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not hear so much now about a brave new era after 1 April for the carer and those being cared for genuinely in the community. I wonder why.I am struck by the evidence from the new Office of Population Censuses and Surveys general household survey. In 1990, it updated a survey of carers first done in 1985. The data were published a few months ago. The information has not received the attention is deserved. It showed that 15 per cent. of the people are carers, looking after elderly relatives or people with handicaps or disabilities ; 13 per cent. of men and 17 per cent. of women are carers. That adds up to a huge army of carers, 6.8 million--an army of health and social service carers far greater than we find in social services departments of the formal national health service. It is the most important army, but the forgotten army of the welfare state. Some are under enormous burdens ; one in 10 provide care for 50 hours or more a week. Without that enormous exertion of care, community care would totally collapse.
A problem with the House is that we are unrepresentative. Given the numbers of carers in the community, we would, if we were truly representative, number among us about 90 carers. I am sure that there are some who are doing excellent work, but if 90 Members were carers our debates would contain a greater sense of experience, expertise and passion. That would certainly be so if we were more representative in terms of gender and therefore in terms of care. Imagine the difference if 90 Members were carers. The President of the Board of Trade, if a carer, would have to phone the Prime Minister and say, "I regret that I cannot close down the coal mines today because an elderly relative needs my care. I must take her to hospital. The home help has not turned up, so I cannot come to work today. Please look after the mines until I return." The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food might have to phone to say that he could not attend an official lunch or dinner. Or the Secretary of State for Transport would have to phone the office to say, " I regret that I cannot come in this week because there is a crisis of care in my family. I fear that I cannot play with my railway trains this week."
If a representative number of hon. Members were carers, the whole debate would be changed. I am not being frivolous. I give those examples to show how serious I am. If we had a better understanding of what is going on, we would have genuine community care in Britain, especially if more men and politicians were involved in caring. The general household survey review of carers for 1990 makes interesting reading, especially when the figures are compared with the situation in 1985. For example, during those five years, there was a greater recognition by Ministers of the needs of carers. That recognition manifested itself in speeches and rhetoric, although it did not appear in reality and resources.
Carers were asked, in effect, "How often does the person for whom you are caring receive regular visits from the health and social services--the doctor, district nurse, home help, social worker and so on?" In 1985, 22 per cent. of those being cared for by carers had a regular visit from the doctor. By 1990, the number had declined to 16 per cent. For district nurses, the position was steady--only 15 per cent. received regular visits from a district nurse in both 1985 and 1990. For health visitors, there was a slight decline, from 6 to 4 per cent.
Ministers may say that community care, domiciliary care and support for carers is moving in the right direction,
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but they should accept that, while my hon. Friends and I say that that is nonsense and Conservative Members say it is true, the facts do not support their claim. I appreciate that in this place some people do not like the facts to get in the way of a good argument, but in this matter the facts speak more loudly than our speeches, and the facts show that we were providing less care for carers at the end of the 1980s than we were five years previously. In other words, all the talk about supporting carers is only talk. It is not happening in reality because we are providing less care.If the Minister has evidence to prove that what I say is wrong, I shall be delighted to listen to him. I fear that I am right. Indeed, my fear about our neglect for the carer goes further. Because we are now emphasising residential care, hard-pressed social service authorities will have to use the domiciliary care that is available to them for those in the most acute need. Those authorities will say, "If you have a carer, you are not in acute need, so we will not provide more support for you and your carer." That will result in even more neglect of the carer.
When I spoke on the subject of community care shortly after coming to this place, I noted how often, in the sphere of child care or community care, a case of abuse or a tragedy had to occur to arouse public and parliamentary concern and, thank goodness, sometimes governmental concern. I asked then whether we had to continue along that road for ever, with a tragedy having to happen before action was taken.
