Public Bodies (Abolition of Courts Boards) Order 2012

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, again I thank the Minister and congratulate him on his very clear exposition of this order. I indicate at the outset that, as in the House of Commons, the Opposition do not in any sense oppose the proposals.

However, although the Minister has rightly referred to issues raised by the Merits Committee, it should be noted that, as well as raising individual issues, the committee expressed some concerns about how the whole process had taken place. In particular, in relation to the explanatory document, paragraph 13 of the Merits Committee report points out that both the Magistrates’ Association and the Law Society thought that the current system was better than nothing. The Government have made a judgment on that and I do not necessarily quibble with it. The Merits Committee came to this conclusion:

“On balance the low number of consultation responses would seem to support the Government’s view, that Courts Boards are not operating particularly effectively”.

However, it also pointed out that while the,

“Explanatory Document suggests that other existing avenues may perform the same function better”,

that would need to be articulated “more fully in debate”. Up to a point that has happened in another place and here today, but it did not happen unprompted. Similarly, on the impact assessment, the committee pointed out that,

“in order to demonstrate compliance with the statutory tests”—

departments—

“should, as a minimum, include in the ED a clear statement of the factors that have been included in their calculation of net savings”.

They have subsequently done that and, again, there is no issue over that. However, as the Merits Committee indicated, it would be better to have had that in place in the first instance.

The committee made a point about the reassurances over provision to monitor and influence how court services are tailored. Its conclusion was a modest rebuke to the Government, which said:

“In our consideration of future draft Public Bodies Orders, we will expect the Government to present a properly argued case that the tests in the 2011 Act have been satisfied, supported by objective evidence”.

I am sure that the Minister will wish to ensure that that is carried through in the event of any further orders coming from his department. I hope that the Government as a whole will take that point.

One or two issues remain outstanding, which relate partly to the answers that were given by the Minister, Mr Djanogly, in Monday’s debate in the House of Commons and those given by the noble Lord today. These refer to the other structures that are in place, such as justices’ issues groups and the Magistrates’ Association. As the Minister said on Monday, there are other bodies, which mean that,

“court users … can have their views heard through structures such as justices’ issues groups, area judicial forums, local criminal justice boards, victims and witnesses sub-groups, and court user groups”.—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 23/4/12; col. 4.]

That raises the question of the number of bodies that might be involved and suggests rather a more fragmented approach to looking at the issues that arise in an individual area. It is striking that there is no mention of local authorities among those groups. I invite the Minister to consider whether it would be appropriate to encourage HMCTS to promote the involvement of local authorities, which are important partners in community safety and can make a significant contribution to dealing with the problems of crime and disorder, which manifest themselves locally and end up in the courts.

Useful experiments are taking place in different parts of the country in relation to some of these matters. For example, I am currently chairing a scrutiny panel in my own authority dealing with the mental health of offenders. In the course of that we have discovered that there are experiments about providing professionals at court who can assist those who might have mental health problems at a very early stage in proceedings. It is also something that the young offender teams are involved in, closely linked to the local authority services.

The point is that it will not be sufficient simply to have different groups of people relating to the HMCTS.

[Lord Haskel]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but a Division has been called and so the Committee stands adjourned for 10 minutes.