Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is involved in Lords amendments Nos. 5 to 34, 75, 123 and 124. If the House agrees to them, I will cause an appropriate entry to be made in the Journal.

Clause 64

Likelihood of substantially different oucome for applicant

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 97.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments 98 to 106 and Government motions to disagree.

Lords amendment 107, and amendments (a) to (e) in lieu.

[Chris Grayling]

Before I move on to the detail of the amendments, it might be helpful to remind the House why these reforms are so important. Judicial review was developed as a tool for citizens to challenge decisions taken by public bodies that unlawfully and adversely affect their lives. That remains as important today as ever, and nothing in these reforms will prevent those citizens from using judicial review in the future. As Lord Chancellor I take my responsibility to uphold the rule of law very seriously, but I do not believe that the way in which it has evolved in relation to the current use of judicial review is consistent with or necessary to uphold the rule of law, and I believe the time has clearly come to set some limits to prevent misuse.

Judicial review was never intended to be a tool for pressure groups to seek to disrupt perfectly lawful decision making in Government and Parliament, it was never designed to be used as a political campaigning tool, and it was never intended to put the courts above the elected Government in taking decisions over the essential interests of this country. Yet, in far too many examples, that is precisely what it has become and it is why reform is necessary. It is also why the three areas of our proposed reforms covered by this debate tonight are so important.