Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment, together with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, whom we are very glad to see in the Chamber after his most unfortunate accident. I apprehend that one reason he might support it—although, if he is able to, he could contradict me—is simply that it is a good idea that we know what is being decided. It may be that this confirms what many journalists identify as rather egregious cases, or it may be that it provides reassurance; whatever it is, we should know what they are deciding. It is hard to overstate how engaged the public is on this particular issue, and yet they do not know what is being decided in their name on what is probably one of the burning political issues of the moment. I referred in Committee to the report of the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, which has been published. He said: “A further difficulty in this area”— he is talking about the decision-making— “is that many of these decisions are not reported, making accountability difficult, and often these only come to light on appeal to the Upper Tribunal … there may well be low-quality decision-making going on in the initial stages, much of which is never corrected”. So we have to rely on what journalists select, doing their job as journalists. People say that they are unfairly selecting certain cases and that there have been plenty of decisions that are wholly satisfactory, but it would be much better if there was some sunlight on this. I fail to understand the Government’s objection. The only objection that we were given in Committee was, “The previous Government didn’t make a fuss about this, and that suits us”. I am afraid that is simply not good enough, and I therefore support this amendment and invite the House to join me.