Clause 23
Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill
2:30 pm
Simon Hughes (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Attorney General, Constitutional Affairs; North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I want to make two brief points. I am also slightly mystified by the inclusion of such a provision. If there are to be practice directions about the application and interpretation of the law, which are pretty important directions, logically they should have the authority of the Lord Chancellor rather than not. Given that the others do, it seems that we are taking out a group of practice directions that are just as important. They are not about internal workings, but about how the law should be interpreted. I am surprised about that, but the Minister might enlighten us and we may discover something that we did not spot. Subsection (6)(b) does not trouble me nearly as much.
It is important that people have access to the rules governing tribunals. When people are seeking out planning law, they have to go down the waterfall of decisions from regulations under the law that have been made nationally to planning guidance that is set regionally and locally. They then might know what is likely to happen to their application for their extension. Where, at present, do people find consolidated up-to-date practice directions? Can the Minister give an undertaking that, under the new regime, there will be a place where politicians and anyone in the country can see, in electronic form on a website or, more importantly, in a paper-based form at their local library, the current extant practice directions set out in chronological and numerical order and in a way that is comprehensible and easy to understand? Such directions are often important bits of the system and they should be made clear for the lay person as well as practitioners.