Clause 18 - Evidence and procedure
Inquiries Bill [Lords]
4:15 pm
Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Shipley, Labour)
How interesting it is, to use the description of the hon. Member for North Cornwall, that the nanny state should appear in the form of an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Huntingdon.
I understand why the hon. Member for Huntingdon advocates the amendment, but it is not necessary. It is an interesting spending commitment on legal costs from the Conservative party, on which it might be worth putting a figure at some point in order to send a little note to the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in case he is worried about spending commitments made by his Front-Bench colleagues.
That point aside, I think that the hon. Member for Huntingdon is trying to incorporate one of the Salmon principles into the legislation. There was general agreement in the other place that accepting the amendment would take inquiries in the wrong direction. Indeed, their lordships were concerned that it could lead to more costly proceedings. The principle that the amendment would put into the Bill has been cited by commentators as one of the main factors increasing the cost and length of inquiries. The Public Administration Committee recommended that the time had come to reformulate the Salmon principles in general and to ensure fairness
“whilst minimising the adversarial, legalistic element of inquiries.”
Several distinguished former inquiry chairmen in another place echoed those arguments.
The nub of the issue is that, although there will be cases when people need to be represented, it is important to remember that inquiries are not trials, are not about civil or criminal liability and should not be adversarial. Decisions about representation are rightly for the judgment of inquiry chairmen, but if we introduce general principles about entitlement to legal representation, we need to consider carefully whether they are at odds with the role of inquiries as inquisitorial, not adversarial, processes. In general, some substantial bodies might not need to have recourse to public funds to represent their views at inquiries, but the amendment might break with that and place extra cost on the taxpayer, and it is not necessary.
The Government amended clause 18 in another place to ensure that the chairman must act fairly throughout the proceedings, and that presages some of the changes that we might be able to make to the procedure rules that will be brought forward under a statutory instrument in the usual way, when we might be able to create a balance between fairness and expediency that is more closely and precisely defined so that the chairman can be better informed about guidance on such issues. For those reasons, it would not be wise to accept amendment No. 19. It was not accepted in the other place and we should not accept it here either.