23
Examination of witnesses
Shameem Ahmad and Stephanie Needleman.
Q54 The Chair: Welcome, everybody. This is a meeting of the House of Lords Constitution Committee. Today, we hear from Stephanie Needleman, the legal director of Justice, and Shameem Ahmad, CEO of the Public Law Project. You are both extremely welcome. Thank you for coming along.
As you know, we are conducting an inquiry into the rule of law, borne out of a sense that there is increasing controversy over its meaning and application. Some of that was in legal circles but there is also some confusion in the public’s mind as to what it really meant. It became a phrase which people bandied around. We are conducting this study to find out what people think and what we think, and you are very much part of that. Thank you for making the time to be here.
I will take the first question and ask both of you to answer. You provided some written evidence, but this is an opportunity to put more flesh on the bones and to give us your priorities to look through. I do not mind who goes first. If you agree with each other, you do not need to both say the same thing as we have an agenda to get through. What do you feel is the importance of the rule of law in people’s everyday lives? Does it have a resonance or meaning? Has it become a clichéd expression?
Shameem Ahmad: Thank you so much to the committee for kindly inviting me to speak today and contribute to your thinking on this vital topic at a critical moment. In terms of how individuals think about the rule of law, my sense is that it is best encapsulated by what the rule of law is not. People can feel a sense of injustice. We saw that, for instance, with Covid fines and the feeling of “one rule for them, one rule for us”. I am conscious that the committee has been given many definitions of the rule of law, but it would be impossible for me to give a full answer without going into that in some detail. Fundamentally, what the rule of law does in everyday lives is provide a foundational cornerstone for a fair and functioning society because, in its broadest terms, the rule of law is the antithesis of the arbitrary use of power.
Then there are components underneath that which get you closer to that ideal or take you further away if they degrade. For instance, you need laws in the first place that regulate society and our relationships. Those allow us to implement democratic decisions. There needs to be transparency, allowing people to see what the laws are but also providing a sense of stability and openness. That is very important from an economic perspective. In a study of 300 business executives, 88% said that stability and the rule of law were at least very important, if not essential, for them to make foreign direct investments.
Another essential component that impacts the day-to-day lives of people is that laws must be enforceable and there must be a meaningful ability for people to enforce those laws. The fact that they are enforceable allows day-to-day agreements between individuals to be sorted out before we resort to a dispute.
If I am allowed a favourite component, my favourite is equality before the law unless there is an objective reason for there not to be that. This brings to life the law for marginalised individuals and makes sure that the law is not only accurate but just.
The other components bring us into the “thick and thin” debate. PLP sits on the “thick” side of that debate in the sense of human rights and international law. I want to explain our perspectives on that. I understand the concerns some people have that human rights are attached to the rule of law to give them some special status. The converse happens as well: people try to degrade the status of human rights. That is understandable when it is a highly politicised space. Given what it does, I can understand why that is the case. I suggest to the committee that it is more fruitful to consider not what people try to do with human rights but what human rights themselves are doing. They regulate one of the most significant power dynamics that exists within our society: that between the state, purporting to act for collective interests, and the individual. That is not just on commonplace issues. Arguably, it is on some things that individuals care about most: their life, their ability to express themselves, their family, et cetera. We have that power dynamic. Going back to my original thesis on what the rule of law is—the antithesis of the arbitrary use of power—we can check off power here.
As to how human rights are enforced, consider for instance qualified rights. The fact that the state must have justification for interfering with our qualified rights is an antidote to the arbitrary use of power. The framework of human rights, whatever each country might decide its human rights are, sits very comfortably under the rule of law from my perspective. When a country then lists what its human rights are, the things that individuals most value, they may contribute to the other components of the rule of law. For instance, discrimination might contribute to equality before the law and anti-discrimination laws. Access to justice will contribute to meaningful enforceability, et cetera. Some—freedom of expression, the ability to protest things that you do not agree with—might contribute to other doctrines, such as democracy. Given the power dynamic that human rights are regulating, they play a significant part in ensuring a fair and functioning society.
Moving on to international law, this has real relevance to the question posed. Having had the privilege of listening to other people’s evidence on this, I concur that an obligation is an obligation, whether in international or domestic law. On this point, I underscore that Britain had a hand in establishing the international rules-based order, so we have a responsibility at this point when it is under threat not merely to not attack it but to promote its importance. The reason for that goes back to the question, in terms of the everyday lives of individuals. Think about some of the most complex issues being handled nowadays, such as climate change or tech: these things are not confined to our borders any more. They operate on an international basis. Ensuring that treaties have that weight behind them and that obligations underneath them must be adhered to by states is really important now. I offer that as how the rule of law interacts with everyday lives.
The Chair: On that point, from time to time people make the argument that parliamentary sovereignty means that, if Parliament has not agreed to certain international arrangements, it should not necessarily be bound by them in terms of rule of law. What do you say to that?
Shameem Ahmad: We operate in a dualist system, so we need to incorporate international treaties into our domestic laws. Parliament is sovereign, but I think the way we enhance its sovereignty in this instance is to increase the scrutiny of treaties—perhaps not every treaty but there are different ways in which that can happen. You can enhance scrutiny in circumstances where, for instance, those treaties might well have an impact on day-to-day lives or are particularly political. Parliament’s thoughts on them could be really valuable.
Stephanie Needleman: I will pick up on the question you just asked and then go back to the importance of the rule of law in everyday life. At Justice, we agree with PLP that the rule of law includes compliance with international law. In terms of the dualist system, when we sign up to treaties, the Government act on behalf of the state and I do not think we should make a distinction. If the rule of law is, at essence, the compliance with rules, it makes no particular difference whether those rules are domestic or international. On the international plane, the rule of law matters for similar reasons as it does on the domestic plane. International rule of law is crucial to the functioning of interactions between states and domestically as well.
That brings me to the importance of the rule of law to people in their everyday life. It is important at a number of levels. At a very basic level, it ensures the functioning of society. To properly function, society needs rules, and it needs individuals and Governments to largely comply with those rules. The rule of law also ensures that individuals are protected from the arbitrary use of state power: you will not be arrested and imprisoned indefinitely without being charged; if you are accused of a crime, you will have a fair trial. It also ensures that individuals and companies are able to settle disputes between each other and enforce their rights. This covers a whole gamut of things such as housing rights, consumer protection and employment rights. The rules in laws governing those areas need to be able to be complied with. You also need access to the courts for them to be upheld. Even if you do not go to court, the ability to do so, the courts being there and accessible, is crucial to ensuring that disputes can be settled earlier in the process between individuals and companies.