Some months later, we began to take mental illness seriously, but only after an unfortunate citizen with schizophrenia jumped into a lion's den. What a sad commentary on society that was. It was also a sad commentary on the Government, because only after that incident did they start to bustle. I can imagine the meetings that took place behind closed doors as Ministers thought about the statements they would make. Ministers should walk around Westminster, go into the underground station or stroll up Victoria street and see what is happening. Why did somebody have to jump into a lion's den before action was taken?
There is already documentary evidence--there have been some excellent television programmes on the subject--to show that there is a danger that, out of frustration, after caring day after day, year after year, carers may sometimes hit out at those for whom they are caring. We must understand that situation. I appeal to the Government not to wait for tragedies and cases of abuse to occur in the sphere of true community care affecting the overstressed carer before a Minister appears before us and says, "I did not know it was happening. It is remarkable. I am setting up a committee of inquiry and we intend to take action."
I hope that, when replying to the debate, the Minister will talk about community care and not just about residential care. I urge him to spell out not just his ambitions for the carer but the reality of what is being provided. If he thinks that the evidence I have given about a lack of support for carers is wrong, I hope that he will say enough to prove me wrong. Let us hear about community care in this debate. After all, it is meant to be on the subject of community care.
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7.5 pmMr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield) : This has been an excellent debate, with considered and constructive contributions from hon. Members in all parts of the House. It has reflected, particularly for hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), a long-term commitment to community care. I congratulate him on taking the opportunity to plunge a dagger between the Under-Secretary's shoulderblades in relation to the Minister's advocacy and assessment procedures.
The hon. Gentleman's remarks have also saved me having to make about half the speech that I had intended to make, because much of what he said represents Labour party policy. I invite him to sit on these Benches when we next debate the subject : that particularly applies to his remarks about advocacy and assessment.
The Minister introduced the debate in a rather blase fashion. He appeared self-congratulatory as he set out his view of community care. He set himself up as a sort of Father Christmas, when in reality he is a bit of a Shylock. It is clear from the way in which the funding regimes have been constructed that a pound of flesh has been removed from virtually every social services sector. A dagger has been plunged into the heart of the concept of community care and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wickes) said, we are left with institutional and residential care as the way in which the Government are driving forward the concept of the market provision of care in the community.
The Minister also abdicated responsibility for the mental health services. Indeed, he neglected to refer to the subject, apart from a brief comment in answer to an intervention. He failed to identify any ring-fencing mechanism for resources for mental health services. He rejected the idea of the provision of financial regimes to achieve flexibility in providing employment projects, advocacy and assessment, permanent housing, non- clinical crisis houses and resources for residential care in appropriate settings, along with respite and crisis care for those with mental illnesses or learning disabilities.
It is tragic that, in a debate such as this, the Government should have abdicated responsibility in many other spheres. For example, they look to the Department of the Environment to set financial criteria, with the result that, from 1 April, about 80 per cent. of social services departments will cut their core services, even though those services are vital to assessing the level of facilities in the community, the standard of those facilities, and access to them by those with a mental illness or mental disability.
The Minister behaved disgracefully as he skated over the need to accept responsibility for the preparation of care strategies for offering choice and quality to clients and carers. He offered no protection for failed contractual arrangements, for protection for clients' rights and for standards of care in bankruptcy situations. He knows that such situations will arise because, in the privacy of discussions in the Department with various organisations, he has admitted to expecting a failure rate of between 30 and 40 per cent. in the next financial year in the private care sector.
That represents a phenomenal number of businesses in that sector likely to go out of business. Even so, only weeks before the introduction of community care, we do not know what protection arrangements have been made when contractual arrangements are broken. Local authorities
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will be left with the responsibility of clearing up the mess when, for various reasons, homes are unable to continue trading. Nor did the Minister show any sense of the need for a mental health service with a strategy, objectives, minimum requirements and some clarity of purpose to be developed.I believe that the Minister should pay attention to six basic requirements for mental health services in connection with community care. They must be effective and challenging, created and fashioned by the experience of people involved in the system. They must be non-paternalistic and user-led, enabling and assessing choices and providing a real right of advocacy on behalf of client groups. They must be locally based and accountable and linked to a core of service providers, involving appropriate housing and primary care resources. Strategies must allow the full potential of people with a mental illness of disability to be realised. They must be well resourced and highly motivated and staff must be trained to the highest possible level.
