Courts and Tribunals (Online Procedure) Bill [HL]

Lord Pannick Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I wish simply to join in the unanimous praise and gratitude for the Government’s acceptance of those amendments that they have accepted, and their tabling of these amendments today. The Online Procedure Rules are intended to introduce a new and simplified procedure. We were concerned to ensure that litigants who were going to find it difficult to use that procedure, particularly in so far as it was a digital procedure and they would not be using paper means to conduct proceedings, should not be excluded by difficulty from approaching the procedure and should have afforded to them the kind of assistance they would need to handle litigation, without the need for lawyers, under the Online Procedure Rules.

We are particularly grateful for the Government’s acceptance of Amendment 4, which imposes a duty on the Lord Chancellor, as the Minister has explained, to provide assistance or support for digitally excluded people, and these amendments tie in the obligation to have regard to the needs of those people in conducting that litigation. I was particularly concerned about the use of the word “technical” in relation to that assistance, because it seemed to us that that might be unduly restrictive. I am grateful for the excision of that word from the amendments.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister very much, even in relation to a Bill which, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has just said, seeks to reduce the role and importance of lawyers in litigation. I want to add two points. The first is to remind the House that the concerns which the Minister has so satisfactorily addressed arise from the report of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee, under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. This confirms the value of the committees that serve this House—I am of course a member of that committee—and reinforces the importance of the non-partisan nature of these committees and the value of the work they do.

Secondly, without in any way undermining the sense of unanimity and gratitude to the Minister, I just remind him that there is one contentious issue which goes to the other place. Your Lordships’ House insisted on amendments, against the wishes of the Government, to what are now Clauses 9(4) and 10(3), requiring the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to use his good efforts to ensure a satisfactory resolution of that issue, as well as all the other issues. The Minister’s role in this Bill has been quite exemplary, and he has done a great deal to ensure that it will leave this House in a much better state than when we started it.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to all noble Lords and all noble and learned Lords for their observations regarding the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Beith, observed, it may be difficult to anticipate the speed with which these online procedures are taken up by individuals, but one is reminded of a character in an Ernest Hemingway novel who is asked how he became bankrupt and replies, “Gradually and then suddenly”. It may well be that we will see a similar development with these digitised procedures.

I note what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, have said. The term “satisfactory resolution” is of course open to interpretation. I observe merely that the extent of permanent constitutional reform anticipated by some of the amendments that passed may not be as great as the noble and learned Lord anticipates. However, we wait to see the reaction in the other place.

Again, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the Bill. It leaves this House a better Bill than it came in—I have no doubt at all about that.