Andy Slaughter
MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick · Labour · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Bill, and thank the Government for introducing it and bringing it back to the House before the summer recess. It is the result of years of committed campaigning, led by the families of the victims and survivors of Hillsborough.”
“I know that case means a huge amount to the hon. Lady as a constituency MP, and I thank her for all the work she does on the Justice Committee. I think we have only begun to scratch the surface. This Bill will be a transforming piece of legislation. I will make one final comment.”
“This would be a new, independent public body that collated, analysed and followed up on the conclusions and recommendations made after official investigations into deaths and state failings, in order to improve oversight and implementation of them.”
“I think I have taken enough time, but I thank the Member for that intervention. This afternoon, the Justice Committee signed off a new major report on legal aid, which will be published on Friday. Those who are interested can read more there.”
“In the time that I have, I will focus my remarks on clauses 1 to 16, which create a new appeals body for immigration and asylum cases known as the independent immigration appeals authority.”
“From that visit, our diagnosis was that these are operational problems. There are two key questions for the House: will the IIAA fix the problems with the current system, and will it be truly independent from the Home Office?”
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“Currently, the coroner and the jury—if there is one—must be physically present in the courtroom, and the law does not allow fully remote juries. This clause fails to adequately address the needs of bereaved family members; does not provide a guarantee that remote inquest hearings will continue to be in public; and has been introduced with insufficient research and evaluation. In the criminal justice context, the organisation Justice has piloted fully virtual jury trials. Independent academic analysis concluded that with careful consideration and adaptation, such trials can be fair and may have some benefits over short and straightforward traditional jury trials, such as improved sightlines for jury members.”
“I know that we want to make some progress, but I will make a few additional comments in response to the Minister, because this is an important clause, and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has put his finger on the issue. None of us is against speeding things up, making things more efficient or allowing more options for the ways in which proceedings can be dealt with, but the corollary has to be that we provide protections and avoid unintended consequences that may be harmful to participants and may mean that justice is not done. The aim of clause 39 is to make provision for pre-inquest reviews and inquest hearings to be conducted wholly or partially remotely, with all parties, including the coroner and jury, participating remotely, but with the jury present in the same place.”
“I will take my lead from the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings on this matter. I think that this is a good example of a practical measure and there are sufficient safeguards to allow jury inquests to continue where necessary, so we do not intend to oppose it. Clearly, one would not wish to restrict unduly, and certainly not against the interests of justice, the opportunity for jury inquests, but I think that the way in which the clause is set out and the stages that are gone through ensure that that will be possible and that there is unlikely to be any miscarriage on those grounds. Question put and agreed to . Clause 40 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 41 Phased transition to new coroner areas Question proposed , That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“There is a very helpful example on page 50 of the explanatory notes as to how this would work, for anybody who has any concerns about it. It seems to be administratively sensible and tidy. I cannot do any better than to raise the concerns of a member of the Bar Council who said that this is all well and good provided it does not result in fewer coroners, deputy coroners and deputy assistant coroners covering greater areas. Can the Minister give us that assurance? We have no other points to make or objections to the clause.”
“I used to attend Mayor’s and City quite often and, in previous years, the City of London magistrates court. They were extremely well appointed and rather luxurious by the standards of most of the courts of state. I hope that will be replicated in the new court.”
“What has the Government’s response been to the six non-governmental organisations—respected civil rights and human rights organisations—being banned by the Israeli Government? What are they doing about the all-time highs in evictions and demolitions? They could start with the finding last week against JCB, in which it was found that that major British company had not shown human rights due diligence in ensuring that its equipment was not being used to demolish Palestinian homes. These are the questions that the Government have to answer, and not just as a precursor to re-establishing a peace process; if they do not, they are abdicating responsibility, there is no hope for peace going forward, and they are effectively colluding with what the Israeli Government are doing.”
