Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Cartlidge and Marco Longhi

Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

24. What steps his Department has taken to support defence exports to global allies.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)]

The UK scores highly in the global rankings for defence exports, which create jobs and prosperity across the country, building the industrial resilience and capacity we need for our national security. Through the defence and security industrial strategy, we and the industry are strengthening our position by diversifying our exports and target markets, and by collaborating more closely.

[James Cartlidge]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is right to highlight this important collaboration with one of our major allies. Enhanced kinetic energy munitions are a key part of the Challenger 3 and Leopard 2 main battle tanks programmes, and will deliver battle-winning capabilities to UK and German armed forces. I am confident that their advanced performance will be recognised as world-leading, and their export potential to NATO and other allies will be promoted by the MOD, as ever in close partnership with the Department for Business and Trade.

[Marco Longhi]

I congratulate the Defence Secretary and all Ministers past and present who may have played their part in securing the £1.9 billion export deal with Poland for missiles. Does he agree that significantly strengthening our defence and security relationship with Brazil can increase exports to that country, too?

Judicial Review and Courts Bill (First sitting)

Debate between James Cartlidge and Marco Longhi

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Public Bill Committees

Marco Longhi

- - Excerpts

Thank you. I am glad that you referred to the words “less extreme” in your commentary.

Professor Feldman: I agree with what Dr Morgan said.

James Cartlidge

-

Q I was very struck by the point from Professor Feldman about resource and proportionality in relation to the Cart judicial reviews. He made the point about the 3.4% success rate being very low compared with estimates of success. I am not sure that that is necessarily definitive. You suggested 50% for what we might call other JRs. The average number of judge days used on these cases is something like 180 days of what is, after all, the High Court judge’s time, so your point on proportionality is important in terms of resource—albeit the legal considerations are very important as well. Currently, we as a Government, who are accountable for resources, are faced with this covid-related backlog, particularly in the Crown court but in other parts of the courts as well. Given the average number of judge days, would you agree that currently the resource issue is even more important to take into account?

Professor Feldman: That is a perfectly fair point. Success rates in judicial review are extremely difficult to assess. There have been some very good studies. The consensus that has emerged seems to be of between 30% and 50% success rates, which takes account not only of the favourable decisions from judges, but also of the favourable, or more or less favourable, out-of-court settlements of the claims, which allow litigants to withdraw their claims before they get to a full hearing. If it is 3.4% or so, that is, I would say, a significant but not huge figure.

The question for Parliament is: what amount of injustice should be contemplated as acceptable in the face of the shortages of judicial time? As the Supreme Court said in Cart, if you overload judges with a certain type of decision, less time is available for them to deal with other types of claims, which might be equally or more deserving. It is a really difficult question, but I think it is a fair one.

Dr Morgan: This is a deeply political question, because what it requires is a trade-off between expense, court time and the rational use of limited court time against the achievement of justice. We must not forget that sometimes Cart reviews do succeed. That means that there is either a point of law of public importance that the High Court has corrected, or that something has gone very seriously wrong with the facts of a particular case. Again, the High Court has given justice to the particular individual. The kind of cases we are talking about involve very vulnerable individuals. It was put rather well by Andy Slaughter on Second Reading:

“Cart reviews are a last-gasp defence for some of the most vulnerable people in the most desperate situations.”—[Official Report, 26 October 2021; Vol. 702, c. 230.]

In order to save money and economise on judicial resources, that is the cost that Parliament faces. In the end, that is why this is probably a question for Parliament, rather than the courts, because Parliament has the public purse, which the courts do not. It is very hard for the courts to make decisions which inevitably influence resource allocation.

That is not a criticism of the Supreme Court and Cart. Lord Dyson in Cart said something very interesting. He suggested that Parliament in 2007 should have addressed this question and failed to do it, and it now fell to the courts to do it instead. That was the suggestion in Cart itself; the courts felt they had been left to deal with some unfinished business in the 2007 Act. Well, the courts gave their answer and, in my view, Parliament is fully entitled to take a different view, but with the costs of it to certain individuals squarely in mind.

Judicial Review and Courts Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between James Cartlidge and Marco Longhi

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Marco Longhi]

Dr Tomlinson.

