Leave to Appeal to the House of Lords (Hansard, 25 June 1999)

§ The Lord Chancellor

In order to answer this Question, the different stages involved in the determination of a petition for leave to appeal must first be identified. They are:

1. Presentation—when the petitioner first presents his petition for leave to appeal to the House;
2. Sending up—when the petitioner has lodged all the necessary supplementary papers and the petition is sent to an Appeal Committee;
3. Initial determination—when the Appeal Committee may refuse leave, or, if provisionally minded to give leave, invite respondents' objections; and
4. Final determination—when leave is finally given or refused. This may be at the same time as the initial determination, or may follow respondents' objections or a hearing.

The most significant statistic in relation to assessing the effectiveness of the procedure is the length of time 113WA between stages 2 and 3. Since the beginning of 1997, the Appeal Committee has set a target of eight sitting weeks for this stage.

The statistics below include Recesses and these necessarily distort the statistics. The statistics are further distorted by cases where a petition for leave is presented but where the supplementary papers are not lodged by the petitioner for some time. The statistics cover all petitions for leave to appeal lodged in each of the years 1996, 1997 and 1998.

1. Average (mean) number of weeks from presentation to final determination:

1998: 9.92
1997: 16.74
1996: 17.53

2. Average number of weeks from presentation to initial determination:

1998: 8.62
1997: 15.06
1996: 15.53

3. Average number of weeks from a petition being sent to an Appeal Committee to the committee's initial report:

1998: 3.40
1997: 3.77
1996: 3.49

The following information is also helpful in analysing the statistics:

Number of petitions
Year	Presented	Determined
1998	264	262
1997	252	228
1996	216	190