Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, not for the first time, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has delivered a brilliant speech—a wonderful defence of Conservative values. I congratulate her on that. She made an extremely telling point when she talked about the politicisation of the judiciary in the United States.

I am very proud to be an honorary citizen of Texas, but when I was in Texas in 1984, at the time of the presidential election, I was invited to go to a $1,500-a-plate barbecue in aid of the man who was running for chief justice of Texas. I said to my congressman colleague, “We don’t do it like that in the UK, and I am bound to say that I am extremely glad of that”. I am very glad that that is still the case.

We have heard some outstanding speeches this afternoon. My noble friend Lord Deben was at his very best. We heard a very powerful speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and a short, telling, moving speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, who was, in effect, speaking for the least of the little ones—to use a biblical phrase.

It is a pity that we are here again, because we have been around this course before in debates on the Bill. I had very much hoped that my noble friend who will be responding to the debate, for whom I have a genuinely high regard, would have been able to persuade the Lord Chancellor and others to have taken note of the telling points made in your Lordships’ House. I cannot help but wonder if the fact that we no longer have a distinguished lawyer as Lord Chancellor has something to do with it.

In his speech, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, talked about the significant and powerful difference between the words “must” and “may”. It is a disservice to our democracy to fetter the judiciary. Of course, they can sometimes be exceptionally tiresome. There is not a single Member of your Lordships’ House—other than, perhaps, those who are learned in the law—who has not been exasperated and annoyed from time to time by what judges have said, but the rule of law is what guarantees our liberties in this country. I am so glad that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, quoted from that brilliant book by Tom Bingham. We must not allow any Government to fetter the freedom of the judiciary.

I have mentioned Magna Carta before and I make no apology for mentioning it again. It was alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Lester. Next year we shall commemorate Magna Carta and celebrate its 800th anniversary. Already, two of the barons who look down on us in this place have gone: one is gracing an exhibition of Victorian sculpture in the United States and the other is to guard the entrance to the British Library’s great exhibition devoted to Magna Carta next year. Much of Magna Carta is not relevant today, but its centrality is:

“To no one will we sell, to no one deny … justice”.

We are moving in that direction if we do not amend the Bill in this way. That is not a good way to commemorate and celebrate.

The Prime Minister has made a number of extremely powerful comments about Magna Carta, after the first unfortunate one on American television. He has said how crucial it is that we recognise the values encapsulated in that most seminal document in our constitutional history. For all the pettifogging, interference and annoyance that might be caused, one of the things that we have to defend is the right of people like the noble Baroness to take on the big powers and the establishment.

How much I agreed with my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew when he was talking about those infrastructure projects. I do not agree with him on the infrastructure projects—on some I do, on some I do not—but that is another matter entirely. I agree that there must be the opportunity to challenge. No Government should have the power to prevent such a challenge simply because it is inconvenient.

I hope that, in winding up, the Minister will be able to indicate that he has listened to the almost unanimous voice in this debate. I hope that, even at this late stage, he will do something—perhaps introducing an amendment at Third Reading—to recognise that the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in his opening speech and the case made so very powerfully with such quiet effectiveness by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has been listened to in government circles and will be heeded.

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)]

My Lords, if those in this Chamber who were opposed to these amendments at the start of this debate have not been converted by what they have heard, nothing that I can add is going to convert them. I simply say to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, that Parliament did not create judicial review; the judges did. It was, I hasten to say, before I became a judge and was one of the best things that our common-law judges have ever done. These amendments are designed to ensure that Parliament does not damage that which the judges created, and they deserve the support of this House.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I know that there is always a sigh in this House when a debate is dominated by lawyers. However, I remind the House that sometimes it is lawyers who know the pain that citizens in our country experience, because we represent them, and that this is about the actual lives on which judicial review has an impact. It is always about the person whose business is to be closed down from trading, based on a department’s or a local authority’s decision that they want to challenge, or the person whose mother is in a care home and suddenly finds that it is being moved or closed down, with no consultation as to the impact on her and her family. It may be about the effect on a disabled child of a decision about their schooling. Those things are about real people’s lives and that is why this is not just a constitutional debate of high flown words or complicated legality—it is about the real impact on the lives of ordinary people.

When your Lordships come to vote in our Lobbies, as I am sure you will be asked to do, I say to those of you who are not lawyers that this is really about people’s lives and about the law coming into play to protect citizens. That is why lawyers and organisations such as the Bar Council, the Law Society and Justice—cross-party and no-party organisations—know why the rule of law matters in our nation and our democracy. This is not, I say to the Minister’s noble friend Lord Tebbit, about judges somehow usurping the power of Parliament. This is about justice, fairness and the things that we hold dear, so I say to my colleagues in this House who are not lawyers that this is not a festival of lawyering. It is about ordinary people.