Standing Committee B
Tuesday 11 November 1997
(Morning)
[Mr. Edward O'Hara in the Chair]
10.30 am
The Chairman: Before we commence, members of the Committee and others present will wish to know that I intend to suspend the Committee for 10 minutes at five minutes to 11 to allow all those who want to do so to observe the two minutes' silence. I will if necessary interrupt whoever is speaking at the time.
It will be for the benefit of the Committee to note several small alterations to the order of amendments. I refer hon. Members to clause 21. Amendment No. 252 will be the lead amendment, and with it we will take Government amendment No. 67. On clause 25, to which there are two groups of amendments, I will call first amendments Nos. 233, 234 to 238, and 254, and then I will call the other group. Hon. Members might want to note those changes now to avoid confusion. There has been a problem with the computers, but the revised selection list will shortly be available.
Schedule 5
Regulations as to Procedure
Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon): I beg to move amendment No. 217, in page 55, line 43, at end insert `for want of prosecution'.
We can now have the debate on the striking out of appeals which I attempted to introduce when we were discussing schedule 1. Having been thwarted then, I have returned to the topic. Our intention in amending paragraph 3 of schedule 5 would be to restrict the provision on the striking out of appeals to what we understand to be broadly the present situation: when someone fails to prosecute an appeal--the person might give up or fail to show any interest--it is legitimately struck out. We are concerned that if the schedule is not amended it will allow far wider provision for the striking out of proceedings, and this is a probing amendment to give the Minister an opportunity to set out his thinking on the sorts of cases that might be struck out.
We are concerned about several issues. First, the Minister kindly said earlier that the striking out will be done by a member of the panel. Presumably, not every appeal will go before a panel member to decide whether it should be struck out. One presumes that there will be a prior sift by administrators, and cases that seem likely to be struck out because they are apparently meritless will then be handed to a panel member.
We should like reassurance on several points. Will the panel member be legally qualified? On what basis will cases be deemed meritless? We have already discussed the case of a funeral payment in which application was made for burial outside the United Kingdom. Under this legislation, that would almost certainly have been struck out as meritless, but under the existing provision it went forward to an appeal and was eventually overturned by the European Court of Justice. That would not have happened if the case had been considered on the basis of the papers alone.
By definition, striking out is done on the basis of the papers--and we have already discussed the fact that a hearing, especially an oral hearing, gives an appellant a much better chance of success. Will people be denied justice through the striking-out procedure? If the case is struck out, will there be any appeal rights, and can it be reinstated? How long will people have?
Paragraph 3 allows enormous leeway to strike out the basic rights to appeal. We would like much more reassurance about how that will be done and about what is intended, if we are to withdraw the amendment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Keith Bradley): Good Morning, Mr. O'Hara.
As the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) said, the amendment would prevent the Government's proposed extension of a tribunal's power to strike out proceedings. As he rightly said, tribunals currently have powers to strike out proceedings for want of prosecution. Extending the power to strike out cases will, however, enable certain cases to be disposed of more quickly without a hearing, and will speed up the process for those appeals that remain. At the heart of the Bill is the desire for a more efficient and speedy way of dealing with appeals, which should not be frustrated by appeals that do not need to proceed.
Regulations under the powers before us will allow appeals to be struck out under certain circumstances, and I shall give some examples to provide a flavour of those. First, an appeal may be struck out where a person fails to co-operate when he has been clearly told what is required of him. For example, he may not have provided a properly made appeal or the necessary information or evidence that he was asked to supply.
An appeal may be struck out when it could have no material effect on the decision. For example, the appellant is paying mortgage interest at a rate higher than the standard rate set out in law, and is trying merely to get the increased amount, although it is not available under the legal position as laid down in social security legislation.
