Mr. Tom Flynn:

I think the former Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Clarke, made the point that you do not want to lose the fact that somebody who has no knowledge or previous practice in planning or environmental law might come into a court, take over a list and bring insights from another area, for example, if they practised in asylum or refugee law. It is an interesting question because there is now such a complexity around planning and environmental law that, even for us as practitioners who specialise in this area - it really is a discrete specialism - we find it really difficult to keep up to date with the law. It is a real full-time job. It is difficult for judges. Perhaps there is a balancing exercise to have some people with expertise and specialism in the area but also to give them the resources, whether they be researchers with expertise, knowledge and qualifications in this area to give them the assistance in relation to that. This underscores the complexity of the area and the need to ensure the judges have time to read the papers and take on board the complexity around the arguments being made in relation to it. This is not a criticism of the Judiciary, who work extremely hard, but it is frequently the case that they come into the cases and have not had sufficient opportunity to get a sufficient understanding of the relevant material and the legal arguments. That is not a criticism; they just need more time. That is why additional judges are needed, so they can have two days off to read the case and then one day to hear it. If there is only one judge, they cannot do that.