That all requires resources at local authority level, yet, when the Government announced a £34 million fund for fighting mental illness last November, they operated a lock and key principle. Everybody welcomed the statement that additional resources were to be provided for mental illness services--but when we read the small print we realised that there were two major flaws in the proposed expenditure. First, local authorities would have to match payments on the grants pound for pound, at a time when the Department of the Environment is forcing local authorities to make real cuts in their budgets for social services and housing, and across the whole care spectrum. Authorities are also having to make real cuts in capital expenditure, as Environment Ministers told us in the debate on the revenue support grant settlement last week.
Furthermore, only 70 per cent. of the project funds will come from the Government ; the remaining 30 per cent. will have to be met from local authorities' own resources. That was a simple and devious financial device which will mean that many local authorities will find it impossible to take up the resources and develop the strategies and objectives that I have outlined. It means that, after 1 April, there will be no real opportunity to develop core services for people with a mental illness.
It is not only Labour and Liberal party members in local government who complain about the way in which the Government have skewed the financial settlement towards the private sector, thus locking out choices and opportunities for other methods of community care. All those involved in community care who advocate on behalf of people suffering from a mental illness have expressed extreme concern because the transitional grant will not be spent on mental health services and because distribution and access to the grant will be arranged so that resources will be insufficient to provide the quality of care demanded in the White Paper.
There will be disarray in decision-making between what the Department of Health says will be the resource levels for local authorities and the reality. There will be a gap between the assessment and the requirement that local authorities provide services for individuals and collections of individuals suffering from a mental illness. There is a real conflict between assessment and advocacy.
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There is plain dishonesty when the Department of Health tells local authorities that they must give the client an open and fair assessment that clearly shows his or her needs, and that the client must have an opportunity to advocate for himself or herself--or that others should have the opportunity to do so on their behalf--while in the background the same Department sends local authorities a notorious circular saying that that might not be quite the way in which they should proceed and that they should not provide the client or the advocate with the full assessment arrangements or allow clients access to information in their computer data banks which could determine whether the assessment was appropriate and whether the level of needs revealed by the assessment was to be met. That is disgraceful. The Government are putting clients, professionals and carers into potential conflict. People should be working together in the community, yet the Government are introducing mistrust of the assessment procedures from the outset. That mistrust will provide opportunities for legal challenges and resources will be spent in the courts instead of delivering professional services and access to those services.The circular is a cowardly attack by the Government on those least able to defend themselves. The Government have hidden behind the responsibility that they have given to councillors and staff, hoping that, when legal challenges are made, the blame will be pushed on to local authorities rather than on to the circular. At the last minute of the debate, they have introduced confusion, leaving local authorities unable to assess at this stage whether to follow the circular or the original Government advice.
Things are even worse than that. Many local authorities are already involved in assessment procedures and have had advice from their district auditors. For example, in Gloucestershire the district auditor has already met members and officers of the county council and issued the authority with written guidance on assessment. A letter describing the meeting says :
"When we met the District Auditor she was very explicit about her advice that Members should make decisions and not leave it to officers and that we should be open to and honest about the assessment of need."
The district auditor has submitted a letter to the authority setting out the requirements. What are the councillors and officers to do now? Do they follow the written advice of the district auditor? Do they follow the circular? Do they leave it to the courts? Or do they leave it to the Under- Secretary of State for Health? The position is intolerable. Only a few weeks before taking up their community care responsibilities, local authorities have been given one lot of advice by the district auditor and two different sets of advice by the Department of Health. The Minister must sort that out quickly and assist local authorities or provide them with the management letter sent by the district auditor to Gloucester county councillors.