“There are 13,000 about to be approved, and it is not just what is being approved; it is where. These are strategically placed to cut off East Jerusalem from Ramallah, or they are being built 20 km inside the west bank to ensure that a two-state solution becomes impossible. What are the Government saying on settler violence, which is now endemic? There were 450 recorded attacks since early 2020—that is from B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation. Those attacks are specifically designed to terrorise Palestinian farmers or force them off their land. Why are we trading with illegal settlements? We are not talking about boycotts here; we are talking about settlements that are illegal under international law, but which the Government will do nothing to prevent British companies profiting from.”
“These debates on the middle east peace process used to be rather groundhog day-like events, where we recorded no progress or the Government having done nothing but repeat the same phrases over and over again. I look back on those times with nostalgia, because now we simply seem to be going backwards. After the appalling chaos of the Trump Administration, we should be getting back on track and supporting a two-state solution, the rule of law and human rights in the Palestinian territories. In the very short time I have, I want to ask the Minister to respond on the subject of the most egregious barriers to the peace process. The first is recognition, which this House overwhelmingly voted for seven years ago. That should be a precondition —an attempt to negotiate on equal terms. The second is the establishment of new settlements.”
“Friend the Member for Stockton North that we have in common with the Government the intention to ensure that things are done as efficiently, quickly and economically as possible. I entirely agree that new technology has a big role to play in all that. The Committee may hear a “but” coming. The “but” is that there are several ways, but two in particular, in which we must be very wary. First, there is the issue of access. We have all had to learn to deal with new technology, and an example of that is how we advanced our ability to do so under the stresses of covid. Zooming is as common to us now as face-to-face meetings.”
“I shall be brief. I felt half invited by the Minister to respond, but I will not tell a whole war story from the courts, as we used to do on the Justice Committee. I commiserate with him for his treatment by the Royal Courts of Justice; it is nothing personal that the windows are being shut in his face. I will shock the Committee again: I agree with the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. I am afraid that I am one of those people who still carries large amounts of paper around and cannot quite manage otherwise. That is possibly why it is good that I am not a practitioner any longer: the courts have adapted quite well to new technology—practitioners, the judiciary and the senior judiciary in particular are extremely adroit in that respect. I agree entirely with my hon.”
“He was not saying that for its own sake, but because there are times, when evidence is being heard or judicial decisions are being made rather than in administrative hearings, when it is important for people to be present. Although doing things remotely may have been the best that we could do during covid, that will not always be the case. I simply caution that if justice is to be properly done, we should be cautious before we throw out the methods that have served us not just for decades but for centuries in assessing the quality of evidence, in advocacy and in ensuring that we get to the best result we can in every case. I hope that we will be as modern and efficient as we can, and use as much technology as we can, but not at the price of excluding people or of not seeing justice done.”
“It is easy to say that, but it is more difficult to ensure that it happens, because the same people who struggle with matters online are those who cannot make their voices heard, and they just disappear from the system. We have excluded people even though it was not intentional. A second important category—coroners—was touched on. I will not say much now because I expect that we shall come on to the plans to move those online when we come to that section. The Minister will remember that Mr Rebello, senior coroner for the Liverpool and Wirral coroner area and secretary of the Coroners Society, said that he liked to have everybody in the room.”
“I am going to impress the right hon. Gentleman even more in a moment by making a 180° turn and joining his critique of the Minister. There may well be times when Zooming is more efficient and appropriate, but there will be many times when face-to-face meetings are more appropriate, including meetings with constituents. During the long debates that we had on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, I cautioned many times that it moved too quickly to exclude people from the system in the name of efficiency. There is a danger that we will do that here. The Minister fairly said that we must proceed with caution and be aware of some people’s digital limitations.”
