Courts and Tribunals Fees

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Robert Neill

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

No, we have not, and I have to say that we used quite strong language about that in our report, because we were, frankly, disappointed. What happened does actually go against the spirit of courtesy, openness and co-operation I have seen from the Ministry of Justice team throughout the year or so I have chaired the Select Committee, and I hope it is an outlier. I hope the Minister will give us an indication of why the review report has taken so long and when we will get it. I know it is sometimes not easy to agree these things across Government, but it is pretty clear that the data required for the analysis were collected a long time ago, and, as we say in our report, there can be no reason why at least that factual material cannot be published forthwith, even if the Government are not yet in a position to respond, because the more informed the House and the public are, the better. That is an area of regret, and that is why today’s debate is important and timely.

Let me touch on some of the principles we are concerned with. The levels of various courts and tribunal fees have been politically controversial. We all need to bear it in mind that a balance must be struck between the cost to the public purse of administering a justice system, which is an integral part of any civilised society and of the rule of law, and how much can reasonably be recovered from litigants. We say that, in principle, we do not object to the idea that there should be some financial discipline on those who choose to go to law—those who choose to litigate—in deciding whether that is a wise decision for them to make. We do not have a problem with the principle of a certain level of a fees. Equally, however, we must bear in mind the comments that have been made consistently ever since Magna Carta but were recently elegantly captured by the late Lord Bingham of Cornhill in his book, “The Rule of Law”—which I always think should be compulsory reading for anyone in the political sphere—in which he says, in essence, that the accessibility of justice is as much a part of the fundamentals of the rule of law as clarity of the law itself. He says that justice is not a commodity—it cannot be commoditised in the way that, perhaps, other services can be. It is important to get the balance right. That is where we have some concerns that I will now turn to.

We accept that there is no problem, in principle, with fees for litigants. We know that there are financial pressures on the Ministry, which is not a protected Department. I understand the pressures that Ministers were under when these decisions were taken. We think it is entirely legitimate to find a number of means of reducing the number of vexatious claims. That could be done as part of the financial discipline we referred to, but it could also be done by changing the substantive law to raise the threshold or by making changes to court procedure. That is a legitimate part of the mix. But—we then have to say a number of “buts”, looking at the evidence —the answer to what is a reasonable charge in striking this balance will vary depending on a number of factors such as the effectiveness of fee remission, the vulnerability or otherwise of the claimants, and the degree of choice that they have. There is a distinction, for example, between someone who chooses to litigate over a commercial contract dispute and someone who is charged by the state with an offence, or someone whose marriage has broken down and has no other recourse, in order to have the marriage dissolved and move on with their life, than to go to the courts. The degree of choice is an important issue that must be considered carefully in each case.

There is an argument for trying to recover, as far as one can within that balance, some of the costs that fall on the public purse. In some cases, it may be possible to recover all the costs, but that cannot be an absolute. We were particularly struck by the fact that in some cases there are fees that exceed the full cost of the operation of the court; they are sometimes referred to as “enhanced fees”. We take the view, consistent with Lord Bingham’s formulation and with a public policy approach that we have had in this country for decades, that making a profit from the justice system, in effect, albeit one that is intended to be used elsewhere, requires particular care and a strong justification.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Surely the Ministry of Justice should not be making a profit out of justice. Getting rid of tribunal fees and having equality of access to justice is about making sure that everybody in this country can be productive, particularly women, who can be discriminated against—it drives up productivity and boosts the economy.

[Robert Neill]

We do not go so far as to say that it follows that there should never be fees in any particular class of case—that includes employment tribunal fees—but we do say that a balance has to be borne in mind. I suppose that one could conceive of an argument—we did not rehearse it in detail in our report—whereby an enhanced fee might be recycled within the system. If, for example, some of the fees were being used to cross-subsidise, as it were, other elements of the family jurisdiction, then there might be something in that, but we do not have any evidence that that is the case. The hon. Lady makes a fair point, which is consistent with our report, about the undesirability of going down that route.

The situation provides a contrast with the speed with which the Government acted over both the criminal courts charge, quite rightly, and the new proposals for higher fees ever since the employment tribunal fees were introduced, with some controversy. The Department made those proposals with great speed, but it has been remarkably tardy in producing its review of the impact of those employment tribunal fees. That is why we conclude that, although a legitimate balance has to be found in the interests of society, where the objective of achieving cost recovery and the principle of preserving access to justice are in conflict, it is the latter—access to justice—that has to prevail. In a sense, that is a restatement of the point made by the late Lord Bingham of Cornhill, and I would have thought that most Members saw the logic of that.

Other members of the Select Committee will wish to make particular points, so I will touch on a few of the major matters. I have already referred to the quality of the evidence from the Ministry of Justice, particularly that in relation to employment tribunal fees. Ultimately, the Department may not have the evidence; if that is the case, it should say so, rather than pretend otherwise.

It is worth giving a flavour of some of the comments we received about the evidence base. The Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson, described the Department’s research as “lamentable”. It is pretty serious when the head of civil justice in this country talks in those terms. The chairman of the Bar Council described the research undertaken in relation to the domestic effects of fees as “insignificant”, and the president of the Law Society said it was “poor”.

I appreciate that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton has only just started the job—I do not blame him or any of his colleagues personally—but the truth is that the Government did not produce adequate evidence. On the face of it, it seems to have been a “wet your finger and hold it up in the wind” job, rather than being based on significant research. We do not think that that is satisfactory.

Perhaps things would have been different if the Government had brought forward their review. We might have been less critical if we had seen the evidence that they have collated but not yet made available. As it was, we had to base our conclusions on the evidence that we had, which I am afraid went significantly in another direction. It is ironic that, by not providing that material, the Government have not been the best of advocates of their own cause.

I am not going to say that everybody had difficulties with employment fees. In their evidence to us, the Federation of Small Businesses and Peninsula Business Services said that it was reasonable to have the objective of discouraging weak and vexatious claims. That was certainly the Government’s assertion when they introduced the fees, but hard material to support that view has not yet been forthcoming. We must bear in mind the comments of the senior president of tribunals, Sir Ernest Ryder, who said that it was simply too soon to say whether that has happened. If that is the case, and if the valuation is not yet available, now is not the time to be rushing similar increases in other parts of the civil and family and immigration jurisdictions, which I will turn to later. I will leave it to others to go into more detail about employment fees, as I know they will.