Will the Minister give us some insight about contingency funds in the event of contractual obligations not being undertaken? In the transfer of resources from local authorities for the provision of individual care packages, it is vital that, when those packages cannot be delivered, there is financial provision for alternative facilities of at least the same quality, and in the same area, within days or hours of the breakdown of the contractual arrangements.
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If a care home goes bankrupt, we cannot have local authorities scrabbling round at the last moment trying to find alternative placements for the elderly confused--people who, by the very fact that they have been committed to such institutions, must be frail and must suffer from a mental illness or from mental confusion. That cannot be countenanced in any circumstances. The Government should say now what contingency funds will be available if contractual arrangements are broken, as happens when a care home goes into liquidation. If they are not prepared to tell us now, they should prepare a circular at an early stage.The Minister should also tell us the position on discharge plans. The Government made great play of discharge plans and talked of the need for discussions between local authorities, health authorities and trusts, but there should now be public honesty about the nature of the plans. Discharge plans should be public documents, so that not only the local authority and those involved in the delivery of the service, but the client groups and the clients themselves have access to the plans and information about them. Then they would know from the outset whether their interests were being met by the discharge plans and whether the assessments concerned allowed them the opportunity to object or to appeal.
The plans should not be excluded from the client's right to knowledge--both as an individual and because plans would be public documents. The community in the area concerned would know what the discharge plan was and what effect it would have. Perhaps the Minister can explain the effect of section 43 of the National Health Service and Community Care Act which deals with interventions.
Mr. Yeo : I shall not have enough time.
Mr. McCartney : The Minister says that he shall not have enough time, but he had plenty of time earlier. I hope that he is not making excuses, as we are all limited by time. He has had months to come to the House and has waited until there were only weeks to go before the implementation of his proposals to sneak in a three-hour debate on a Thursday night, whereas the House should have been allowed proper consideration of them. He should not object to Opposition Members asking for information. If he does not have time, perhaps he can give a commitment to offer me and my colleagues at the earliest opportunity a meeting at the Department or a debate in Government time about the consequences of the proposals.
Finally, perhaps the Minister can explain why yesterday the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security could give no commitment to the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments on which groups would be able to claim from their local authorities a top-up on income support from 1 April. It seems incredible that the Minister did not know the consequences of the proposals. There appears to be a bit of a shambles between his Department and the Department of Social Security. Will he state clearly, within seven days if possible, the categories affected, so that local authorities, client groups and those who advocate them, can reach reasonable conclusions on the level and quality of care in the community for those who require services under the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.
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7.21 pmMr. Yeo : We have had a most useful debate, characterised by the high quality of the speeches of hon. Members who have spoken often with professional or local government expertise. I am sorry that as the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) has used 16 of the available 26 minutes, it may not be possible for me to respond as fully as I would wish to all the points that have been raised, but I shall do my best in the time available.
I am glad to see the return to the Chamber of the hon. Member for Dulwich (Ms. Jowell) whose attendance during the debate has been somewhat spasmodic. I advise her in good faith that, if she wishes her contributions to be taken seriously, it helps if she attends the bulk of the debate-- [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng) has just walked in during the past minute or two and is not aware of the fact that the hon. Lady was not even here when the debate started.
Several hon. Members referred to cuts. We are talking about a policy which has experienced a two-thirds real increase in expenditure since 1979. The standard spending assessments for personal social services have risen by more than one fifth in real terms in the past three years. The increase in standard spending assessments for this particular local government function has been higher than for any other except the police. If one includes the special grant that we are now about to approve, the resources available for personal social services in 1993-94 are more than one third higher in real terms than they were only three years ago. The record of commitment that the Government have shown in allocating resources seems to be unmatched. The transfer money from the Department of Social Security was calculated on the basis of an assumption that income support limits would rise by 4.25 per cent. In fact, they have risen by 3.6 per cent., so even the transfer money has been inflated by assumptions which were calculated to be as generous as possible to the authorities receiving them.