Crucially, the rule of law also enables individuals to hold the Government to account by challenging unlawful government decisions. Again, this is important in terms of access to the courts and the ability to go to court to do so. You do not need to go to court to see its impact in ensuring that the Government’s decision-making is compliant with the law because it creates a culture in which the Government know that they will be challenged if they act unlawfully. In the most part, they should act lawfully to avoid that threat of challenge. Again, this covers a whole range of things that impact people’s individual lives, such as the ability to access benefits that they are entitled to under the laws of the country, or people’s privacy in relation to the use of facial recognition technology by the police. It ensures that people are able to get a proper investigation into the deaths of their loved ones, particularly in circumstances where there might have been some state responsibility.
As Shameem mentioned, we saw the importance of the rule of law play out particularly in relation to Covid, for example with the general public’s outrage in relation to “partygate” and having one rule for them and one rule for others. That demonstrates the fact that people may not understand the term “rule of law” but they have a sense of what it means. They can see when it has been obviously breached. There were also things such as challenging “do not resuscitate” policies, imposed in some cases by hospitals on groups of patients who were, for example, elderly or disabled. Equality before the law and that language enables people to challenge those kinds of decisions as well.
The Chair: I am struck that you both raised this issue of one rule for them and one rule for us. Is not the example you used of breaking Covid regulations in No. 10 Downing Street exactly one where no one was above the law and everyone was treated in entirely the same way as anybody else?
Stephanie Needleman: Perhaps I should have been clearer: the outcome of that absolutely shows the strength of the rule of law in the UK. Ultimately, yes, you had a Prime Minister and Chancellor treated in the same way as other people. I was trying to explain that our society’s sense of unjustness and unfairness that parties went on in the first place, as if the rules did not apply to them, demonstrates that the public have a sense of what the rule of law means.
The Chair: How much of that is perception or reality? Is it something that people have been led to believe, even if it is not true, or is it more fundamentally true?
Stephanie Needleman: In whether there is one rule for them? I think it is a matter of degree. Some of it is perception and some is reality. With Covid, another example is that, although the Prime Minister and Chancellor were ultimately fined in the same way that other people were, you also had groups of people who were overrepresented in relation to breaches of Covid regulations and fines. In particular, marginalised communities and black and ethnic-minority communities received a higher proportion of Covid fines than white communities, so we see some inequality before the law playing out within our country.
Lord Beith: Just to clarify that point, those cases that were challenged and went to court were overturned, were they not?
Stephanie Needleman: Some were. Yet because of the nature of the fixed penalty notice, in terms of proportion not that many went to court.
Lord Beith: It depended on the individual being prepared to go to court and challenge it, but they were overturned because it was not the law.
Stephanie Needleman: Absolutely. In some cases, that is right.
Q55 Lord Anderson of Ipswich: I declare an interest as a friend of Justice and a member of the Justice council, and record my appreciation of both organisations for their very useful written evidence. I want to clear up one point; I hope I am not reading too much into it. PLP describes in its submission—you said it again today—the rule of law as the antithesis of the arbitrary use of power, but Stephanie from Justice said a moment ago that it was the antithesis of the arbitrary use of state power. Of course, there are people in society who have power but are not the state. For example, one might have the power to beat somebody up, break a contract or discharge pollutants from your land on to somebody else’s. The laws that constrain those things are the criminal law, the laws of contract and of tort. Does the rule of law have relevance only in relation to the excesses of the state or to the whole range of legal rights and grants?
Stephanie Needleman: I think it has relevance not just in relation to the state. The state is a particular example because of the power it wields and the imbalance in power dynamics that there is between the individual and the state. There is an issue in the need to constrain the arbitrary use of state power, but, as you recognise, there are obviously also laws that constrain the power of individuals and companies, et cetera. The rule of law requires compliance with those, too.
Shameem Ahmad: I agree. As you will see in our submission, we kept the concept of power broad so that it can cover both private and public power. Again, to place this conversation in the here and now, it is arguable that some private entities and individuals have more power than the state. The next iteration of the rule of law, and how we consider reaching that ideal of the antithesis to the arbitrary use of power, may well need development in that sense as well.
Q56 Baroness Laing of Elderslie: It is very interesting to hear your angles on these matters. To follow up on something Stephanie said, in your evidence you mention the lived experiences of individuals within the system. I am interested to explore the enforceability of judgments to bring about a fair resolution for a person who seeks the aid of the legal system. Is there a danger that the system is becoming overloaded because we have too many laws and too many organisations that can require individuals to adhere to rules? Of course, we already know that the courts are taking a long time to reach cases. We have had evidence from the Lady Chief Justice and others on this matter. Can you explore the practical implications of how the rule of law works for an individual in everyday life? For example, should greater use of arbitration and pre-court proceedings be encouraged rather than always trying to turn to the courts and legal aid, et cetera? Are there other ways that the rule of law can help the individual in their everyday life?
Stephanie Needleman: Absolutely. I will make a few general points about the state of access to justice in our country at the moment. We both talked about the importance of access to justice. There is no point in having rules and laws if they are not enforceable. We are concerned that there is an issue with access to justice in the UK today. We have identified it as one of the key threats to the rule of law. As you said, there are huge backlogs in the courts. We often hear about the Crown Court backlogs but it is not just limited to them. There is an increasing magistrates’ backlog. With county courts, particularly in certain areas in London and the south-east, small claims are taking more than a year and multitrack claims more than two years. We have special educational needs hearings listed for over a year. Asylum and immigration appeals are currently at a record high.
This is not just about backlogs but a lack of availability and access to advice and representation. Obviously, this is a particularly acute issue post the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, which reduced the scope and availability of legal aid. It also led to a decline in specialisms in those areas, so that even people who are in theory entitled to legal aid may well not be able to find somebody who can represent them because there is no one in that area with a particular specialism, or the current legal aid providers are at full capacity.
Outside legal aid, you have an advice sector that lacks adequate and sustainable funding in the face of rising demand driven by the cost of living crisis and Covid, in particular. The issue of lack of access to advice, particularly early on, comes back to your point about whether we always need to resort to the courts. Individuals being able to understand their legal rights and position much earlier in the process, through the provision of legal advice and information, would enable people to resolve disputes earlier.