“We are, however, coming to the clause stand part debate, in which members of the Committee will be able to express ourselves rather more clearly and fully. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“It is my submission that that is not the right way to look at it. It is the justice of the case and the consequences for claimants that we should be looking at. To repeat what I said last Thursday, those consequences are often matters of life and death and severe. In addition, the use of judicial review in Cart cases is already heavily constrained. We have focused on the relatively small amount of money that Cart judicial reviews cost—relative in terms of overall judicial budgets—this would be a part of that sum. The Government should not dismiss this issue. At the very least, they should think about the extent of the ouster clause. That is the purpose of this debate and I do not believe they have thought sufficiently about it.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair again, Mr Rosindell, for another sitting to consider this important Bill. I will respond briefly. The Minister correctly said that the aim of the amendments is to reduce the scope of the ouster clause. That is exactly right, because we do not believe there are adequate safeguards. Without giving away the plot, we will come shortly to the clause stand part debate and our preferred option is to leave the clause out altogether. The amendments are our attempt to say that if the ouster clause were appropriate in the new circumstances, which we do not concede, it should not have such limited exemptions. The Minister said that the amendment would defeat the Government’s purpose by increasing the number of cases that would still be subject to judicial review.”
“I am not entirely sure how a relatively small amendment, in terms of cost and the number of cases, to the way judicial review works will assist with the Crown court backlog of 60,000 cases. The idea that the solution is to get rid of Cart judicial review rather than having sufficient Crown Prosecution Service prosecutors, defence counsel and recorders or, indeed, a sufficient number of courts is a fantasy. Can we not set that aside?”
“We are debating the merits of clause 2 as a whole. We will not support clause stand part for two reasons. First, we believe that it insulates serious cases from judicial review, and not a small number of those. Secondly, it opens the door to wider use of ouster, which should be resisted, or at least examined closely. As I listened carefully to the Minister and Government Back Benchers, I identified essentially two arguments. One is that in supporting Cart judicial review there is some element of special pleading—the fruit-based analogy, if we can put it that way. The second is that the clause would in some way address the court backlog. I said a bit about that, but let me deal with it briefly.”
“That is quite apart from the importance of access to courts for the rule of law.” –– [ Official Report, Judicial Review and Courts Public Bill Committee, 2 November 2021; c. 25, Q24.]”
“Ouster clauses, for example, which are intended to ensure a particular class of decision cannot be judicially reviewed, carry with them the inevitable implication that whoever has the protection of the ouster clause has the right to break the law with impunity.” One of our witnesses was Professor Feldman, who gave a balanced account of his view of the Bill. He said during our evidence session on this matter that “I think it is important to note that parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law generally require that people should have access to courts to determine the lawfulness of action. There is a functional inconsistency between Parliament’s saying that there are limits to the powers of a body or person and, on the other hand, saying that that person or body can decide for themselves, effectively, what those limits are.”
“pointed out at first instance, ‘says nothing on its face about judicial review’.” That is all I want to say about cherries this morning, but I think we have been led into the orchard erroneously on that point. The Minister quoted one or two Supreme Court members. I could quote a number in aid of my submissions, but I will limit myself to three different types of advocate who would not always support Cart cases specifically. One, whom I think I mentioned on Second Reading, is Lord Neuberger, a former President of the Supreme Court. He said only a couple of weeks ago that it is “always worth remembering” that judicial review “is what ensures that the executive arm of government keeps to the law and that individual rights are protected.”
“If a Cart JR is successful, it will mean that the applicant had not been given a lawful ‘proper first bite of the cherry’ in appealing a decision to the FTT, and the UT had unlawfully refused permission to appeal the unlawfulness. Cart JRs also do not in any way determine the claimant’s substantive case, or whether the claimant should be allowed permission to appeal—this is for the UT to decide following a successful Cart JR. It is also wrong and, as described by Lady Hale in Cart, a ‘constitutional solecism’ that since Parliament designated the UT as a ‘superior court of record’ Parliament excluded any possibility of judicial review. The decision in Cart did not involve the interpretation of any statutory provision that could be described as an ouster clause, and statutorily designating a body as a superior court of record, as Laws L.J.”
