Vera Baird (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Redcar, Labour)

Clause 3 provides for the creation of two new generic tribunals—a first-tier tribunal and an upper tribunal—over which the senior president will preside. The upper tribunal is to be a superior court of record. Each tribunal will consist of judges—its legally qualified members—and other members. Establishing a single, two-tier structure for tribunals will lead to a simpler, more coherent tribunals system that will be flexible enough to accommodate the needs of different users and different jurisdictions, both now and in the future.

The first-tier tribunal will be the first instance tribunal, and will hear appeals from the original decision-making body. The upper tribunal will be primarily, but not exclusively, an appellate tribunal from the first tier. Both are intended to be adaptable and able to take on any existing or new tribunal  jurisdictions. In future, when Parliament decides to create a new appeal right or jurisdiction, it will not need to create a new tribunal to administer it.

Because of its specialist nature, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal will act as a separate pillar of the new structure outside the new legal framework, although the Bill is sufficiently flexible to allow for future transfer if appropriate. We would not, however, exercise that ability to transfer unless the Home Secretary agreed, and as the tribunal will remain outside the new generic tribunals, the associated rule-making power will also remain with the Lord Chancellor in respect of the AIT and not move to the new tribunal procedure committee.

For similar reasons, the employment tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal will also act as separate pillars of the new structure, remaining outside the new framework for the unified system, but the AIT and the EAT will still enjoy the benefits of the single administrative structure of the Tribunals Service.

Those reforms will ensure that, as Sir Andrew Leggatt recommended, tribunals will be independent and separate from the Departments that make the decisions under review. They will deliver more than just a federation of existing tribunals. They will produce a framework within which tribunal users will be ableto benefit from authoritative, timely, consistent and comprehensible decisions. They will deliver a cost-efficient system providing good value for the taxpayer, and as Sir Andrew Leggatt prescribed, they will be fit for the users for which they are intended.

Simon Hughes (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Attorney General, Constitutional Affairs; North Southwark & Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)

I should be grateful if the Minister would put on the record the reason for not including the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in the system. She has explained that the Home Office has an interest—it clearly does—and that the tribunal can be brought back, but she has not given the reasons why the system is not the same as for all the other tribunals.

Vera Baird (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Redcar, Labour)

The AIT was set up a very short time ago, under specific legislation designed to providewhat we believe is the appropriate model. That understanding and determination has not changed. This is the right model for the immigration and asylum jurisdiction. If in due course it looks appropriate, there is flexibility to bring it in, but that is not our intention now.