The president of the Association of Directors of Social Services said after the announcement last October :
"In the context of the present economic climate",
my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health
"has done well to get this money and to give us specific funds for the second and third year of implementation".
I began with some sympathy for the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), as he had a difficult task this afternoon. He had to try to find grounds on which to attack or criticise the policy or its implementation. I am only sorry that in doing so he seems to have turned to his sponsors, the National Union of Public Employees, for advice. That is the only explanation that I can think of for his hostility to the independent sector.
Mr. Hinchliffe : Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Yeo : I am sorry, but the hon. Member for Makerfield has taken up so much time, so I will not give way. The hon. Member for Wakefield has had a good chance to speak today.
The statutory direction on choice that we have issued, and which binds local authorities to recognise the preferences of individuals in terms of where they go to receive residential care, does not seem remotely consistent with the hon. Gentleman's allegation that the policy is provider -led. It is clearly user-led. What did seem to be provider-led was the hon. Gentleman's assertion that
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choice for local authorities on how to treat drug and alcohol abusers was somehow constrained by the decision not to ring fence funds for that purpose.Ring fencing would restrict the freedom of local authorities. It would perpetuate exactly the emphasis on residential provision for that group that the hon. Gentleman quite rightly is keen to see ended for other groups. Nothing whatever prevents local authorities from purchasing the services that are needed.
The hon. Member for Wakefield, in a moment which must have been intended as humorous, suggested that we should wait for independent sector provision to emerge before imposing our 85 per cent. condition-- [Interruption.] If he consults Hansard he will find it. I am not quite sure how long we would have to wait in the London boroughs of Lambeth and Hackney for such independent sector provision. I wonder whether independent sector providers would even be able to talk to such authorities if we had not required them to do so.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) paid tribute, for which I am grateful, to the community care support force. Its future is under consideration and it certainly will not continue in its existing form. There will, of course, be other monitoring of the policy after April through the regional health authorities and the social services inspectorate. My hon. Friend referred to the lateness of the figures, but in terms of individual authorities they are very little changed since the publication at the end of November of the split by function of next year's revenue support grant. However, I recognise that local authorities are now drawing up their budgets. The £100,000 change in Bromley to which the director of social services drew attention is the result of the withholding from the report of the £20 million pending the outcome of the judicial review, so I am confident that my hon. Friend will find the final figure closer to what was originally expected.
He made an interesting and important point about unmet need. It is my view that the local authorities themselves are best placed to assess the need in their areas. That is far better than someone sitting in Whitehall trying to second-guess at a distance what will be needed in each authority. It may save time if I write to my hon. Friend about migration adjustment as it is a rather technical point. I shall be happy to copy in the hon. Member for Wakefield if he wishes.
Local authority topping up is another important point. We cannot sensibly require local authorities automatically to top up the costs of residential accommodation for someone whose placement in that accommodation was not the decision of that local authority, or where there was no opportunity to carry out an assessment. However, we are about to clarify what the local authorities should be doing. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) referred to the Association of Directors of Social Services survey. In my judgment, that was largely an exercise in defending personal social services against the encroachments of other local authority expenditure areas. In Gloucestershire it is much needed. Social services spending there is substantially below the level set in the personal social services standard spending assessment. It is precisely for that reason that we felt it necessary to introduce ring fencing so
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that Gloucestershire county council could not remove for other purposes the funds that we wanted to go into community care. As for the numbers that we are assuming for transfer, we have assumed, based on past trends, a growth of 30,000 a year in Great Britain. Of course, that does not take account of the fact that we believe that in the medium term the policy will result in some diversion from residential into more domiciliary care and improved day and respite care services. The hon. Member for Cheltenham may find that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Mr. Congdon) can provide some helpful advice about how priorities should be reflected locally.My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) apologised in advance for the fact that he could not stay until the end of the debate, so I shall deal with his points separately. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East made a constructive speech. I do not know whether funds for this policy will be adequate. As I said, they are certainly much more substantial than anything ever envisaged before and much more substantial than would have been available for this client group if we had not changed the policy.
