Civil Proceedings and Magistrates’ Courts Fees (Amendment) Order 2025

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, once again I am grateful to the Minister for his introduction to this instrument. It is difficult to say much about this amendment order in that, as he pointed out, it does not alter the existing fees at all, as far as I can see. Also, the possibility of enhanced fees is restated in relation to the fees covered by the order, there already having been that possibility in legislation.

Having read the Explanatory Memorandum and listened to the Minister’s introduction, it appears that the level would have gone down on the introduction of what I think he called the new methodology, which I thought was an attractive word in relation to this instrument. In the interests of transparency, it would be interesting if he could say how much lower the fees would have been on the introduction of the new methodology had this instrument not been brought into effect.

In general, we are of the view that the level of court fees should be assessed by reference to the recovery of the costs of administration, rather than being treated as a kind of profit centre for either the department or the Courts & Tribunals Service. Therefore, we do not see it as sensible to set fees at a level that produces a substantial profit for the administration, although I can see an argument for the cross-subsidisation that the Minister mentioned where there are other areas that are loss-making for the Courts & Tribunals Service which are covered by some excess income on some of these very high-volume fees. I do not suppose that anybody will be too worried about the commission-type fee for the sale of goods and shipping.

We simply state that, in general, there should be a good reason for enhanced fees, which I think is a principle that the department accepts. We accept that some fees will exceed the costs of administration, but that needs to be justified. We do not see the fees charged by courts as an appropriate way of raising extra funds for the public purse.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments, and I agree with the way he set out the objectives of raising fees. It is not the objective to make a profit on them. The vast bulk of fees are set at a level to recover their administrative cost. However, occasionally there are these enhanced fees. For reasons which the noble Lord will understand, there is some limited extent of cross-subsidisation for certain fees which are set much lower or at zero. But the general principle is that the fees should cover the cost of the application itself.

The noble Lord asked what the fees would be if this order was not in place. In the case of the council tax liability order, the fee is being maintained at 50p, but it would go down to 23p if this SI was not put in place. In the case of the warrants of entry, it is currently being maintained at £22 but would go down to £12.09, for the same reason. It is more difficult for me to give the equivalent value for the sale of ships or goods because it is a different calculation and I cannot give a single number to give a comparison. However, I hope that answers the noble Lord’s questions. I commend this order to the Committee.