Then I admire his patience in sitting through the entire debate and I wish him well in his ministerial career. I am not sure whether, had he got to the Ministry of Justice before the Bill was signed off, he might have opposed some of these points.
I will start by raising a few concerns. I agree with the shadow Lord Chancellor that there are some good parts of the Bill, and I hope that we can make it better between now and it becoming law, should the House decide to support it. I have about five points to make, the first of which concerns judicial review. The previous Labour Government were embarrassed on a number of occasions when they lost judicial review challenges, and I believe it is extremely important that that remains an avenue of choice for those who feel that the justice system does not provide them with the kinds of solutions they need to their problems.
In particular, I am thinking about those who face difficult immigration cases, who have seen the right of appeal taken from them—not by the Ministry of Justice but by the Home Office—and who now face only the prospect of applications for judicial review to bring their cases to the attention of those who make such decisions. I agree that there are many frivolous cases, and many people go forward and make judicial review applications, sometimes for the sheer hell of it. It is right that citizens should use this power carefully, but once we take away the right of appeal in immigration cases, we leave people with no choice other than to apply for judicial review. That is why we have seen an increase in judicial review over the past few years.