Draft Justices of the Peace and Authorised Court and Tribunal Staff (Costs) Regulations 2020

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 General Committees

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the Minister for his explanation of the statutory instrument. He will be pleased to know that we are not seeking to divide the Committee on this matter.

I will just touch on a couple of matters that colleagues have raised. First, to answer the question by the hon. Member for Wycombe, I must say that not once in all the years I have practised law did we have a wasted costs order against a justices’ clerk, so I agree with the Minister that it is rare, but it is necessary to have these provisions, just in case errors do occur.

Secondly, the Minister is correct that part of this statutory instrument is just about changing the terminology. Two years ago, the 2018 Act, which I led on for the Opposition, abolished justices’ clerks and replaced them with what are called authorised court officers. That new breed of people was created by the Ministry of Justice to deal with some simple, straightforward, semi-judicial functions.

We objected to the qualification requirements for authorised court officers, but we lost on every single amendment we tabled regarding who these people should be and what their qualifications should be. However, the legislation exists, and to answer the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley about why we need this statutory instrument, it is because authorised court officers were created two years ago and now need to be covered.

The discussion on wasted costs orders was never had at that point, but it is now being addressed in this statutory instrument, and it makes sense to do that so that these people, and any other person operating in the court system, are given cover. We do not object, and we understand the necessity for this statutory instrument.