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Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [Lords]

New clause 3 and amendment No. 4 relate to legal aid and amendment No. 72 is on an entirely different matter, with which amendment No. 9, tabled by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) also deals, and that is the specific matter of the future of the general commissioners of the Revenue and their staff, which is a matter of concern on both sides of the House. New clause 3 contains the simple but hugely important proposal that the Lord Chancellor, the Minister of Justice, as he now is—or, as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk commented, whoever he or his successor is soon to be—must by regulations make provision for legal aid for applicants for relief under clause 15. The Minister rightly brings to the House a Bill that sets up a new structure for our tribunals, and that is welcome. In that system there is the ability under clause 16 for the upper tribunal to have a judicial review jurisdiction. At the moment, there is provision for legal aid in some tribunals and on some occasions. We accept and believe that in general terms tribunals should not have lots of lawyers doing legally aided work, but there are exceptions when legal aid should be available because a matter is particularly significant, important or difficult. At the moment, that is possible by obtaining ministerial agreement, but we think that that is over-centralist, and that it should be possible for legal aid to be granted through arrangements made by the Minister of Justice in a much more routine and matter-of-fact way. Courts do important and significant work, but so do tribunals. We all know that, whether it is the social security tribunals dealing with people’s benefits, whether it is the industrial tribunals dealing with people’s employment rights, whether it is the race relations tribunals dealing with equality at work, or whether it is the asylum and immigration tribunals dealing with people’s status, they can determine people’s wealth, or their future in this country, and so on. We therefore believe that, exceptionally, there should be the ability to have legal aid in those places. New clause 3 would allow that, and we hope that the House will agree to it. Amendment No. 4 is a complementary proposal and I hope that it will commend itself to the House. The last matter is a ring-fenced one that is of concern to only a small number of people, but it is important enough to deal with here, a view shared by Conservative Members. The clerks to the commissioners who have looked after adjudications on tax matters are remunerated by the Ministry of Justice on a salaried basis. They are dealt with by tax management legislation. The clerks to the general commissioners for taxes may work in a profession that is not terribly popular, but they do an extremely good, competent and valuable job. Earlier in the year, the treasurer and secretary of the Association of Clerks to the General Commissioners of Taxes wrote to Members of Parliament expressing a concern that because the general commissioners of income tax are currently a tribunal dealing with income tax and corporation tax matters, as they have been for 210 years, but are to be abolished and disappear with the general tribunal system, they need to be looked after as a group of people who will have no automatic continuing career. The role of the clerk will effectively disappear completely when the Bill becomes law and is implemented. There are 244 clerks—or there were when we were first approached—mostly part time, and many are retired professionals from other walks of life, business, the law or the Revenue, employed by the general commissioners of tax, paid for by the Ministry of Justice. There is no compensation for loss of office for these people. Therefore we tabled amendment No. 72 to allow the Lord Chancellor, by regulations, to"““provide for the payment of pensions, allowances or gratuities by way of compensation to or in respect of such persons who suffer loss of office as a result of the abolition of a tribunal by virtue of this section””." It gives a general permissive power which we hope would allow the Lord Chancellor to treat these people justly when their jobs end. I had hoped, as the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk and others had, that by now this matter would have been resolved amicably. I know that these people and their representatives went to see Ministers and have had many communications. I had a letter—colleagues will have received a similar letter—from Baroness Ashton of Upholland, the Under-Secretary of State who looked after the Bill in the other place, dated 24 April. She tells me that she has carefully considered the issues and merits of including a provision for compensation, but that on balance she does not believe that the Bill should be amended to allow for that, because—I summarise for the sake of brevity—the legal advice is that these people are fee-paid office holders, which is a status creating no expectation in law of compensation. That was the confirmed ministerial view in April. Since then, even as recently as in the last week, there has been a further meeting with Ministers, but as I understand it, there is still no resolution that is satisfactory to the clerks. This is a plea that those people, who have been public servants in the most important of jobs, done hugely professionally, should not be left out in the cold as a by-product of the legislation. I hope that at this last hour we can persuade Ministers either to accept amendment No. 72 or amendment No. 9. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott) represents a city where a large number of people are employed by the Revenue and look after Revenue matters for Member of Parliament. I think that all Members’ tax matters are dealt with in Cardiff, so my hon. Friend has a particular constituency interest, and we also have a general interest. These are people who have served us specifically and the country at large, and I hope that we can look after them, at their request, and treat them decently.