The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks) seems upset about the growth of the private sector. I can only imagine that he wants to return to the local authority monopoly, inspired perhaps by the example of neighbouring boroughs such as Lambeth, where large-scale fraud is now under investigation, and Sheffield, where charge payers' money is being diverted from providing services to provide accommodation for the local Labour Members of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman wanted facts, and I have just mentioned one. Another fact which I mention is that there has been a substantial shift in local authority expenditure away from residential care and towards domiciliary care. In 1978-79, just over £1 billion was spent on residential care and domiciliary care.
Mr. McCartney : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Yeo : I am sorry, I will not give way. On the same basis--
Mr. McCartney : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse) : Order. The Minister is not giving way.
Mr. Yeo : On the same basis, in real terms the increase in domiciliary expenditure has been 80 per cent. and in residential care it has been 40 per cent. I am sorry that time will not permit me to answer all of the points raised by the hon. Member for Makerfield, but that is due to something outside my control. I say simply that the Government's commitment to the success of the policy has been demonstrated by our role in the preparations to which local authorities and health authorities have also contributed--
It being three hours after the motion was entered upon, Mr. Deputy Speaker- - put the Question, pursuant to Order [5 February]. Question agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Special Grant Report (No. 6) (House of Commons Paper No. 404), which was laid before this House on 8th February, be approved.
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Judges
7.32 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. John M. Taylor) : I beg to move
That the draft Maximum Number of Judges Order 1993, which was laid before this House on 21st January, be approved.
The draft order is made under section 2(1) of the Supreme Court Act 1981. It relates to judges of the Court of Appeal. The court is served by the Lord Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls and the lords justices of appeal. The President of the Family Division and the Vice-Chancellor also sit there from time to time. The lords justices form the main judicial strength of the court, although High Court judges sit with them to hear criminal appeals and other cases. It is a matter of natural public concern that there should be sufficient lords justices of appeal to hear cases which involve the liberty of the subject or to determine matters of law which affect the citizen and the state. Apart from the small number of cases which go to the other place in its judicial capacity, the Court of Appeal is the pinnacle of our judicial system. It is therefore vital that its status and efficiency be preserved.
The maximum number of lords justices of appeal was increased from 23 to 28 by the Maximum Number of Judges Order 1987, and 28 judges now hold appointment, one of them since 11 January. The proposed order will increase the maximum number to 29.
In considering the justification for a further increase in the number of lords justices in England and Wales, I hope that it may be helpful to set the matter in the context of demands on the Court of Appeal civil division and the resources that have been available to that court recently.
At the end of 1991, Lord Donaldson, the then Master of the Rolls, in his review of the legal year, drew attention to the need for a "small increase in the judicial establishment of the Court of Appeal".
At that time the establishment stood at 27 lords justices, in addition to Lord Donaldson. In the following year, the new Master of the Rolls echoed the call by identifying an increase in the number of lords justices sitting in the Court of Appeal as one means of helping to reverse the trend of increasing backlogs of work in that court. The number of final appeals received in the civil appeals office over the past seven years has remained roughly constant, at about 900 cases a year. Although interlocutory appeals over that period have increased from fewer than 700 receipts to almost 800 in 1992, it still seems unlikely that the rise in backlogs of about 25 per cent. can be accounted for by additional appeals. Rather, it seems likely to be the result of a fall in the rate at which cases are disposed of.
It is not easy to determine the exact causes lying behind that fall, but the increase in reserved judgment from 15 per cent. in 1986 to 31 per cent. in 1991 suggests that one reason is that cases are becoming more complex and are therefore taking longer to dispose of. That view is reinforced by an increase in the number of civil appeals which take more than a year to hear.
