It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who knows far more about the issue of employment tribunals than I do. For understandable reasons, that issue has dominated the debate. I practised in the civil and criminal courts before I came here, but that seems some time ago now.
Let me begin by complimenting the Justice Committee, its Chair—the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who spoke very persuasively today—and
all its members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). It has produced a good report, which makes our task easier because we can endorse it and agree with its recommendations, many of which do not pull their punches with the Government. I might go further in some respects, but I suspect that it will be sufficient to ask the Minister to respond to the points made by the Committee. I trust that he will not simply say that matters will be dealt with in due course; I have become rather used to his saying that.
I apologise to those on both Front Benches for the fact that I may not be able to stay for the closing speeches. If I cannot, I will of course read the Minister’s comments assiduously tomorrow, as I always do. He has made some interesting speeches recently.
I have another reason for not saying much about the substantive issue. During the five years for which I held the shadow brief—until last year—I probably said everything that I wanted to say about courts and tribunal fees. However, unusually, I want to correct something that was said earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner). I did not take the view that fee increases should always be opposed. On the contrary, given the constraints on the public finances, and the particular pressures on the other parts of the Ministry of Justice budget—which are now coming to fruition in very unpleasant ways that affect the prison service and legal aid—I always took the view that fee increases were appropriate, and that full cost recovery, and in some cases more, could be justified on its merits, provided that it did not interfere detrimentally or substantially with access to justice.
That is where the Government have lost their way. In fact, they have lost their way rather more than that: they eventually began to introduce changes that were self-defeating, such as the criminal courts charge, and had to do a U-turn. The report criticises many elements of fees and charges, not just employment tribunal fees but civil fees, which have risen by up to 600%—that figure alone should have set alarm bells ringing—commercial fees, and the fees for divorce. Now there are proposals for an increase of up to 500% in immigration tribunal fees. Those increases will clearly not be affordable, especially in the light of a remission system that does not appear to function properly.
I think that many Members have concentrated on the issue of employment tribunal fees because we have had more time to experience it, and because there is something particularly insidious about the way in which the fees were introduced. They have led to a 70%—in some cases, an 80%—drop in the number of claims, which must have been the intention, because this does not represent a great saving of public finances. I think that the estimate is about £10 million a year, and although that is a substantial sum, it is not substantial in the context of the overall budget. The aim appears to be to restrict access in a way that some employers may find convenient, but people who are experiencing a time when they are vulnerable, have little money at their disposal, and face having to undergo what is, even at a tribunal, the intimidating process of putting their case forward will be easily put off. They do not need fees, and they certainly do not need fees at this level, to discourage them.
I do not want to take up too much time, so let me return to a point that I raised during the speech of the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. It is one of the few points on which I disagree with the Committee. It relates to Freedom of Information Act appeals from the Information Commissioner to the First-tier Tribunal. The Chair of the Committee was very kind in replying to my intervention. The Committee said that, according to the Independent Commission on Freedom of Information,
“'considerable resources and judicial time are being taken up by unmeritorious appeals’. It recommended that legislation should be introduced to remove the right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against an Information Commissioner decision”,
only allowing an appeal to the Upper Tribunal on a point of law. The report continues:
“This recommendation is under consideration by the Government. We see no reason to disagree with the Commission’s view.”
This is not really a criticism, but it appears that the Committee ticked a box because it had not received submissions. I accept, if that is what the Chair says, that it had not received submissions to the contrary, but the independent commission had certainly received many such submissions. It may well be that the Committee did not receive any because the impression given by the report was that it concerned levels of fees and charging rather than the existence of rights of appeal in themselves.
Let me return to what the commission said, and why the Committee may have been led into error. There appears to have been a simple confusion between unmeritorious appeals, which are weeded out—between January 2014 and March 2015, 10% cases were struck out for being unmeritorious—and unsuccessful appeals, which are very different. The Committee said that 79% of appeals to the First-tier Tribunal against the Information Commissioner were unsuccessful, but that means that more than 20% were successful.
In my experience—including my experience as a litigant: I have been a frequent user of the Freedom of Information Act, and have gone through all those stages, up to the First-tier Tribunal—it is an absolutely necessary safeguard. The Information Commissioner does a good job although he is under-resourced, and, generally speaking, the independent commission did not come up with the horrors that we all thought it was going to come up with, such as charging more, restricting access, or in other ways trying to discourage freedom of information requests. Nevertheless, the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal is an extremely important stage of the process.
Let me exemplify that by referring to some of the cases that have succeeded at that level in the past year. I am grateful to the News Media Association, a combination of the Newspaper Society and the Newspaper Publishers Association, which, understandably and for very good reasons, wishes to see this right of appeal. I am particularly grateful to the Campaign for Freedom of Information, led by the redoubtable Maurice Frankel, who has rung alarm bells on the issue.
Let me give half a dozen examples. The First-tier Tribunal ordered the Cabinet Office to release information about the adoption of the selection criteria for appointing members of the Chilcot inquiry. It told the Ministry of Defence that it was wrong to withhold information about its failure to warn soldiers that they will get a criminal record if convicted of minor disciplinary offences. It ordered the Department for Education to reveal
payments to new sponsors taking over failing academy schools. It ordered the Cabinet Office to disclose documentation for the expenses, of up to £115,000 per annum each, claimed by four former Prime Ministers in connection with their public duties. It also ordered—the Minister will appreciate this one—the Ministry of Justice to identify landlords convicted of Housing Act 2004 offences for letting dangerous or grossly substandard accommodation. Those are just some examples from central Government; there are even more examples from the national health service and local government.
I ask the Chair of the Justice Committee, who is a fair and reasonable man, to reconsider the issue. I assure him that the bodies that I have mentioned will be delighted to supply him with a plethora of information, just as they provided such material to the Independent Commission on Freedom of Information, albeit in vain.
The Freedom of Information Act was one of the key pieces of legislation of the previous Labour Government. Like anything else, it can be open to abuse, but it is generally used well not only in individual instances, but in promoting good government. It is right that the Information Commissioner’s Office is independent, but the Information Commissioner does not always get everything right. A 20% success on appeal rate is good, and the role of the First-tier Tribunal is materially different from that of the Information Commissioner. It brings a judicial eye to proceedings and, from the results that we have seen, allows for fresh and fuller scrutiny.
I will end on that point so as not to take up any more time, but I hope that that single issue—I apologise for picking out what I think are the errors in the report and do not mean to obscure the many good things in it—will be reconsidered by both the Committee and the Government.
6.52 pm