Mr. John McKeon:

We are very keen to protect that. In fact, the draft regulations give the appellant the right to request an oral hearing for the first time and impose an obligation on appeals officers to provide reasons when they do not believe an oral hearing is necessary. At the moment, an appellant does not have a right to request an oral hearing and, if they do, they have no right to be given an understanding as to why one was not held. It is my understanding that, in practice, where a person requests an oral hearing, it is very rare for that not to be granted. The chief appeals officer might confirm that. However, we want to enshrine in the regulations that there is a right to apply for an oral hearing and that, if the appeals officer determines that one should not be granted, the appellant has the right to be told the reason. I confirm and reassure the committee that we have no intention of withdrawing from oral hearings. In fact, we want to strengthen people's rights to such hearings.

Having said that, it is important to recognise something. There are over 30 case studies in the appeals office report. If you read about those appeals decided summarily and those involving oral hearings, the evidence shows that appeals that appeals officers deal with on a summary basis are dealt with just as professionally. In some cases, cases involving an oral hearing ended up in an unfavourable outcome while similar cases appealed on a summary basis resulted in a favourable outcome. That is down to the circumstances of each case. However, I reassure the committee that what we are trying to do with the new regulations is to actually enshrine the right to an oral hearing and to particularly address that issue because we are very aware that these kinds of things are being said. Part of the new regulations is included specifically to address that point.

The Chair also asked whether the committee could have prior sight of the regulations. That is not normally the case, as the Chair will know.