Baroness Laing of Elderslie: If I can stop you there for a second, that is a really salient point. If, for example, an individual attempts to take on a court case in person, they will be sent all sorts of papers. Within those it will say, “You cannot ask the court, or the administration of the court, for advice”. Is there a practical way to tweak the courts system slightly so that an officer of the court can say to an individual, “I cannot judge your case for you but there is no point in you doing this. You might consider doing that instead”? Rather than the person having to find an individual solicitor under legal aid or paying them to give advice, that basic advice could be given within the system.
Stephanie Needleman: There are a number of potential solutions to that. One is unavoidable: you need greater resources to fund legal advice and to do so earlier on, before you get to the door of the court. Secondly, public legal education plays a really important role, with people understanding the legal system, their rights and where they can go to seek help if they think they have a legal problem. Most people do not even know that their problem is a legal one in the first place. I think public legal education could be improved hugely in this country to facilitate that knowledge from a much earlier age.
There is a move towards more proactive dispute resolution outside formal court processes. At Justice, we support that if it is done in a way that recognises that in a lot of disputes there is a power imbalance. For example, in landlord and tenant disputes, the landlord is obviously in a very different position from the tenant. You need to be able to resolve disputes in a way that does not reinforce the power imbalance. It is not true access to justice to accept a settlement just because, for example, it is what happens to be on offer and they do not have the resources or knowledge to carry on the dispute to the next stage.
There is also the possibility that technology might play a big role in changing the way that the justice system operates, from both an efficiency perspective within the courts and tribunals, and in the way we resolve disputes. We will probably need a conversation about what things we are happy for an AI tool to resolve, for example, and what needs to go to the courts and a judge. Those are some initial thoughts on proposed solutions, but I am sure Shameem has something to say as well.
Shameem Ahmad: You framed the original question in terms of the overload on the courts and whether there are too many laws. When Lord Bingham originally wrote his book, he spoke about the overloading of legislation, its complexity and the fact that there is too much. I do not think that has really stopped. The phrase used nowadays is “legislation by press release”. That is understandable: it is a way for a Government to be seen to be doing something without necessarily delivering an outcome. I have some sympathy for that but want to cover a few different points on this.
In the first place, Governments should think about whether legislation is in fact needed. I am sure we will have a further discussion about the quality of legislation, et cetera, so I will not go into too much detail on that now. This should be a genuine question that Governments ask themselves rather than trying to score a political point.
Overloading of the courts could be substantially reduced if resources in the courts, and the justice system more generally, were substantially increased. The Institute for Fiscal Studies released an interesting report under its transforming justice programme, which has just started. It identifies that the Ministry of Justice has received substantially less investment in comparison with some other departments and not nearly enough of that investment goes into legal aid. Of course, the LASPO legislation introduced in 2012, with which some of you may be familiar, massively restricted the availability of legal aid.
The pre-litigation advice that Stephanie spoke about and the types of support that you can get for family disputes, debt and housing are really bread-and-butter things for people. They matter day to day and people need support with them. Going back to the original question about how this relates to everyday lives, I think LASPO massively constricted the availability of justice for so many people on their bread-and-butter issues. Reversing LASPO and its effects would be substantially important.
Then there are increasing fees. We have a significant supply issue in terms of justice in this country. The Law Society has done fantastic research into legal aid deserts up and down the country. To give a couple of examples of the stark picture that it paints, in community care 71% of people do not have access to a local provider. With welfare benefits, it is 85% of people. That is injustice and this concept of enforceability within the rule of law and its definition is one area of substantial weakness for it in the UK.
Finally, there is the complexity of the law. A number of years ago I produced a piece of advice—I obviously cannot talk about it in tremendous depth—but, broadly, it was about an energy supply client wanting to change the terms of their contract. From recollection, as a lawyer, I had to look at European legislation, primary legislation, secondary legislation, guidance, code, example contracts and cases related to relevant provisions in each of those. Then I had to look at analogous regulated systems. Could an ordinary person do that? Actually, ordinary people can be quite extraordinary and perhaps they could do a lot of it, with the right resources. Yet there is an expectation that they should have to do this if they are on the other side of that contract, trying to work out, “Is this right? Does this smell right to me?” The provision of justice and access to lawyers would be enormously helpful in combating that overload.
Q57 Lord Burnett of Maldon: To follow up on the resolution of disputes, it is obvious that for the rule of law to be effective, if there are disputes, there must be an efficient mechanism to resolve them. The underlying thesis of your answers is that this needs more lawyers and money for them—inferentially, more public money for lawyers. Is there a different way of thinking about this? I would like your comments.
Almost all disputes involve factual differences between the people in dispute, whether in tribunals or in the civil and family courts. That is the heart of it: 90% of cases are factual. The law is not the issue at all. As somebody who spent many of my early years in practice running around the county courts of England and Wales, we did not argue the law very much. It was about what had happened in the incident. The law is complex in many areas. You gave a lovely example of energy contracts—something I, too, have had to grapple with in a private capacity. Would you agree that the rapid development of generative AI will enable ordinary people—lay people—very soon to put the basics of their problem into their computer and get a legal answer? In other words, they will get exactly what a solicitor or barrister does when confronted by a client who says, “This is what happened. What remedy can I get?” This is happening around the world already. A vast amount of research and energy is going into it, including by the Courts & Tribunals Service and the judiciary. Do you think it is likely to be a solution?
Stephanie Needleman: I definitely think it is part of the solution and that we cannot ignore it. Even if we do not think it is part of the solution, people are currently going to ChatGPT or other LLM chatbots and putting in their legal queries or problems. They probably do not get very good advice from that a lot of the time. We know that there are issues with the way AI systems currently work, such as hallucinations, et cetera. Having said that, there is definitely a role for technology to play in addressing some of this unmet legal need and it comes from what you talked about: the delivery of legal information and advice direct to individuals, who may have consumers. But that needs to be done in a properly regulated and controlled way where you can verify the accuracy of information and ensure that people are not given the wrong advice or, for example, pursuing cases that maybe they should not because they do not have a strong claim—or any claim. Indeed, they may not pursue cases or do something that they should because they have been given the wrong information.
There is also a big role for technology to play in the more boring administration of justice. Huge efficiencies could be gained from integrating technology, including AI, within the justice system. Again, there are risks in doing that and we must be alert to them. We must ensure that we put in place mechanisms to deal with them, but I absolutely agree that technology is part of the solution, if done properly.
