Civil Proceedings Fees (Amendment) Order 2021

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we on the Labour Benches accept that those who cannot access the internet for one reason or another should not have to pay more for the same service. Having accepted that, we note that there is a net increase above inflation for most users—that is, the 90% of users who currently access civil proceedings online.

We accept that HMCTS is running at a huge deficit and the Government must take action in the interests of justice to reduce that deficit. In his introduction, the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, gave the figures that are in the Explanatory Memorandum: in 2019-20 there was a net fee income of £724 million against £2 billion of running costs for HMCTS, and that gap in funding has to be paid for by the taxpayer.

The question that we have heard asked by both the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett is about the likely overall impact of this change in fees. From my reading of the papers, the impact assessment claims that the alignment of the fees could save about £20 million per year. That saving in comparison to the massive deficit shows that it really is a drop in the ocean.

The problems faced by HMCTS are colossal and represent decades of underinvestment that have brought the system to its knees, with a record backlog to match. HMCTS has lost one-quarter of its budget in the last decade. Courts have been sold and sitting days have been slashed, and all this was happening long before Covid. It is the victims of crime who are paying the highest price for this negligence. While we support—or rather we will not oppose; I will phrase it like that—this increase in civil proceeding fees, we think there is a much larger problem to be addressed. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation of how the larger funding problems will be addressed.