An appeal may also be struck out when it has no prospect of success--as, for example, in the case of an appeal against a refusal of benefit where the person is clearly older than the age limit for that benefit. There is a clear distinction in law regarding eligibility--on age grounds in this case--and there is no discretion. That is a fact and the appeal may therefore be regarded as totally unwarranted.
An appeal may also be struck out when it is clearly frivolous or vexatious, and a person is making it simply because he is unhappy and wants to go through the process for its own sake.
The hon. Member for Northavon mentioned our debate on schedule 1, and it is worth repeating my commitment that decisions to strike out appeals will be taken by panel members, not by clerks.
The measures in the Bill will help to prevent the waste of considerable valuable resources while ensuring that the right to a fair hearing remains. In the light of those assurances, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to withdraw the amendment.
Mr. Webb: I am grateful to the Minister for fleshing out what he means by paragraph 3. He has still not answered my point about cases that are apparently hopeless on the basis of the papers, but which have proven not to be so. The instance of funeral payments made outside the United Kingdom is a case in point. That is the sort of case that looks hopeless and, according to the third of the Minister's options, has ``no prospect of success''. Yet that case succeeded when it was allowed to go through the due appeals process.
Although we sympathise with the desire to exclude frivolous or vexatious appeals, we are concerned that valid appeals might also be excluded by the rather sweeping provision in paragraph 3. An appellant may not know the relevant information that he should put into an appeal, or the point of law on which he should argue. Items may be missing from the papers, and on that basis, the appeal may look hopeless.
Mr. Keith Bradley: The appellant will be informed in writing why the appeal has been struck out. Clearly, he can go back to the agency, explain why that is not appropriate and argue for the case to be reinstated.
Mr. Webb: I am grateful to the Minister for adding the point about reinstatement, which his earlier remarks did not touch upon. We still think that the power is too sweeping, but following that additional clarification I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. Webb: I beg to move amendment No. 225, in page 56, line 6, at end insert--
(c) any application, reference or appeal is to be determined; or
(d) any determination on an application, reference or appeal is to be notified to the persons affected; or
(e) any determination on an application, reference or appeal is to be implemented.'.
This is a very new Labour amendment--I have been spending too much time listening to the Minister and his thinking has started to affect my own. He used the phrase ``rights and responsibilities'', which represents a value--a principle--that I am beginning to share. Paragraph 5 (a) and (b) provide that applicants have a responsibility--that they shall provide information as and when it is requested. New Labour thinking is that for every responsibility there is a matching right, and for every right there is a matching responsibility. If claimants have a responsibility to provide information on time, the Secretary of State should have a reciprocal responsibility to deal with claims in a predetermined time.
The purpose of the amendment is to provide that regulations should specify not merely the duties of the claimant, but the duties of the Secretary of State concerning the time within which appeals and other determinations should be made. That would be a natural balance; if duties are to be imposed on one side it is only fair to impose them on the other side.
When a similar point was made previously, the Minister said that the requirement to be prompt would gum up the works, reducing the flexibility of the system and making it harder to prioritise. The Bill is about speeding things up, but allowing the Secretary of State to hang around is not an effective way of achieving that. Our amendment simply requires that the Secretary of State have performance targets. That is the spirit of the amendment, and I am sure that the Minister will share in it.
Mr. Keith Bradley: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman shares the laudable aim of new Labour to put in place a quick and efficient appeals system. However, the amendment would not achieve that purpose.
Proposed new sub-paragraphs (c) and (d) in the amendment would impose an administrative time limit upon a judicial procedure. That is contrary to the established practice of law. An injustice could be done if a decision had to be reached within a time limit. For example, vital evidence could be missing, or a complex legal point given insufficient consideration. The time required by tribunals and commissioners to make decisions will vary, and rightly so, depending on the circumstances of each case.
The amendment would also set time limits for the agencies to implement decisions. The agencies already implement tribunal decisions as quickly as possible; it is in their interest to do so. They will develop processes for handling all aspects of appeals, including the implementation of decisions.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon said, the--
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