Q58 Lord Griffiths of Burry Port: Thank you for the written stuff that we received. We have tabs on you already. I am interested in people’s everyday lives and the complexity of the law from their point of view. This was hammered home to me recently. I work in Strasbourg with the Council of Europe’s migration committee. We were all discussing the Istanbul convention and I knew we had signed off on that. Only when I got into the detail, with actual cases and people, did I realise that not all of it had been incorporated into British law and that two articles were outstanding, to my astonishment. Then, because a particular law was debated on the Floors of both Houses and put into an Act, one of those articles was sorted. “Extraterritoriality” was now defined in a different way and we could therefore tick off another box. I mention this example only because if people say, “The British Government have signed up to the Istanbul convention”, you would think they were signed up to it all. Yet they are signed up on the bits of it that, particularly currently, operate within the orbit of British incorporated law.
If that is the case for someone like me, who had to discover this solvitur ambulando—as I was going along—what chance does the ordinary person have when living an everyday life and faced with more mundane and ordinary things? How confident will they feel in thinking, “Oh, I should see if I can get a legal view on this or someone to help me see if I have a right for this”? My experience of ordinary conversations in people’s homes and on the street is that the perception is the same as with accountants: that people who are better loaded with money can afford better lawyers and accountants, who can do with the law what suits them, and that they have no chance against that. This business of equality is very important. I wish, for example, that we had not heard cited in our House the price tag that one of our members charged for the advice he gave in a particularly high-ranking case. That does not help anybody to feel that we are all equal before the law; those running the law are not all equal with each other. Are these not fundamental aspects of this too, as we try to find a fair way of dealing with legal questions?
Shameem Ahmad: I agree; I would underscore the point that access to justice and to lawyers is such a fundamental part of the rule of law. The arbitrary use of power can be not just about the state; it can be about the courts and the justice system. That system is a type of power, too. Making sure that there is a true balance and equality of arms in such disputes is really important.
Stephanie Needleman: Briefly, and related to the previous question about technology as well, one of the big risks with technology and the use of generative AI to provide legal advice is that of further embedding the current inequalities in the justice system in who can and cannot have access to the best advice and information. Unless we make a proactive effort to change this, the lawyers who can afford to pay for the most up-to-date and powerful tools that create the best results will still provide advice, on the basis of using those tools and having them in their toolkit, to people who can afford those services. We need to make a conscious effort to ensure that we do not allow AI to further embed existing inequalities.
Q59 Baroness Andrews: To follow up on something that Shameem said, is there a confusion around the boundaries—a Venn diagram, if you imagine it—between the rule of law and social justice as we define it through the delivery of policy which, in legislation, has raised expectations? You quoted an example from adult social care. I think you said that something like 80% had no access to a provider. The rule of law would not provide that. The policy would frame a set of expectations but it would not lay down that there must be 100% coverage. Sometimes we lay down targets but we do not lay them down in the law. Is there a danger that we may conflate the rule of law with the proper delivery of and expectations about policies that need to be resourced and funded?
Shameem Ahmad: Forgive me, but that example was related to LASPO and the provision of legal aid within that context. It was about providers in relation to that.
Baroness Andrews: Thank you.
The Chair: As it happens, we have expanded our first question into a lot of different areas, some of which we will pick up later. That perhaps allows us to avoid some other questions, but let us turn to Lord Murphy.
Q60 Lord Murphy of Torfaen: My question is about the strength of the rule of law in the United Kingdom and how you can assess that, bearing in mind that the United Kingdom now is very different from 26 years ago. There are now three devolved Administrations, all of whom have primary law-making powers, while in two of those areas the judiciary and legal system are quite different from the English system. Bearing that in mind and looking at possible short-term threats to the rule of law, how strong is it in the new United Kingdom?
Stephanie Needleman: First, the rule of law in the UK is strong. We are consistently ranked highly in international rankings of countries in relation to the rule of law. For example, on the World Justice Project index, we are 15th out of 142 countries and we score highly across all its measures. Further evidence of the strength of the rule of law in the UK is that international confidence in the UK’s justice system means that it is the go-to place for the resolution of legal disputes across the globe. Having said that, there are always some issues and things that we can do better. We have already discussed one in some depth: the issues around access to justice, so perhaps I can take that as already explained.
The other thing I want to touch on is inequality before the law. Obviously, equality before the law is an essential part of the rule of law, but, in some aspects, we see in this country an unequal application of the law. One prime example is in relation to racial discrimination within the criminal justice system. If you are a black man, you are disproportionately likely to be stopped and searched by the police, have force used against you and potentially die following the use of that force, or otherwise be sentenced to a custodial rather than community sentence.
Various reports have highlighted this issue in policing, such as the Macpherson report and, more recently, the 2023 Casey review into the Met police. That highlighted overpolicing and the disproportionate use of force against black communities. I will give some statistics to illustrate the issue. You are four times more likely to be stopped and searched if you are black than if you are white. On the use of police force, in the year ending March 2023 individuals perceived as black had force used against them by the police at a rate three times higher than for those perceived as white and were six times more likely to die than white people following the use of police force. In relation to sentencing, even after adjusting for individual and case characteristics, recent research shows that defendants from ethnic-minority groups are much more likely to receive a custodial sentence than white defendants. For some ethnicities, the rate is astonishingly high: 41% higher for Chinese defendants and 10% to 20% higher for Asian, black and mixed-race defendants.
There are issues in relation to the equal application of the law in this country. We have already discussed access to justice based on financial means. That is another place in which inequality before the law shows up, but I will leave it there.
Shameem Ahmad: I would add, in relation to the strength of the rule of law in the UK, that it is actually in pretty good nick. There are some really great stories that we should be incredibly proud of, such as the fact that the courts dealt with the Prorogation case and the Rwanda policy in such a heightened political context. I do not think anyone will forget the headline on that newspaper any time soon. But also, with all the lawyers working on those cases—on both sides, and all the interveners—when I reflect over that period, I feel incredibly proud of my profession. If I also think about the riots last year, order was brought about by the law and the Executive supported that. It is not a perfect analogy, but we do not have the equivalent of the 6 January issue here: our Executive supported the legal system in that context. Although there is more to be said about the riots, certainly, the way that that was brought about was, as far as I am aware, a good news story for the rule of law. The final point I underscore is the one that Stephanie made in relation to Covid fines, so I will not go into that extensively. I am happy to speak to improvements that I think can also be made, if there is time.