In the light of the increasing backlog and the call made by Lord Donaldson for a
"small increase in the judicial establishment",
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which his successor echoed, an additional lord justice was appointed last month. That brought the complement up to the statutory limit, and the wish to add a further lord justice to the strength has necessitated this order.I recognise that it may be argued that, given the current position in the civil division of the Court of Appeal, an increase of two lords justices is not in itself sufficient. I should explain to the House that the ability of the Court of Appeal to get through its business is not determined solely by the number of lords justices. An internal report in 1989, which the then Master of the Rolls endorsed, made it clear that the need for lords justices could be lessened by employing more legal staff in the civil appeals office. In recognition of that fact, five new legal posts have since been provided for that office.
For completeness' sake, the House, in considering the justification for the proposed increase in the limit, will wish to bear in mind the fact that, the civil division of the Court of Appeal aside, lords justices also sit in its criminal division and the divisional court, as well as undertaking work outside the court, such as public inquiries and the chairmanship of such bodies as the Security Commission.
After careful consideration of the current and predicted work load of the Court of Appeal, it has been concluded that an additional appointment is necessary at this time and will assist in the more efficient dispatch of business of the courts, and that the House should further discharge its responsibility by approving the draft order. I commend the order to the House.
7.37 pm
Mr. Paul Boateng (Brent, South) : The increase in the number of those appointed to the Court of Appeal is inadequate. The small increase in the complement which was envisaged by the former Master of the Rolls, Lord Donaldson, could not have been smaller in terms of the Government's recognition of the need which he outlined. Lord Donaldson asked for a small increase. I doubt whether he expected that it would be as small as one. We argue that the Government have not, with this order, satisfied the requirements of the Court of Appeal.
We want to know whether the Lord Chancellor and his Department took the advice of the present Master of the Rolls and the Lord Chief Justice before determining the figure of one which is referred to in the order. Did the Master of the Rolls advise the Lord Chancellor that an increase in the complement by only one was required? I doubt whether that was the case. In the interests of open government, I hope that the Minister will tell us how he and his Department arrived at an increase of one, bearing in mind the current pressure of work in the Court of Appeal.
The Minister referred to the remarks of Lord Donaldson as the genesis of this provision. If his remarks have had that effect, and several months later the Government have come forward with this paltry increase of one, it is to be hoped that Lord Donaldson's remarks on his retirement with regard to the number of judges currently sitting in the High Court will also be taken into account. The Minister will know, or certainly should know, the words of Lord Donaldson on that occasion. He was supported by all the most senior judges in England and Wales, without exception, who had come to that place to pay him worthy and just tribute. He said :
"I have no doubt that it is my duty to inform and warn both the Government and the public if the level of resources
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is such that the standard of service which the Court can offer is likely to decline or is in fact declining."The Minister has pointed out that, in the criminal division of the Court of Appeal, it is necessary and it is common practice from time to time for High Court judges to sit alongside Lords Justices of Appeal.
Lord Donaldson warned that, unless the number of High Court judges was increased and extra resources were provided, there would inevitably be a further decline in standards when standards were already declining. He chose to make that point in his valedictory remarks. His remarks have been echoed time and time again by his brother judges. Time and time again the Government have set their face against increasing the complement of High Court judges. Undoubtedly we shall hear from the Minister in reply that the Lord Chancellor has established a review. When will we hear the results of the review, if indeed they are to be published? Bizarrely, at a time when the Government parade themselves in the clothes of open government and purport to share with all their citizens the nature, responsibilities and, in so far as they can, the workings of government, we still do not know whether the findings and recommendations resulting from the review will be published so that all may read them.
As the Minister said in his opening remarks, the complement of judges in the Court of Appeal and the High Court is a matter of legitimate public concern. The matter has been aired in the other place on numerous occasions and we welcome the opportunity to explore it in this House. The number of judges who sit in the High court relates to the number of judges who sit in the Court of Appeal and affects the expeditious dispatch of work. The overwhelming burden of evidence is of a civil and criminal justice system in a state of crisis.
