A new beginning?

The start of the summer recess often feels like the end of the Parliamentary session. As the Houses prepare to rise, most MPs and peers visibly wind down and if ministers seem to buck the trend it’s only because they are frantically trying to get as many Bills as they can on the statute book before the holiday season starts. The big front bench reshuffles, so common around this time, only add to the general sense that we are at a change-over point.

And this year is certainly no exception. The final sitting week saw a clutch of measures receive Royal Assent, including the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill, the Offender Management Bill and the controversial Mental Health and Corporate Manslaughter Bills. The bulk of the government’s legislative programme is now safely through.

As for the reshuffle, the arrival of Gordon Brown as prime minister prompted even bigger changes than usual, even if most of it was musical chairs. If anything it felt more like a post-election government than a mere mid-term ministerial reshuffle, and both the opposition parties seemed to follow suit.
This feeling of a new beginning was given even more impetus by a surprise statement from the prime minister on the next Queen’s Speech, due on 6 November. In a dramatic departure from convention we were given a run-through of the government’s legislative programme for 2007–08 no less than four months in advance. To those of us who work in public affairs, and spend the summer months trying to predict the speech, this was welcome news indeed.

Not that there were many surprises here, apart perhaps from the ditching of super casinos. What we got was a typically broad range of Bills, with the emphasis on health, education and—most of all—affordable housing. Much of the subject matter had already been trailed or was at least widely anticipated.

There are no prizes for guessing that a Counter-terrorism Bill will lie at the heart of the Home Office’s agenda, and that it will be controversial. Despite Gordon Brown’s call for an all-party consensus on measures to deal with terrorism, there are bound to be fireworks when it appears, especially around any renewed attempt to extend pre-charge detention beyond 28 days.

Carry-over measure

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill appears in Brown’s list, but of course this Bill has already been published and will just have had its second reading in the House of Commons as the current session ends. It is included as a “carry-over” measure, a novel procedure which allows certain Bills to extend their Parliamentary passage over two sessions. This is a useful innovation for long Bills, or for Bills which are first introduced in draft, but it is hard to see what the gain is when a Bill is introduced so late.
That being said, the Bill is certainly long—running to 129 clauses and 23 schedules—though it does have a portmanteau feel to it. Some parts are good, including the plan to create a commissioner for offender management and prisons and the removal of the anomaly whereby convictions, but not cautions, become spent after time.

Other elements, however, raise concerns. What justification is there for ending the Court of Appeal’s right to refuse to uphold a conviction based on an abuse of the investigation or prosecution processes? Eyebrows have also been raised at creating a presumption in favour of trial in absence if a defendant fails to attend for trial in the magistrates’ court, as well as at plans to allow designated caseworkers to undertake summary trials or contested bail applications in relation to serious offences.

The Queen’s Speech will also include the much delayed Coroners Bill, as well as Bills to streamline the planning process and to increase sanctions against regulatory non-compliance. But top of the new Ministry of Justice’s remit is likely to be a Constitutional Reform Bill—a Jack Straw passion—which is likely to include a new right for Parliament to approve declarations of war and reform to the role of the attorney general. It will not, however, include changes to the House of Lords.

What is not included is a fresh Bill to remove juries from fraud trials, widely expected after the previous Home Office attempt floundered back in March. But since Gordon Brown has only announced 23 Bills, it may be premature to predict its demise just yet, though many in the legal profession would wish it.

Close to the wire

But this session is not over yet. A handful of Bills are still to have their remaining stages in the October overspill, and this includes the Legal Services Bill, which is awaiting report in the House of Commons.
Compared to the draft Bill of 2006, this is a much improved measure, particularly in the relationship between the Legal Services Board and the front line regulators, which include the Law Society and the Bar. Unfortunately, however, many of the gains made in the House of Lords have been overturned in the Public Bill Committee.

For example, out is the amendment requiring the concurrence of the lord chief justice to appointments to the Legal Services Board—so essential for demonstrating the board’s independence from government. We also saw a reversal of the requirement that proper consideration is given to access to justice in determining licensing applications for alternative business structures, which had broad support among peers.

That being said, the government is likely to announce some compromise amendments at the report stage and there may be further concessions. As we all know, there are usually gains to be had when Bills go close to the wire, as this one undoubtedly will. No, the session isn’t quite over yet, despite signs to the contrary.

John Ludlow is Head of the Parliamentary Unit at the Law Society

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