Dr Tomlinson: I would point out that Cart judicial reviews are not just immigration cases. While the caseload is made up mostly of immigration matters, they are not necessarily all immigration cases. My view would be that there are lots of different appeal routes and mechanisms across the justice system and in different areas of the justice system. As I said earlier, there can be reason for disagreement about that, but in my view the Supreme Court in Cart got the question right, and I think its reasoning was correct that the procedure that is potentially open to review in a Cart judicial review is one where there needed to be a limited—I stress limited because the Supreme Court made it limited—scope for review, and that has proven to be a relatively successful and cheap way of picking up important errors that affect people’s lives.

[James Cartlidge]

Q Going back to the question from the hon. Member for Lewisham East, about the England and Wales measures in terms of magistrates courts and so on, on the point of the principle of access to justice and technology, which is important for this Bill, there was an emphasis in some of the evidence that we heard earlier that having online procedures is negative for access to justice in many ways. However, from what Aidan O’Neill said earlier and the experience of the pandemic, particularly in England and Wales, technology is important for keeping access to justice. Would you agree that the expedited development of technology that was necessary because of the pandemic has improved access to justice, while we do need to have safeguards in place?

Judicial Review and Courts Bill (First sitting)

Debate between James Cartlidge and Marco Longhi

Committee stage
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Marco Longhi]

Thank you. I am glad that you referred to the words “less extreme” in your commentary.

Professor Feldman: I agree with what Dr Morgan said.

[James Cartlidge]

Q I was very struck by the point from Professor Feldman about resource and proportionality in relation to the Cart judicial reviews. He made the point about the 3.4% success rate being very low compared with estimates of success. I am not sure that that is necessarily definitive. You suggested 50% for what we might call other JRs. The average number of judge days used on these cases is something like 180 days of what is, after all, the High Court judge’s time, so your point on proportionality is important in terms of resource—albeit the legal considerations are very important as well. Currently, we as a Government, who are accountable for resources, are faced with this covid-related backlog, particularly in the Crown court but in other parts of the courts as well. Given the average number of judge days, would you agree that currently the resource issue is even more important to take into account?

Professor Feldman: That is a perfectly fair point. Success rates in judicial review are extremely difficult to assess. There have been some very good studies. The consensus that has emerged seems to be of between 30% and 50% success rates, which takes account not only of the favourable decisions from judges, but also of the favourable, or more or less favourable, out-of-court settlements of the claims, which allow litigants to withdraw their claims before they get to a full hearing. If it is 3.4% or so, that is, I would say, a significant but not huge figure.

The question for Parliament is: what amount of injustice should be contemplated as acceptable in the face of the shortages of judicial time? As the Supreme Court said in Cart, if you overload judges with a certain type of decision, less time is available for them to deal with other types of claims, which might be equally or more deserving. It is a really difficult question, but I think it is a fair one.

Dr Morgan: This is a deeply political question, because what it requires is a trade-off between expense, court time and the rational use of limited court time against the achievement of justice. We must not forget that sometimes Cart reviews do succeed. That means that there is either a point of law of public importance that the High Court has corrected, or that something has gone very seriously wrong with the facts of a particular case. Again, the High Court has given justice to the particular individual. The kind of cases we are talking about involve very vulnerable individuals. It was put rather well by Andy Slaughter on Second Reading:

“Cart reviews are a last-gasp defence for some of the most vulnerable people in the most desperate situations.”—[Official Report, 26 October 2021; Vol. 702, c. 230.]

In order to save money and economise on judicial resources, that is the cost that Parliament faces. In the end, that is why this is probably a question for Parliament, rather than the courts, because Parliament has the public purse, which the courts do not. It is very hard for the courts to make decisions which inevitably influence resource allocation.

That is not a criticism of the Supreme Court and Cart. Lord Dyson in Cart said something very interesting. He suggested that Parliament in 2007 should have addressed this question and failed to do it, and it now fell to the courts to do it instead. That was the suggestion in Cart itself; the courts felt they had been left to deal with some unfinished business in the 2007 Act. Well, the courts gave their answer and, in my view, Parliament is fully entitled to take a different view, but with the costs of it to certain individuals squarely in mind.