“The Cart JR cases that succeed will involve either (i) an important point of principle or practice, which would not otherwise be considered; or (ii) some other compelling reason, such as a wholesale collapse of fair procedure. These are the second-tier appeals conditions that were set as a threshold by the Supreme Court in Cart, and are now in the Civil Procedure Rules, for a Cart JR to be considered. The Supreme Court sought to address the most significant injustices while making efficient use of judicial resources. It was in fact the Supreme Court’s intention that few Cart JRs would be successful, but those that were would be the most egregious and important cases with serious errors of law. Due to the second-tier appeals conditions, Cart JRs involve only the most serious errors of law.”
“Cart JRs prevent the UT from becoming insulated from review, by ensuring that there is a means by which errors of law, which could have very significant and ongoing impacts across the tribunal system, can be identified and corrected. As Lord Philips said, Cart JRs ‘guard against the risk that errors of law of real significance slip through the system’. UT judges are specialists in their field, however as Lady Hale recognised ‘no-one is infallible’. Cart JRs mitigate against the risk of erroneous or outmoded constructions being perpetuated within the tribunals system, with the UT continuing to follow erroneous precedent that itself, or a higher court has set.”
“Most Cart judicial reviews are of immigration cases; that is important in terms of the consequences, but it is not solely about those cases. If one listened to what Government Back Benchers say, one would think it was solely about that, but as has been said several times, Cart was not an immigration case. This form of judicial review applies to upper tribunal cases, regardless of whether they are immigration cases. That needs to be on the record. I was looking yesterday at written evidence from Justice on the cherry point—other Members may have seen it as well. It is brief so I will read it, because Justice puts in better than I could, and I think we probably need to take this head on. Justice says: “Cart JRs are not about having a ‘third bite at the cherry.’ There is also an important wider public interest at stake.”
“I do not accept that as a separate point. I understand that that has been the thrust of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument in Committee, but it is a criticism of his own Government rather than my approach. In my view, the Bill does not go far enough and does not approach judicial review in sufficiently robust or constitutional terms; rather, it is taking what we have described as a tit-for-tat approach. However, we are where we are with the Bill. That is a matter that he must take up with his own side. I will talk about the 5%, but I do not want to say any more about the backlog. It is an incredibly important issue, and I look forward to the debate on that resuming, but frankly it is irrelevant to our proceedings, and it is a stretch to introduce it. On the matter of cherries, this has been characterised as simply an immigration matter.”
“We have an extremely low success rate in prosecution and conviction for rape, but I do not think that the vast majority of those cases that do not result in a conviction would be described as gaming, in the way that apparently 97% of these cases are described.”
“The answer is that it is horses for courses, or Carts for carts. The hon. Lady says that this is just about immigration cases. Let me say first that it is important to correct decisions that have significant consequences for individuals or society more generally. However, the reason I gave a number of case summaries was to show not just that there are a number, but that they are quite compelling cases. A little chill ran down my spine when I heard Government Members talking about gaming the system and getting out of the country. I wonder whether they would use those analogies in relation to other types of case.”
“It is not a comparison. It is asking the Government to say why they think it is gaming if a case that has been prosecuted through the courts or taken to the administrative people is unsuccessful.”
“We have explored at some length the effect of Cart as it operates at the moment, but I have not heard from the Government how they think those cases should be addressed, other than saying, “Well, every system has its losers and we will just have to live with the consequences of that,” either because of the financial cost or for some other reason.”
“Member for South Holland and The Deepings said previously about the need to look in more detail at types of judicial review to see if they are meritorious or not. The Government say that “even a single case can have wide ramifications.” If that applies to judicial review more widely, why does it not also apply in Cart cases? Until the Government can sufficiently address how they will deal with successful cases in Cart, why they think this particular area of law needs the attention it gets in this Bill and why the development of judicial review here cannot be left to the senior judiciary, as it is in almost every other case, we will not support the clause and we will vote against the clause stand part.”
