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Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [Lords]

I am proud to represent a part of London where Charles Dickens lived when he was young and where his father was imprisoned in the Marshalsea prison, which was cited in some of the most famous books in the English language—““Oliver Twist””, ““Little Dorrit”” and so forth. When we discuss these issues, I have to say that the image that first comes to my mind is one that Dickens portrayed most vividly about 150 years ago—the poor being oppressed by people who came to take away their goods, irrespective of whether it was justified. Sometimes it was the landlords who did it, sometimes other people. The hon. Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) represents a constituency in the north-west in which many people are living on low incomes or are out of work. Parts of the Minister’s constituency are also like that, as are parts of mine. I believe that I represent the constituency with a higher percentage of council properties and a lower percentage of owner occupation—something in the order of 10 per cent.—than any other English MP. The reality is that all hon. Members—you, too, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure—see at our surgeries week after week people who have suffered at the hands of people coming to knock on their doors and take things away in all our communities. These are live issues, and it is very proper that we are debating them and that the Government have introduced proposals to deal with them. Of course, there are other very important things in the Bill, but these issues relate to the core, the most significant and the most controversial provisions—parts 3, 4 and 5—and I will make a brief comment or two on the other important issues and then return to the substantive parts. The Minister started by introducing part 1, on the restructuring of the tribunals system, and we support the proposal that it should be restructured. Administrative law has grown over 50 years and become a recognised part of the English legal system. There has been a growth in the number of places that are not courts but tribunals, which seek to resolve, bluntly, the implications in large measure of the welfare state, which is clearly a welcome development of British society since the last war. It is good that the public should understand that there is an administrative court structure and that there should be some independence about it. I welcome the fact that the Bill will give it independence. The Liberal Democrats welcome the House of Lords Judicial Committee becoming the supreme court—it will give it independence and it will be seen to be different from the legislature and the Executive.