Q61 Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: I want to pick up on what both of you said, because in your written evidence—this is Public Law Project—you say that you are worried about the increased references to lefty lawyers. My worry is not about lefty lawyers; it is about right-wing lawyers and judges. Most of the judges, the vast majority, are men who went to private schools and Oxbridge. There ought to be much more diversity. Do you agree with that?
Stephanie Needleman: Yes, absolutely. This is an issue that Justice has long worked on. Judicial diversity is really important to the rule of law for two reasons: both in relation to the legitimacy of the judiciary in the eyes of the public and the trust of court users, and in the quality of our judiciary. It cannot be that all the best people to be judges are white, privately educated men, so the ongoing lack of judicial diversity represents a challenge to the quality of the judiciary. Just to highlight some of the ongoing issues with judicial diversity, 1% of judges are black and that figure has been the same since 2014, so for over 10 years now. Ethnic-minority candidates are not getting appointed at the same rates as white candidates. It is the same for those from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Even though there has been some progress in relation to gender, that progress is slow and we still do not have parity, particularly in relation to the higher courts.
The Chair: Just going into that 1% figure for judges, you said that it has been static from 2014. How would you increase it?
Stephanie Needleman: Yes, since 2014. We have a number of recommendations in that regard. Primarily, there needs to be a closer look at the appointments process. We have an overrepresentation of ethnic-minority candidates applying for judicial roles but they are not being appointed at the same rate as white candidates, so clearly something is going wrong or there are some issues within that process. I think a closer look at why that is happening is a good place to start. More broadly, we would like to see the introduction of diversity targets with teeth. These would be publicly stated targets—not quotas but targets—with monitoring and reporting on progress to the Justice Committee.
We also think that there should be the creation of a permanent senior selection committee, dedicated to senior appointments, as well as the creation of appointable pools of individuals, so that you would have a pool of people who were all deemed to be up to the standard required for a particular judicial role and appointable to a particular court. Then, when there were vacancies, candidates would be selected from that pool and priority could be given to candidates from underrepresented groups within the judiciary.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Are you particularly worried that there is a party now emerging, Reform UK, that thinks work on diversity is a waste of time and money?
Shameem Ahmad: There is a really lovely principle in our jurisprudence that justice must not only be done but be seen to be done. That gets to the heart of the importance of trust within this system. So much of our legal system requires people to trust it. Law is not really a thing; it is only a thing because we make it so, so I think that these concepts matter. That is what I would say in response.
Q62 Lord Beith: You touched earlier on the issue of law going beyond its ability to achieve anything. Do you think there is a serious public argument that we can have to make Governments realise that there is not a legislative solution to every problem, and that adding to this corpus of legislation will certainly not achieve the outcomes that they desire? Does that, at the same time, weaken respect for the rule of law because it creates expectations that, in passing a new law, the Government will have achieved some outcome?
Shameem Ahmad: In short, I agree with you. I am a lawyer, so I am going to think that the law is wonderful and want to give it a particular status. But on the idea that the law is what will deliver everything, it is actually the application of that law that delivers things and we have enough on our statute books to be getting on with. That is not to say that Governments should restrain themselves from using legislation; you would not want to see that either.
Lord Beith: Why not?
Shameem Ahmad: Well, restrained to the point of stopping is what I mean. But, yes, pausing and thinking about whether a Bill is in fact needed in this circumstance would certainly be welcome.
Stephanie Needleman: I agree and just want to highlight a couple of examples where it is clearly the case. The Crime and Policing Bill that is currently going through Parliament introduces a new offence of assault of a retail worker, which is completely unnecessary. Assault is obviously already an offence and it being against a retail worker is already an aggravating factor.
Another area in which there is clearly a legislative reaction to particular incidents is in relation to behavioural control orders. Those are civil orders that impose conditions on people subject to them, with the intention of preventing various forms of harm. It seems that, every time a particular harm arises, the reaction is to impose one of these orders. For example, there are the new respect orders—the new version of the ASBO—and youth diversion orders in the Crime and Policing Bill, which are layered on top of multiple types of other orders. These all overlap with each other and with the criminal law as well. This is not just about them not being necessary. As highlighted earlier, it also creates a really confusing and complex system, where people do not know whether their behaviour will bring them within being subject to one of those orders. They also do not necessarily know, because of the broad range of conditions that can be imposed, whether they will be breaching one of these orders either. I just wanted to highlight that as an example of that issue.
The Chair: Lord Beith, did you have a supplementary?
Lord Beith: Yes. If I might turn quickly to delegated legislation, which I think others will also ask about, are we as parliamentarians a bit too precious? Some of us are concerned that delegated legislation is used for a wide range of matters with inadequate parliamentary procedures and, in many cases, is not debated at all. In the world that you inhabit, where you see the impact of these things in the real world, does that make much difference? Or is there a potential strain of popular opinion that would rather enjoy what President Trump does, which is to hold up a series of the things he has decreed, set out in executive orders? He thinks he has the power to give them but that is not necessarily true in all cases. Governments wishing to be seen to do something, having tried primary legislation, might also see delegated legislation as an avenue for being seen to be strong and acting.
Shameem Ahmad: First, on the skeleton Bills, of which an increasing amount are going through in order to give delegated powers, the issue is that we are not having the kind of political debate that we would hope to have in Parliament, drawing on all the expertise and range of views—not just the Executive’s but the majority of views in the country. Parliament is where everyone is represented, so it is really important that those political arguments are had in Parliament in the first place. In relation to having excessive amounts of delegated powers, the Trump example is a perfect one. It creates real instability. We saw with the previous Government the succession of Ministers going in and out of departments. There was that constant turnaround, with the consequence that each Minister could change the rules. That is problematic for the stability that the rule of law would ideally provide to society.
Q63 Baroness Hamwee: Going back to your point about civil orders, Stephanie, do you want to say anything about how they can tip into the criminal jurisdiction? People can actually be convicted quite easily of crimes that started off as a breach of a civil order.
Stephanie Needleman: Absolutely, and thank you for flagging that. These orders are civil but the breach of them is a criminal offence and can lead to quite serious punishment, with imprisonment for considerable lengths of time. Let me just provide a few examples of community protection notices.
Baroness Hamwee: I think that the Chair would be grateful if you kept it to one or two.
Stephanie Needleman: Okay, so we have seen community protection notices imposed on victims of domestic abuse for crying too loudly, on a family whose autistic child was accused of closing the door too loudly, and on a woman for wearing a bikini in her garden. As a result, because a breach of these orders is a criminal offence, if those people then do any of those things they are committing a criminal offence.
The Chair: Lord Bellamy is joining us remotely.
