Clause 6 - Errors in certificates
Gender Recognition Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Mr Tim Boswell (Daventry, Conservative)
My understanding, which is subject to correction, is that the ballpark figure for an application to a gender recognition panel would be in
the order of £700. I am not sure whether that is right. I would be grateful if the Under-Secretary could clarify it.
Clearly, there will be several charges. It occurred to me since I drafted the amendment that there will be a charge for the panel—goodness knows, they are professional people who are perfectly entitled to charge out their time at the proper rate—but possibly also for the certificate itself, which is not part of the panel's deliberation. There is an interesting question about the charges that would be required if both an interim certificate is issued and a full gender recognition certificate after the administrative process that we have just discussed, and if there is court determination of annulment. Those are important issues.
We would all agree that fees are entirely proper but that they should not be unconscionable. They should be proportionate and affordable so that people in modest circumstances, including retired people in long-standing relationships, can meet the cost.
I did have two other points to raise, but they have collapsed into one. The Under-Secretary may want to say a little—I am conscious that he is receiving assistance—about the transition from interim to full certificate, about persons who reapply, in which case the evidence is already in place, and about the fast track.
I do not wish to press this point with intensity. The Under-Secretary may also want to say something about the provision for a non-refundable fee. I fully understand that we do not want to encourage frivolous applications or applications that have not been fully considered. That is not in the spirit of the proposals, nor do I anticipate that such applications are likely. I accept that it is proper to charge a fee to reflect the costs of the procedure. However, I can imagine problems of hardship if things are taken literally.
If there were administrative shortages, which I do not anticipate, or some other reason why the matter could not be determined within a reasonable period, and people had to sit around for three years waiting for the official process to take place—I am not saying that they will, and I hope to goodness that they will not—it would be entirely reasonable to say, ''Look, I've paid up front. When is my problem going to be resolved?'' There could also be cases in which the evidence, including professional certification, which had been obtained at great cost, went missing and had to be reprovided.
The Under-Secretary might want to consider that. Sadly, there could be cases in which an applicant makes an application in good faith and the evidence is tabled but the applicant dies before it is considered by the panel. I feel slightly less intensely about that for applicants who withdraw applications, but we could have a range of hardship cases.
I am sure that the Under-Secretary will not want to give the Committee the impression that he has any wish to bear down on people more than is necessary to meet the costs of the operation. It will help to have an idea of roughly what he anticipates those costs will be. It will also help if we have an understanding across the
Committee that fees could be waived in hardship cases. In that way, we would help people whose circumstances are difficult enough not to feel that they are being treated unfairly by the administration process and the law.