Oral Answers to Questions

William Bain Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

They have. We signed the agreement with Albania earlier in January, which is very recently indeed. We hope that we will start making returns under that agreement very shortly. As I have said before, it is important that the agreements, wherever we can negotiate them, are compulsory prisoner transfer agreements so that prisoners do not have the choice about going back.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

16. What his Department’s policy is on reform of judicial review.

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

As set out in our recent engagement exercise “Judicial Review: proposals for reform”, our policy is to reduce the burden on public services of ill-founded judicial review applications, while protecting access to justice and the rule of law. We are working with the judiciary to ensure that we achieve that balance.

[Mr Bain]

Has the Secretary of State not seen Liberty’s response to his consultation on judicial review, which finds no statistical or any other evidence that it impedes growth or stifles innovation? Why does the Secretary of State believe it is right to remove rights from local communities and vulnerable people in immigration cases just to find an excuse for why this economy has not grown in five of the past nine quarters?

[Chris Grayling]

The problem with judicial review is that it has mushroomed beyond any expectation. It started with a few hundred cases when it was first introduced and there are now more than 10,000 a year. Often, those judicial review processes are based on a public relations exercise or an attempt to derail the reform temporarily by using a technicality. Judicial review should be a genuine process to challenge the public authorities when they get it wrong; it should not be an excuse to fly a kite.