Q64 Lord Bellamy: Can I ask two more or less unrelated questions? First, there is an obvious ongoing concern about powers to use delegated legislation. With the possible exception of some Covid legislation, which was a special case, can you give us particular examples of delegated legislation that have actually caused enormous concern, from a rule of law perspective, because they were delegated legislation? This debate often seems to carry on in the abstract rather than in terms of specific examples, so that is the first question.
Then, reverting to our earlier discussion, in recent exchanges we were perhaps, to some extent, patting ourselves on the back about how splendid the rule of law is in this country and so forth. I wonder if you would agree with some remarks made the other day by Sir Ernest Ryder, who was the Senior President of Tribunals, to the effect that—to use his words—“the public are estranged” from the legal system and from the rule of law. What he meant was that the public do not understand it or particularly respect it and find it very frustrating. At the grass-roots level, is the rule of law really working very well in this country?
The Chair: Did you manage to hear all of that?
Shameem Ahmad: I think so. Unfortunately, the particular example in relation to delegated legislation that comes to mind is a live case, so I cannot speak to it. If I may take that question away and write to the committee, I can confer with people and provide other examples. That is probably the best way to give Lord Bellamy a good answer to that question.
In relation to the public feeling estranged from the legal system, Public Law Project works on behalf of those most marginalised in society. What we tend to experience, as we work with clients, is that it is an incredibly empowering process to go through and hold Governments to account. I do not disagree that, for all the reasons that we have mentioned in relation to so many people not having enough access to justice, it is probably perpetuating the feeling of estrangement. If you cannot access a lawyer to help you navigate this system, how are you going to feel connected to it?
That being said, particularly around issues such as Grenfell and those that gain a lot of public attention, the response from the state and from systems that can be created within that context, whether as inquiries or cases, et cetera, means that people do have some thoughts in mind about some kind of connection with the law; but, if I may, there are some significant issues in terms of the rule of law. While I spoke to the fact that there are some good stories, at some point, if possible, I would like to address what I think the current threats to the system are. I am happy to do so now or later.
Stephanie Needleman: I can answer Lord Bellamy’s questions, if that is helpful. There are two issues in relation to delegated legislation. The first is about endowing the Executive with considerable law-making powers that extend beyond mere gap filling. That in itself is an issue for the rule of law, but the second is the way in which secondary legislation is done in this country. It is not subject to the same scrutiny, with no ability to amend statutory instruments, et cetera, as primary legislation.
On the latter point, there are a lot of examples but I will just pinpoint a couple. In relation to perhaps having a higher level of scrutiny, I am not saying that the power itself was an issue, but the lack of scrutiny might have resulted in a different use of that power. The first is the UNISON case, which was in relation to employment tribunal fees that were imposed under secondary legislation. Again, I am not saying that the ability to impose fees is an inappropriate use of secondary legislation, but the lack of scrutiny perhaps contributed to the level at which those fees were set being extraordinarily high and presenting a real access to justice issue for people. That was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court.
There are also a number of examples in the benefits context where more scrutiny would perhaps have resulted in a different use of those powers. One which comes to mind is a case called Johnson, in which regulations fixing assessment periods for the calculation of universal credit income resulted in wild fluctuations for some people’s universal credit payments. That obviously caused huge issues for them and cash losses, and eventually the regulations were declared irrational. Again, had those been subject to proper scrutiny, people may have come up with a different method for calculating those assessment periods.
On the second question about the public being estranged from the rule of law, as I touched on earlier, I think that people sort of know the rule of law a bit when they see it. This comes backs to the Covid example of people understanding the unfairness of “one rule for them and one rule for us”. But, as I mentioned, there is a lot more that we can do to enhance public understanding. It is important to do so from the perspective of both compliance with the law—because if people do not trust the legal system or think it is biased they may not follow it—and accountability. If they think that the justice system is not for them, then rights will not be protected. There is, as well, an access to justice perspective, with individuals knowing where to go if they have a legal problem. As I touched on earlier, much more in relation to public legal education can be done in this country to deal with those issues.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Q65 Baroness Andrews: Thank you so much for your evidence, especially your written evidence. I thought it was remarkably good. This question is more about you as organisations. I know that you are from two different types of civil society organisations, but, to frame my question, it is really to ask you to assess your locus—your strengths and weaknesses—in relation to the task that you set yourselves, as you described it. Where do you think you have the greatest influence? For example, is it either on government or in terms of your influence on civil society, which the Civicus monitor has said is being obstructed in the UK?
Where are the frustrations and what is the limit to your influence? If you have to prioritise the many tasks that you do, where do you think you ought to put the effort? Shameem, you described the work you do as being in a highly politicised space. The realpolitik is actually that the laws are made and will be administered by and large irrespective of what you say. How do you navigate that highly politicised space? Is it, for example, a question of filling the gap now left by legal aid or is your main task to be advocates or irritants, and how good are you being at that?
Shameem Ahmad: Fantastic, I think! Let me take each department in turn. That is probably the easiest way to answer the question. We have a research team that works with our public affairs function to ensure that on laws relating to our priorities, for instance on immigration and the rule of law, et cetera, we are influencing at the policy-making stage with civil servants, and at the Bill-making stage with parliamentarians. We have a research function specifically so that when we give advice in those contexts, it is strong advice. It is not based on, “We think this”, or, “We fancy that this is the right idea”. We have looked at the evidence and really worked through it. The team guards its independence highly in that sense.
We also have a casework team and, historically, have had some extraordinary successes. Our casework team is not a front-line organisation in the sense that we are a law centre, but we were historically known as the law centres’ law centre. What gets kicked up to us are strategic cases by those on the front line, for instance, or by working with our research team. They might look into a specific area and go, “Actually, it feels like something unlawful is happening here—let’s keep unpicking it”. We are working with partners in this space as well. I think things are going pretty well there and that the theory of change between where the two are—as in, would you put your money on influencing or on the backstop?—is a constant tension that we are navigating. We are a relatively small organisation in comparison to government—certainly the Home Office, for instance, or the DWP. But I feel very strongly that the courts are a backstop and that, if resources allow, we should absolutely be making our case from a policy-making perspective. That is the right thing to do and I just wish that the Government would reach out more in those highly politicised spaces, not just to our organisation but to others. Something that Wendy Williams flagged in relation to the Home Office is that not nearly enough consultation is done in these highly politicised spaces. You can see that from the Rwanda policy; there was no public consultation and that is not abnormal in that context.
