I am sure that most of my noble friends, and noble Lords generally, have seen those examples. I have to say to my noble friend that they are not very convincing. They are not sufficiently great to suggest that we should change the law of the land in this very particular way. That is my concern. I can see that it is easy to say, “Look, there have been a lot of judicial reviews that have not really been necessary”, or to say that we really need to shorten the time to build and to develop. I have a long history of being keen on building, developing and getting this country ahead of its neighbours, and of being unhappy about the way that we seem to take such a long time to do things. I am therefore a natural voter for this. I am on
the side of the Government; I would like to be with them. However, this is not the way to do it. There are ways in which it could be done that would not break the fundamental reason for judicial review.
I come to my third point. During an earlier debate I said that the foundation of British law is that no one is above the law. I am a great enthusiast for King Charles the Martyr, but it was perfectly right to say that he should not be above the law. I think it extremely dangerous—I say this to my noble friend very carefully—if Ministers should feel it reasonable to break the law because it is not really very important, or because it does not really have much effect. Breaking the law, if one is in a position of authority, is ipso facto a serious thing to do. Having been a Minister for 16 years, I would expect my civil servants to tell me very clearly if I proposed something that would break the law. I would take that very seriously indeed. I do not believe that ordinary people will respect the law in the same way that they do today if they think that Ministers have a special arrangement, which is that when they do things somebody has to show that it was really serious, really upset somebody or really made a difference before the courts can adjudicate on it.
I come to my fourth point, which I must say is, to me, very serious indeed. We have to be very careful about legislating in a way that suggests that we do not have trust in the judges who make decisions. Of course, this might be thought to be a dangerous place to say this as there are so many judges here, but it is the thing that distinguishes us from many Administrations: there are very few people who will not say that the judges in this country make decisions without fear or favour. If judges have made decisions that judicial review cases should be heard, I would prefer to rely on them than on people who are parti pris—that is, the Ministers—who find those decisions embarrassing. Ministers of any political party ought to be embarrassed if they break the law. That is an essential part of defending the law.
5.45 pm
The fifth thing I want to say is that I feel that the treatment of this House on these issues has not been what we have expected in the past. When I was Secretary of State I expected my Minister in the House of Lords to defend the Bill and to get the essentials, but to be free enough to be able to say, “Well, the House clearly doesn’t find it possible to accept this. Therefore, I’ll go away and see if I can find a way through”. I do not blame my noble friend for that. What I blame is what appears to me to be an increasing habit to say that that is not what we are here for. If we are not here to uphold principles of this kind, then we should not be here at all.
My real worry about this whole series of returns, having won the argument, having had a significant majority, having been advised by some of the best legal brains in the country, and having had—if I may dare say so to the noble Lord opposite—the support of large numbers of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and almost every Cross-Bencher, is that, after all that, I hope, had I been a Minister, I would have tried to find a way through that was as simple as the one that has been presented by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. This is a very generous amendment; for me, it does not
go far enough. However, I shall support it. I hope that real Conservatives will support it because it is about the rule of law—that is really why I objected to the way that the noble Lord opposite spoke—which all of us in this House, irrespective of our parties, should support. That is why we are here. If we do not defeat this and insist on the amendment we will not have done our duty.