Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I am not sure that the Minister answered the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about the relative inexperience of the Upper Tribunal in immigration. He quotes the wise and the good, and we have heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, but surely we are not making a decision on the basis of advice only but on the actuality of the court over the period.

[Lord McNally]

The point was made that the Upper Tribunal over the past three years has demonstrated very clearly that it has both the experience and the expertise to deal with these matters. The Upper Tribunal’s expertise in reducing backlogs in the Administrative Court has been demonstrated. I do not have the most up-to-date figures on UKBA withdrawals, but in my closing remarks I accepted that one issue was the UKBA’s tendency in the past to withdraw objections. Reforms that are being taken forward by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary aim to deal with some of those criticisms of the UKBA.

However, that does not take away the central thrust of this proposal that since 2009 the Upper Tribunal has shown itself to be working well, and we are not rushing our fences in this case. Both the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice will be closely involved in gauging the movement of cases to the Upper Tribunal, but no one has seriously doubted its competence or expertise to deal with these matters. On the contrary, it has shown itself to be remarkably efficient at cutting time for dealing with cases, which must be in the interests of justice.