We also have a communications function. It is a very small team but punches far above its weight. What we seek to do there is to talk about the things that we are talking about today and bring them alive. I think the magic of PLP is that we work on what can be quite dusty principles that sit on a shelf somewhere, but we connect them with the experiences of those most marginalised in society to strengthen society as a whole. What we are trying to get at with our communications is to bring that connection between those three things.
Then we have an events and training team. Again, it is an extraordinary team that punches far above its weight. Even before I was its CEO, going to the Public Law Project’s annual conference was significant and important to me. What has been particularly important during my tenure is to really widen the tents of the audience whom we have in those forums. It is about making sure that we have, yes, academics and lawyers, but also radical activists and politicians in this space.
At our annual conference last year, there was a wonderful exchange right at the end with a lawyer talking on a panel about the Windrush review and the problems in the Home Office, from that person’s perspective. A member of the audience put their hand up and said, “Just to say that I am a civil servant and there are others in this room, and we are not all that terrible”. This is not Chatham House; it was said at an annual conference, and the panellist responded exactly in the spirit of what we believe those forums are for. She said, “You and I are going to have a drink later, but I disagree with you and let me tell you why”. In a world that is more and more polarised, creating spaces for those different views to connect—for people to disagree well and to learn in that space—is really important and something that we take very seriously as an organisation.
The one area where I would like to see improvement is in being able to influence policy more from the outset on behalf of marginalised individuals.
Baroness Andrews: What would that take and what would have to change for you to be able to do that? You have described some of the added value that you are bringing, but my supplementary question—just to Shameem—would be: how much of this could be done by government? Are you doing the Government’s work for them or is the crucial added value that you have to be independent? If you were to ramp up your influence, what would have changed?
Shameem Ahmad: I do not think, for instance, that the Rwanda policy would have been brought in the way that it was. Consultation is king in this space. I am someone who has worked in the commercial context as well, and there is the contrast between that context and how not just government bodies but public bodies are willing to engage with commercial interests, compared with how reluctant they seem to be to engage with marginalised communities who do not necessarily have either the political or economic clout that other people do. That is problematic. I would like government to do more to reach towards us and, in truth, this Government have been making steps in that regard.
I think we would always maintain our independence. That is really important to us as an organisation; regardless of what colour the Government are, we need to be able to speak truth in that context and add that value. But we are also talking in the context of a Civil Service that has degraded in the amount of people who have left it over time, and how much it has shrunk. Being able to offer evidence and perspectives—perhaps the committee could have a think about this—is a step change that we are seeing and would like to see more of.
The Chair: Has the Civil Service shrunk?
Shameem Ahmad: Forgive me: this is an impression that I have, but I would need to check the statistics on that.
Baroness Andrews: I am afraid that it has grown but maybe it has grown in different ways. Post Brexit, it has now expanded again.
Shameem Ahmad: I think the different ways are the point I am getting at.
Stephanie Needleman: I would just add that consultation is really important. It ensures better quality and legitimacy of policy and legislation, and it is within the gift of the Government to consult properly and to listen. I am not saying that they have to follow everything, but there is no point in consulting if you are not going to listen to the responses. A prime example of this was the consultation on the Bill of Rights Bill, where on some questions 90% of respondents disagreed with the proposals, yet the Bill was introduced shortly afterwards in pretty much exactly the form that it was intended to have in the first place. Eventually it was withdrawn, but that is a prime example of the need to listen to responses to consultations.
I am conscious that neither of our organisations provides front-line legal advice, given that PLP does cases but not in the way that law centres or advice centres do. They are filling a huge gap and have a huge role in relation to enabling access to justice, empowering citizens and others to hold the Government accountable, and to enforce their rights against private individuals and companies as well. I am conscious that they are not represented here and wanted to flag that.
The Chair: Thank you.
Q66 Lord Waldegrave of North Hill: This is a difficult area to focus on, but Lord Anderson introduced it and Lord Foulkes was on the same point. We know that revolutionaries such as Dick the Butcher—Jack Cade’s mate—say, “First, we’ll kill all the lawyers”. Then we have our wonderful revolution where there would be no money and no problems, and we will all go about in carriages. Lawyers are always in the front line a bit, but how come all across the world, from Hungary to Sweden, France, Germany and the United States, and here, we see the rise of parties that are, in some sense, trading on the idea that the law is not the friend of the ordinary person any more? There is a huge and perfectly correct attention, which you are leading exponents of—as this committee should be—on limiting the arbitrary power of government.
But there is also the matter of enforcement of the law, as people see it, where they live in a society where they think that they do not see the law enforced—not by government, but by people sweeping stuff off the shelves of supermarkets or, where I come from, by terrifying gangs of illegal hare coursers who come out at night, and, always, the police are not there when they are needed; or perhaps they see people jumping the queue for proper routes of immigration. People think that what they see is the law not being enforced. That is not against government but against people who just see the law as bluff. This is surely one of the things that these so-called populist parties trade on. What is your response to that and how should we think out a proper response to it?
Shameem Ahmad: The term “lefty lawyer” really jars with me, as someone who has worked in the City for the predominant part of my legal career. No one called me a “righty lawyer”—well, not up until today. It is really corrosive language that has been used at the top of government in the UK.
Lord Waldegrave of North Hill: This is not just the UK. This is right around the world.
Shameem Ahmad: Of course. I am better able to speak from the perspective of the UK, but the point about its impact can be taken more broadly. I need a client to be able to trust the advice that I give, regardless of whether I agree with their political position. I need them to know that I am not being overly optimistic or pessimistic, in the same way that you need your doctor to give you neutral advice. It really undercuts lawyers to have this concept of politicisation.
I also cite the fact that, in the Solicitors Regulation Authority code of conduct, the first principle is that lawyers must uphold the rule of law. They must act independently, with impartiality and integrity. This language, whether it is of righty lawyer or lefty lawyer, is problematic when you start politicising a tool that ought to support the courts and their clients, and navigating a way to the correct legal answer.
The other implication of this is less about the rule of law, potentially. In the riots last year, I remember having to look at screenshots of email chains from rioters targeting law firms. That will put off lawyers from entering this space. Anecdotally, I recently spoke to a senior lawyer and asked them, “Would you consider going into the judiciary?”, and they said, “No, the way that the judiciary is treated nowadays, I don’t think I would”. Lady Chief Justice Carr has spoken to the fact that judges are concerned about their safety.