“Something caught my eye the other night when I was looking at the Government’s response to the consultation they undertook when they were dissatisfied with Lord Faulks’s report. The responses to that consultation were also overwhelmingly against them, and they commented: “Respondents argued that, at most, there are a handful of court decisions that were arguably incorrect and that, therefore, there isn’t a wider problem to address. This reasoning is predicated on the view that a problem is not a problem unless it happens often. The Government is not persuaded by that argument, since even a single case can have wide ramifications.” That is their argument and, in some ways, it parallels what the right hon.”
“I am not going to go back to third bites of the cherry again. I know there is an idea that somehow there is an unfairness or a special privilege or pleading that exists in these cases, but that is not the way the law has developed here. The Government need better arguments on how the type of cases that Cart deals with should be dealt with, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East said. If the answer in Cart cases is that we want to get people out of the country, that can result in torture, death, and people and their families being put in extremis, as we saw clearly in the case summaries I gave,. That is what I am not hearing. I am repeating myself, Mr Rosindell, so I will not go on further and I will draw my remarks to a close.”
“Is he saying that it is good if we introduce the ouster in Cart because that will mean that cases where an unlawful act has taken place will still not be decided and that deportation, or whatever he wishes to see, will happen, contrary to law? From the once party of law and order, that does not sound right to me.”
“If the hon. Gentleman is seeking an intervention, I will provide him with one. The hon. Member for Ipswich said that Cart cases were a small number of cases, and even if they were justifiable, mistakes happen. I do not agree with that, but he made the point. I think, with respect, that the hon. Member for Don Valley is saying that it would be a good thing if cases that were unlawful were covered by the ouster, which is about preventing judicial scrutiny. In Cart cases, whether free, 7% or 5%, those cases were unlawful. It is not that we are not prepared to put the resource in and do not believe we should prioritise that type of case. I want to be clear about this.”
“I think the Minister makes my point for me. I deliberately quoted Professor Feldman because, yes, he did see some merit in the proposals of Cart, but he went on to warn about the wider dangers—the series of quotes that I gave was on this point, which I am sure the Minister will address—of opening the door to a much wider and further restriction through the use of ouster in future. On the cherry point, the argument I put forward was that an unlawful decision of the first-tier tribunal is not being picked up by the upper tribunal—hence the illegality and hence the deportation, or whatever it is, happening contrary to the law—and is being picked up through Cart. It is the first bite at the cherry. It is correcting an error at first instance, which has not been picked up by the upper tribunal.”
“I am not going to speak for my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, who is better able to speak for himself. Let us imagine that the Minister was correct, and that that was an error. Why have the Government not learned from that? Why are they coming here to make the same mistake again, in the same terms?”
“It does seem to be a bit of a feature of this Bill. When we were dealing with clause 2, we heard that the abolition of the Cart judicial review was to be a template for other offences, and the same is happening here. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that it is slippery slope? [ Interruption. ] I hear the Minister snorting from a sedentary position—”
“Even with the offences my hon. Friend has named so far—offences in which honesty is a factor—it is very important that the questions that he is asking are answered before we approve the Bill, especially if we are to get the number of offences increased through secondary legislation.”
“Has the Minister thought about all that and about the type of offences to which the provision might apply in future?”
“I have a genuine question. If the provision is extended to other offences, is it the Government’s intention that any offences dealt with will be non-recordable in that way? My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North made some really thoughtful points, which the Minister is now addressing. What I am getting at is that the court appearance is a sort of framing event, and that can work both ways. First, it avoids trivialising the offence: it concentrates on it, is public and has the effect of exhibiting the offence to the wider world. Secondly, it acts as a way of thinking about where the offence is going—there may be legal advice, the court itself may be able to advise and the process of going to court may alter the defendant’s disposition.”
