My Lords, I give personal thanks to the Minister for his very kind words to me and more general thanks to the Government for pressing forward with this Arbitration Bill. It is very befitting that the Government should have championed this Bill through, as they are at the moment, because it was a Labour Government 46 years ago who brought forward the arbitration reform that brought about the 1979 Act.
I join other noble Lords in thanking the prominent members of the Special Public Bill Committee and the prominent Members who took part in debate in this Chamber for all their contributions. I also thank the Ministers, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, and—I keep calling him my learned friend—my noble friend Lord Ponsonby. Special thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, who quite excellently presided over the Special Public Bill Committee, and to all the supporting officials.
Particular thanks should also go to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, and I am sorry he is not here to receive them. When he was the Minister, it was he who referred the arbitration issues to the Law Commission. That really was the beginning of the recent story on the Arbitration Bill.
This Bill is not as fundamental as the 1979 or 1996 Acts, but it deals with some very important issues. Perhaps the most important is Clause 7, giving power to arbitral tribunals to make summary awards. Those of us who practise in the courts—I am looking across the House at the moment—are well familiar with Order 14 proceedings, and this introduces into the arbitration world the Order 14 summary judgments.
It also clears up issues relating to the seat of the arbitration, arising after the unfortunate division in the Supreme Court in the Enka Insaat case, with two Supreme Court judges on one side and three on the other. I would have preferred new Section 6A(2) not to have been included, because I believe it complicates that issue, but none the less it is there, and I am very happy to support the Bill in that condition.
However, there is unfinished business. I suggest that the corruption issue should have further consideration. We know that the ICC has a commission on this and we must wait to hear what it says, but it is certainly a matter that needs further attention.
Other matters should have consideration, including expedited hearings and dealing with the length of written submissions, which sometimes stretch over 100 or 200 pages and argue every point under the sun. There is also the use of third-party funding and the question of what disclosures should be made, as well as the power to order parties into mediation, which is used successfully in litigation.
Noon
There is always a question of whether reforms are left to the arbitral institutes or to legislative reform, as we have chosen in Clause 7 with summary judgments. There was a very interesting recent case on expedited hearings. The Vienna rules were recently altered and no less than 46% of the parties took it up. This is very important, because arbitrations are too lengthy and expensive.
I had the honour, many years ago, of presiding over a committee assessing the law—