Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendments 72 to 96.

Schedule 3.

I will begin by addressing Clause 18 and schedule 3 together before moving to Government amendments 72 to 96.

Clause 18 makes significant reforms to the leadership of tribunals, a change strongly supported by the senior judiciary. This is a key step in the One Judiciary programme, which was set up to achieve the long-standing shared ambition of the judiciary and the Ministry of Justice to have a single, unified judiciary across the courts and tribunals of England and Wales.

As the Lady Chief Justice recently noted, the reforms recognise the unity of judicial work across jurisdictions and will support more flexible deployment of judges, common standards and a more inclusive culture. Lord Justice Dingemans, the Senior President of Tribunals, endorsed this legislation in his annual report.

Clause 18 reforms the role of the Senior President of Tribunals and brings tribunals and their judiciary in England and Wales within the Lady Chief Justice’s leadership responsibilities. It gives effect to schedule 3, which reallocates the SPT’s existing England and Wales functions to the Lady Chief Justice. The SPT will continue to exercise statutory responsibility for some tribunals in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the territorial extent of tribunals will remain as now.

The reformed office will retain the title of Senior President of Tribunals and will be equivalent to a head of Division role. The provisions also bring the SPT role into line with heads of division by mandating a transparent appointment process, removing the option of a fixed-term appointment and providing for the SPT to be an ex officio member of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.

The Bill also creates a new statutory post of deputy head of tribunals justice, similar to the statutory deputy head roles that exist in respect of criminal justice and family justice. The LCJ will become the statutory owner of the SPT’s current functions relating to tribunals operating under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 in England and Wales. There are powers for the Lady Chief Justice to delegate those functions and, in practice, it is expected that most of them will be delegated to the SPT.

The provisions amend the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act to set out how the territorial split will operate for different statutory functions. Generally, they will reallocate functions by territory, so that the SPT will retain the functions in relation to judiciary or staff working primarily in Scotland and Northern Ireland, or to cases to be heard there, while the Lady Chief Justice will assume the functions in the same way for England and Wales.

However, there are some nuances to this approach to safeguard operational flexibility and to support consistency across pan-UK tribunals. For some functions—for example, appointing chamber presidents for cross-UK chambers or approving practice directions—the Bill enables shared decision making. The schedule makes similar changes in respect of the employment tribunals, where required.

The reforms will provide a modernised, unified leadership structure for our tribunals, which will encourage morale, recruitment and career development for the tribunals judiciary, and will support better use of flexible deployment and consistent practice. I should say that since I have been the Minister for Courts, I have had the privilege and pleasure of working with two remarkable Senior Presidents of Tribunals, Lord Justice Lindblom and Lord Justice Dingemans.

I have responsibility for tribunals, which form a huge part of where many of our citizens interact with our legal system, whether that is the employment tribunal, the special educational needs and disability tribunal, the social security tribunal or the property tribunal—I hope I have not forgotten one. I therefore welcome the introduction of this modernised structure to enable the best possible leadership, and to support our tribunal judges working within it. I commend clause 18 and schedule 3 to the Committee.

Government amendments 72 to 96 are minor and incredibly technical in nature. I really hope we do not spend too long debating them, otherwise I may struggle, although I am sure that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle will find a way. The amendments make minor and technical changes to the delegation arrangements set out in schedule 3, following discussion with the senior judiciary, who are content with the resulting proposals. Most of the amendments concern post-reform delegation arrangements. They are intended to ensure that judicial leaders in the tribunal system may delegate in a way that covers potential business need. The amendments ensure that, overall, the new delegation structures for tribunals business will be coherent and appropriate.

The amendments also make a range of consequential amendments to other legislation arising from these reforms. These are generally about deployments or the selection of adjudicators for a range of statutory purposes, such as the provision allowing the Lady Chief Justice to approve deployments to the mental health review tribunal for Wales from the first-tier tribunal or the upper tribunal, where judges operate wholly or mainly within England and Wales. There are further amendments that tidy up the statute book generally—for example, to repeal provisions that insert provision, or to amend tribunal-related statutes when the relevant inserted or amended provision is repealed by the Bill. I commend the amendments to the Committee.

I had considered thinking of a question for every single Amendment, but I elected against that. I speak in support of Clause 18 and schedule 3. While the provisions may not generate the same level of public debate and scrutiny as the Bill’s earlier clauses regarding the restriction of jury trials, they carry significant institutional and constitutional weight within our judicial hierarchy.

The clause and schedule will bring the leadership of tribunals in England and Wales more firmly within the unified judicial structure, placing them under the overarching leadership of the Lady Chief Justice. In practical terms, this involves a title change for the Lady Chief Justice, who will become the president of the courts and tribunals of England and Wales. They also involve the transfer of specific leadership responsibilities that are currently vested in the Senior President of Tribunals.

The Government’s primary justification for the reform is administrative coherence and systemic flexibility. By reconfiguring the office of the Senior President of Tribunals, as the head of tribunals justice, the Bill attempts to create a more integrated and seamless judicial pyramid. In theory, such integration should allow for better co-ordination across different jurisdictions, ensuring that the tribunal judiciary is viewed not as a secondary or isolated branch of the law, but as an equal partner in the modern administration of justice.

The Opposition offer support for this move towards unity, acknowledging that a more cohesive leadership structure can streamline high-level decision making and improve the deployment of resources. However, that support must be tempered with a request for scrutiny. Unification should not be used as a tool for uniformity. Tribunals are substantially and culturally distinct from the traditional courts; they were designed specifically to be more accessible, specialist and often less formal in their proceedings. Their value to the public lies not only in their final adjudication of a dispute. Whether it is social security, immigration or employment, I am sure that we as MPs have all been contacted by constituents who have gone through, or expect to go through, a tribunal process.

Leadership arrangements are never merely technical; they shape the culture, training priorities and institutional identity of the body they lead. The Government have stated that practical leadership will continue to be exercised through a system of delegation back to the reconfigured office of the Senior President of Tribunals. While we recognise that this appears workable on paper, we must be satisfied that it will not allow creeping deprioritisation, a lack of focus, or a watering down of tribunals’ particular culture when they become part of this unified leadership. Will the Minister therefore assure us that thought has been given to ensuring an absence of uniformity, because we have specifically designed the courts not to be uniform, but different in their own way?

That reflects the Clause as drafted and the intention behind it, from speaking to our judicial leadership. In my experience, I have certainly found our judicial and tribunal leadership to be progressive, reforming and more open to cultural change, scrutiny and improvement than perhaps might previously have been the case. I welcome that, because it is as it should be. The hon. Member is right, of course: tribunals are different. They are meant to be informal and feel different from going to the High Court, which is all terribly alienating to the ordinary person who is untrained. A tribunal is supposed to involve a relatively cost-neutral and more relaxed process so that the individual can participate in it. Our proposals do not cut against that, but bring the judiciary across England and Wales into the notion of unity, with a lot of the benefits of being under a single leadership—sharing best practice and deploying judges across different jurisdictions—being enhanced, so that everyone can benefit without bleeding out the differences that rightly exist in our different courts and tribunals.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 18 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.