My Lords, I am not a practising lawyer, but I have experience of being judicially reviewed, and after much hard thought, I speak in support of the noble Lords, some of whom are learned, who have put their names to this amendment and similar ones. After much thought, I think that this is the wrong clause, and I think that the way in which it is drafted will open doors to as much costly litigation as it is intended to prevent.
I can well imagine the sort of thing that the Government had in mind in bringing this forward. For example, in my experience, a student would challenge a poor grade or a failing grade on the ground that some tiny bit of procedure had gone wrong, something had not been put up on the notice board at the right time or whatever, and one knew perfectly well that, no matter how many judges looked at it, this student would still, in the end, be a failing student or a student with a poor grade. I quite understand that. However, I do not believe that this is the way to tackle it. There are procedural problems that ought to be tackled first. There are too many opportunities to ask, and ask again, for leave to judicially review something, and then to appeal against it. There are very many bites at the cherry. Although one may know very well that in the end the judicial review will not succeed, for a year
or two an expensive dark shadow hangs over the body that might be judicially reviewed while lawyers are having to cope with the case.
Nevertheless, despite those drawbacks, I support this amendment. I call on the Government, instead, to look at procedural reform that would make the whole procedure quicker, cleaner and cheaper.
5.45 pm