Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I made sure that I had seen some examples of practice directions; as he knows, it is important to be clear what we are trying to do. He is right in his interpretation of the clause—that we seek to ensure that the role of the senior president is well defined. The view that we have taken is from the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The judicial-related functions transferred to the Lord Chief Justice, and it is not appropriate for the Lord Chancellor to be involved in the making of practice directions concerning the interpretation of law or the making of decisions by tribunal members. Those rest firmly with the judiciary, in this case the Senior President of Tribunals. It is part of making sure that we do nothing that could undermine the independence of the judiciary. The noble Lord rightly recognises that, for other practice directions, the Lord Chancellor’s authority would be required. That is simply because there are resource and staffing implications for which the Lord Chancellor is responsible. A practice direction on the listing of cases would be an example. Listing is a judicial function but much of the work is carried out by staff, and the Lord Chancellor has a legitimate interest in how staff are used and the resource implications. That is the way in which it is done. I take what the noble Lord says about the breadth, but nothing that I have seen suggests to me that it is particularly unusual or inappropriate. Perhaps I may think further to see whether I can add anything to that for the noble Lord between now and Report, but the provision is not designed to do anything other than differentiate and to do what has been part of what the Lord Chief Justice has done since the Constitutional Reform Act. In this case, the senior president will consider the issues as the head of the Tribunals Service.