Clause 92 - Fees
Courts Bill [Lords]
2:45 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
With his usual courtesy, the Minister may have written to other members of the Committee too, but I am certainly grateful to him for having written to me explaining the background to the amendments that the Government tabled last week. His letter was dated 3 July, and it is fair to say that we received earlier advice about the Government's thinking on such matters. I am pleased that they have accepted the spirit of what my noble Friends, led by Baroness Anelay of St. Johns, did in another place
by inserting the requirement to facilitate access to justice.
The Government have been right to acknowledge the strong view held both by the Select Committee and by those in another place that we needed a reference to access to justice in clause 92. We do not object to the way in which the Government have chosen to approach the matter.
They have acknowledged both what my noble Friend said in another place and the report of the Select Committee. Government amendment No. 147 would re-insert—if I may put it that way—the same kind of obligation in the clause in a slightly different way, and No. 146 would replace what was previously there. That is acceptable.
Government amendment No. 148 is different. The Lords inserted a specific requirement, which the Government are seeking to remove. There is a good reason why judicial salaries should not be taken into account. Those are in a different category from all the other expenditure that we are talking about. I understand that the Government are trying to make the system self-funding, but to incorporate judicial salaries as part and parcel of their balance sheet is wrong in principle. To do so would confuse the independent position of the judiciary with a potential cost-cutting, book-balancing exercise.
The official Opposition in both Houses feel passionately that judicial salaries should not form part of the equation. There is a great danger in that. It is reasonable for the Government to say that they want to balance the rest of the system, but the salaries of the judiciary should not be included in that account, because they are not to do with the fees levied in relation to the use of the courts. A mature democracy takes on the public expenditure obligation of judicial salaries, and says, ''We shall have a legal system in which the most highly qualified people we can find will sit as members of the professional judiciary.'' The Government should treat that obligation as separate from the costs of running the system.
I detect in the Minister's briefing a little of the politics of envy, which seems to run as follows: ''We can't have commercial cases on behalf of big companies. They're getting the benefit of the quality of our judiciary, so they ought to pay for it. They shouldn't have any kind of hidden benefit.'' I do not blame him for that—he is new to his responsibilities. Judges and the salaries they are paid are in a different category from everything else that we are discussing, and I urge my hon. Friends to vote against Government amendment. No. 148.