That crisis has been drawn to the attention of the Government repeatedly. As long as the Government fail to address it, and turn a deaf ear to those who provide and those who consume judicial services, we shall air anxieties about the administration of civil and criminal justice at every opportunity on the Floor of the House. We are indebted to their Lordships for their contribution to the debate, and particularly to the Lord Chief Justice. He has been a shining example of the importance of making heard in the clearest and most effect terms the contribution to the public debate of the senior judiciary. It was interesting to note his words, which were widely reported at the weekend, about the number of judges appointed to the High Court. As I know that you are aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker, judges in the Court of Appeal are ultimately drawn from High Court judges. You will appreciate the importance of ensuring that sufficient judges sit in the High Court, from whom the additional complement of judges may be drawn.
We are obviously anxious to ensure that the workings of the High Court and the Court of Appeal are not impaired by insufficient judges in the High Court. The Minister will recognise the importance of the fact that the quality of judges in the Court of Appeal is perhaps higher than it has ever been. The most recent appointment was a particularly welcome one. It was broadly and warmly welcomed not only in the legal profession generally but outside it. One wants to ensure that the complement of judges in the High Court is such as to provide the broadest
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possible pool of high-quality judges. Therefore, it is important to ensure that further appointments are made to the High Court. The importance of that and the Government's failure in that regard was ably demonstrated by the Lord Chief Justice's remarks at the weekend.The Lord Chief Justice threatened a confrontation with the Government on the issue unless he was allowed to recruit more High Court Judges. Although it does not go far enough, we welcome the order to increase the complement of judges in the Court of Appeal. But our question for the Lord Chancellor- -or his surrogate, who will pass it on to the Lord Chancellor--is : when will we hear that the long called for and much sought after appointments to the High Court will be made?
When will the Minister and the Lord Chancellor announce the appointment of more High Court judges? Why is their dilatoriness so great that the Lord Chief Justice was forced to the point of making a veiled threat of resignation? He said :
"I have no immediate intention of resignation. But I can't do the job unless I have the judges."
Tonight we know that he is to have at least one more judge in the Court of Appeal, but we have heard nothing that will give Lord Taylor any confidence that the Government take seriously the obvious need for more judges in the High Court.
Judges appointed to the Court of Appeal currently have a critical function, which is made more important by the increase in the amount and complexity of work with which the High Court generally must deal. As you will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in autumn last year the number of outstanding appeals had risen from 989 to 1,130 in 12 months. That led to a 12.5 per cent. increase in waiting times. Since then, the position has worsened, and it continues to deteriorate. We are not convinced that the addition of one judge to the Court of Appeal will make an appreciable difference to the current waiting times and the logjam in appeals.
One of Lord Donaldson's concerns was the fact that Appeal Court judges were increasingly being diverted to deal with criminal cases. He said that the
"civil division may be confined to hearing the more urgent appeals, leaving the rest to wait for very long periods of time".
That is all the more reason for increasing not only the number of judges in the Court of Appeal, but the number of High Court judges generally ; such an increase would in turn affect the work load of the Court of Appeal.
A number of their Lordships, on both sides of the House and on the Cross Benches, pointed out forcefully the implications for civil liberties and the liberty of the subject, and the other potential constitutional dangers of failing to maintain the judiciary at its full complement. That would affect all the various divisions of the High Court ; its most deleterious impact would not be confined to the expanding area of judicial review. It has become increasingly necessary to test in the courts an over-mighty state--a Government who have become too complacent and too accustomed to the exercise of unfettered power. The judiciary manage to ensure that some restraint is placed on the excesses of Government.
Of late, a number of Conservative Members have had their knuckles well and truly rapped--deservedly--by their Lordships, as a result of such excesses. A number of the mighty have been brought low and their golden locks have turned grey and hoary as a result of their experiences
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