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Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Bill [HL]

In this clash of principles across the Floor, in which the Liberal Democrats have just lined themselves up with the Government, my Amendment No. 159 suggests a middle course. With the permission of the Grand Committee, perhaps I may speak to it now, because it covers very similar ground. Whereas the amendment of my noble and learned friend Lord Lyell seeks to knock out the first-tier tribunal and replace it with a court of law, my amendment seeks to remove subsection (1)(b) and the reference to, "““another tribunal created under an enactment””." It is unsatisfactory that we should sanction an appeal to an unknown tribunal. I am not sure whether these unknown tribunals are simply not specified—obviously they are not specified—or whether they have not been invented yet. Either way, we have no information about them and yet we are asked to sanction an appeal to them. It would be better if, while still allowing the appeal to the first-tier tribunal to remain in place—I am to that extent moving a little nearer to the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, than to my noble and learned friend—the ordinary courts of law remained within the loop rather than some new or unknown tribunal that we have yet to be told about. The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, said, in effect, that these will become expert tribunals and that we should leave it to the experts. But, to a degree, the point of appeals in situations such as this is to bring the voice of the man in the street—the ordinary person—to bear on the decision being made rather than that of the experts. That is why we have lay magistrates and juries in the more important cases. I do not automatically jump to the idea that an expert tribunal can be expected to bring common sense to bear on a case that others may think to be unfair.