There is a real corrosiveness. We are not in a Jarndyce v Jarndyce world any more. I think that restoring not just money but esteem to the legal system is really important, and the first thing that can be done well on all sides is to lose better.
Lord Burnett of Maldon: I am intrigued to follow up your observation about restoring the esteem of lawyers, the legal system and the judiciary. How do you think that can be achieved and to what extent, if at all, does it require a change in the discourse from the political world?
Shameem Ahmad: There is a great Lord Devlin quote in an article that I think was called “Judges and Lawmakers”. Forgive me; I will paraphrase him, but he talked about the impartiality and independence of the judiciary being such a national asset that Government after Government try to plunder it. For starters, I think that the Government could try to refrain from doing so. They could promote the importance of the fact that we are so lucky, as a country, to have a judicial system that is quite so impartial. First, there is that practical point on rhetoric.
When this new Government came in, we really welcomed the fact that the Attorney-General spoke to numerous audiences, and the phrase that he used was that the rule of law is back and would be promoted—not just refraining from harming it, but going out and trying to promote that concept. I remember him speaking at our annual conference and encouraging us to stop talking to our own symposiums but going out instead and talking to people about it, like normal people would. The recent exchange at PMQs, between the leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister, in respect of a particular case relating to immigration was problematic. That is when Lady Chief Justice Carr spoke out. It was right that she did so but a shame that she had to, and we underscore the points that she made. Those would be some significant moves in the direction that I would like to see.
Lord Burnett of Maldon: I will just follow up and then I would be fascinated to hear what Stephanie has to say. I do not want to focus on the example you have given, but do you think that some of this discourse—inadvertently, no doubt—is positively undermining the rule of law?
Shameem Ahmad: Yes. In short, I think it is.
Stephanie Needleman: I agree with everything that Shameem said. It is largely a question of culture. We need to have a culture within Government and Parliament of not attacking the judiciary, not making disparaging comments about lawyers and not conflating lawyers with their clients. That is in large part a cultural issue. You can have all the best rules and regulations, or codes of conduct, et cetera, that you want, but without a will to observe those and act in a particular way, they are not worth the paper they are written on. Cultural change is really hard to effect but I do think that it is a cultural issue.
There is absolutely a huge impact on the rule of law. If people think that the judiciary is biased and represents only a certain perspective or group of people within the country, why would they follow a particular court order? The rule of law breaks down if there is no trust and confidence in the judiciary and legal system. I would extend that to policing as well, so it absolutely has a practical effect on the rule of law. It has a practical effect on people’s lives as well. Shameem mentioned the riots and the attack on Duncan Lewis’s offices. There are practical implications of this rhetoric.
Q67 Baroness Hamwee: We heard what you said about the usefulness of AI, the risks of baking in discrimination and so on but, if I could, this is specifically about transparency. PLP mentioned its “Tracking Automated Government” register. Would you like to expand on whether there is adequate transparency and whether the Government’s algorithmic transparency recording standard is adequate? Is there really a human in the loop in taking decisions and, in particular, do people who are in some way subject to automated decision-making know about it?
Shameem Ahmad: First off, thank you so much for that question. This is the thing that I really wanted to highlight to the committee as one of the most significant rule of law lacunas in this modern age. The Government’s use of automated decision-making has nowhere near the level of transparency that it ought to, and we are really concerned about that. The rhetoric at the tail-end of the previous Government, which has been picked up by this Government, is positive and this Government have started to deliver more transparency, but we know that there are specific tools and so on that are not on there. PLP’s own register, by comparison, remains the most extensive list that we have in the UK.
The concern we have is that we do not know which authorities are using this—which departments or public bodies up and down the country are using it. We do not know for what types of decisions they are using it or what criteria they are applying, which is hugely problematic, and we do not know what impact they have personally assessed it will have on individuals, such as in equality impact assessments.
We held a round table as an organisation, with other expert organisations that are looking into this space. The difficulty is that despite all the expertise and resource that we have as organisations to mount cases in this space and to start testing the common law—to see whether, for instance, Tameside and other common–law principles still hold in the context of AI and ADMs—we cannot do that. It is so difficult to establish where these tools are and how they impact people, so we cannot test the lawfulness of them.
Going back to the points made earlier, as an organisation we do not like to go straight for litigation, but we cannot even work with public bodies from the outset to see if the criteria are in fact the right and fair criteria to have in the first place. The lack of transparency is problematic. The trajectory of the current Government is good, but we would like to see it speeded up. We need to fill in this gap pretty rapidly. Although this comes across as mildly alarmist, potentially, there are examples of it going horribly wrong in other countries. There was, for instance, the Robodebt scandal in Australia, where in the welfare context bad decisions were made by this automated decision-making technology. Once they realised that, fixing it became a huge problem for the public purse and public trust. It also caused real devastation to those individuals who were on benefits or welfare. A similar issue in the Netherlands brought down the Government there.
We should not have to wait for a crisis here to respond to it. We have already had the Post Office scandal. Although that was not to do with automated decision-making, we know the veneer of objectivity that technology can have and really ought to learn from that pretty sharply.
Stephanie Needleman: Can I add one other thing into the mix? I absolutely agree that we need to know when these tools are used to be able to understand their lawfulness. One other issue to do with transparency, in relation to AI tools in particular, is the involvement of private companies. Usually, these tools will be created and owned by private companies, which adds a whole other layer in terms of understanding what data has gone into their training, how they are making their decisions, et cetera. More needs to be done to ensure that the Government, buying in these tools, can understand exactly what is going on and that they are accurate, and can hold the private companies to account as well.
Baroness Hamwee: Yes, and there is always the issue of commercial confidentiality. I recognise that what I am going to ask is a leading question, but should the Government be more forthcoming and volunteer how they use AI? I have come across a number of instances where questions asked under the Freedom of Information Act have elicited the narrowest of answers.
Shameem Ahmad: Yes, we have had similar issues, with heavily redacted papers being sent back to us. That slide on presentations always gets a laugh, but it is actually really concerning and chilling. The short answer is yes. The Government have an equivalent register and they need to start populating it, with good-quality information. They also need to consistently inform individuals, because individuals are not going to look at these registers. They are something that lawyers and organisations such as ours will look at, but an individual who has had a decision made in respect of them, using this technology, ought to know that that is the case.
The Chair: Thank you very much indeed for coming in today. That is the end of our evidence-taking session. We will look carefully at the written evidence that you have already provided, but also at today’s evidence, in order to come to the conclusions that I hope we will come to later on this year.