“It has been exacerbated by covid, because clearly much more has been done remotely during the pandemic. That may have been necessary, but when were are making changes to procedure, it is important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is important not only that justice is done, but that it is seen to be done. I am not persuaded that the clause has been sufficiently thought through at the moment. Therefore, I will listen to what the Minister and my hon. Friend may say in relation to that, but although the Government are aware of, and concede, the points that have been made, I do not think they have done enough to put safeguards in place. At the moment, I feel that we are not sufficiently reassured about the clause.”
“There are now many fewer courts than there were, but the process of going to court and appearing there is significant. It concentrates the mind, and it is an event. It frames the offence, and it makes the defendant think about the consequences of their actions. What most concerns me is the point about open justice, which is very easy to lose. I am conscious that this afternoon the Justice Committee is taking evidence on the issue in relation to an inquiry done by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in which it tried to attend possession proceedings, which are ordinary in-chambers proceedings that go on every day in dozens of civil courts around the country. On a number of occasions, it was wrongly refused permission to proceed by the judge or the administrative clerk of the court, which is an increasing trend.”
“I will be brief, Sir Mark. This has been a very interesting debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North has put forward some points that the Minister has engaged with. I am not sure that we are entirely happy with the responses. Disposing of matters online, without going to court, is a significantly different way to do things and makes a lot of differences. Some of the examples that my hon. Friend gave included the ability to get advice, the ability to monitor the quality of proceedings—including the way that the prosecution puts its case—the accountability of the defendant, and justice being done in public. Yes, it is more convenient in some cases to be able to deal with everything online in the way that most of our lives are dealt with now, but criminal proceedings are an important event.”
“Friend has said in relation to these matters and his caution, even if he trusts the Minister more than I do.”
“Listening to this debate, I am reminded that I was on the Bill Committee when the SJP was first introduced. A lot of these concerns were raised at the time and the fact that we are still talking about them now means that there is some way to go. It should also make us wary about further innovations that could compromise justice being done openly, as happened before. I mentioned the investigation today and it has provoked the Master of the Rolls to write to all civil judges to remind them about the importance of allowing media access. Recently, we have seen the head of the family division taking very important strides to open up family courts, which have often been a closed book for so long. We should be doing more to encourage open justice and therefore I think we should be aware of these issues. I fully support what my hon.”
“The Bill has a whole chapter on coroners yet entirely neglects the key issue of giving bereaved families a fair hearing at inquests. Victims’ families have no right to legal aid, even when many state institutions are represented at public expense. At one inquest, 18 public bodies were represented but families had to fight to be heard. Will the Minister commit, now, to non-means-tested funding for bereaved families when the state is represented, and table amendments to the Bill to achieve that?”
“I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 1, page 1, line 8, leave out from “order” to the end of line 9. This amendment removes the statutory power for courts to award prospective only quashing orders and preserves the status quo in relation to the retrospective effect of quashing orders.”
“To give some context, the Government will present the Bill as a moderate, reasonable adjustment to the art of judicial review—no more than a rebalancing. The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings gave some cover to that in his questions and comments in the evidence sessions. I do not want to put words into his mouth, but he suggested that it was a rather milk-and-water Bill and could go much further in reigning in judges to allow Parliament freer expression, if I understood him correctly. I disagree. I think that the Bill is a misreading of the purpose of judicial review and has an unhealthy focus on the constitutional periphery of its operation, rather than the practical effect it has on asserting the rights of the citizen against the state.”
“I am also grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East and for Liverpool, Wavertree, who are current or former members of the Select Committee on Justice, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon, who keeps us all in order. The Conservative members of the Committee are all here, I think, except for the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. I am wearing my intermediate glasses, which means I cannot see anything close up or far away. We did not hear a great deal from the Conservatives in the evidence sessions. Other than the right hon. Gentleman, they kept their powder fairly dry, but I will try and provoke them to more animation today. Amendment 12 seeks to excise the most obnoxious proposal in part 1 of the Bill: prospective-only quashing orders.”