunal and enable fundamental injustices to be prevented, as he indicates. If the Government were successful in abolishing Cart, that crucial safeguard would be lost. That would not affect anyone in this Chamber, but it would affect very vulnerable people. Again, one must ask why the Government are attempting to make this change, and why they are using legislative time now to do it.

When the panel that the Government set up to look at these issues first recommended abolishing Cart judicial reviews, it did so on the basis that only 0.22% of them were successful and that public money could be better spent elsewhere. We know now that that figure was based on wholly inaccurate data. Even the Government now accept that the success rate is likely to be at least 15 times as high as previously thought. It is indefensible for the Government to base decisions that could make the difference between life and death on evidence that is so hopelessly flawed.

Debate on the Address

Debate between David Davis and David Lammy

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

That is a very good point. Some people are using the phrase “hyper-devolution”, which means devolution to communities as they negotiate the power that must rightly lie with them.

Let me now deal with what I consider to be a major issue in the Queen’s Speech. Our country faces a huge structural economic problem in its housing market. We are failing badly the people beyond the House who are young and want to get on to the housing ladder, but who are also the working poor, unable to secure social housing or to buy affordable housing. It is of huge concern that the average age of a buyer in London was 39 this year, and that if we continue on the same trajectory, it will be 52 in a generation. It is also embarrassing and shocking that we built only 40 council houses in London last year. There is much talk about affordable housing, but all hon. Members will understand that rents at 80% of market value are not affordable for most Londoners, who on average earn £32,000 a year. It beggars belief that the Government should propose to extend the right to buy to the 1.3 million people in housing associations. We can look at the matter from a Thatcherite point of view. There is no other area of public policy where someone can get as much as £100,000 from the taxpayer for buying their council home. We are to extend that to people in housing associations. What will that do to supply? How will that contribute to the huge problem of affordable housing? What is our vision for social housing? It appears that there is no vision for social housing and that we are effectively saying we no longer believe in council homes and we no longer believe in social housing in housing associations.

[Mr David Davis]

Because it is low-cost, high-security accommodation, people never move out of it, so how is it the answer to the problem that someone in a housing association flat or house monopolises it for life and it never becomes available to other people who properly want social housing?

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point in relation to the escalator that should be fundamental to the welfare system, but with respect that is not the point I am making. We are reducing the supply of social housing, and many people on a decent wage simply do not have the assets to reduce the demand for social housing. That seems wrong-headed. In the previous Parliament, we heard much about a council house being built for every one that came off the market. That has not happened and it will not happen with housing association properties either.

Legal Aid Reform

Debate between David Davis and David Lammy

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

If the hon. Lady will forgive, I am very tight on time. I will give way if I can a little later.

That does not tell the whole story, however. Time and again, we see trials delayed and extended by CPS incompetence. In my part of the world alone, the newspapers are littered with cases of lawyers not turning up, evidence not being presented and cases being adjourned again and again. I suspect we all have constituency cases just like that. This happens right across the country. We should not pretend that the legal aid system is a model of efficiency, but when it comes to finding savings and better, effective justice across the whole system, we should look first at the CPS itself before we let the axe fall again on legal aid.

I am yet to be convinced—this addresses the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab)—by Government assurances that the quality of legal aid providers will be guaranteed by a state body. This debate comes barely a week after the Care Quality Commission scandal. That demonstrates how difficult it is to guarantee the quality of complex intellectual services, which, of course, justice is. We should notice that even where the state has direct control—namely, the CPS and the Serious Fraud Office—it cannot guarantee quality there either. A judge in a recent murder case described the CPS lawyer as “completely inadequate”. The judge said that the lawyer cited old law, did not understand the current law, fell out with the prosecution team, and then simply did not show up on the following Monday. As a result, the trial had to be held six months later. If we cannot guarantee our own system and our own service, how are we going to guarantee 400 private operators around the country?

[Mr Lammy]

Does the right hon. Gentleman also recognise a Conservative idea that competition can drive down costs?

[Mr Davis]

The right hon. Gentleman is almost taking the words out of my mouth. I cannot believe that a Conservative Government are going to mandate how many companies and providers there should be. I know of no example in the world where a Government mandated the number of companies and then improved the efficiency of provision—not one. This is a Soviet proposal that I do not want to see. I do not mind if there are better ways of finding efficiency—as has been said, that is what we must find—but please do not lay down laws like that.

I wish briefly to discuss a couple of other troubling issues in the consultation document, the first of which is the 12-month residency test. That could deny justice to people who have suffered because of the actions of the UK Government—under UK jurisdiction—which we are responsible for resolving. Just to mention cases in which I have been directly involved, I can cite those of Binyam Mohamed, Serdar Mohamed, Yunus Rahmatullah, who is still in Bagram prison, and Baha Mousa. We are talking about: people who were subject to torture in which Britain was complicit; an innocent man beaten to death by British soldiers; people who have been rendered—and still are—to other countries; people who have been handed over to our allies—[Interruption.] From a sedentary position, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton mentions de Menezes, who was shot, although accidentally, by the British Government. All those people would be denied their justice. More important, given that in many of those cases the person is deceased, the British people would not know about the misdemeanours of their own Government.

That brings me to my final point, which is about judicial review. I sympathise with Ministers who find it irksome that we have so many judicial reviews, but the Government are in danger of getting themselves a reputation for wanting to act above the law. Irksome as it is, judicial reviews are what keeps British Governments honest—it does not matter of which party or of which origin, they keep the Government honest. I say to the Government that before they strike down these things at their own convenience, they should think again, come back more slowly and present this House with some primary legislation we can then be proud of.