The Secretary of State published ‘Local Government Pension Scheme: Guidance on Preparing and Maintaining an Investment Strategy Statement’ (‘the Guidance’) on 15 September 2016. The Guidance included a provision that those administering the pension scheme should not pursue policies that are contrary to UK foreign policy or UK defence policy.
The appellants are The Palestine Solidarity Campaign Ltd, an organisation campaigning for disinvestment that would be contrary to the Guidance, and Jacqueline Lewis, a member of the local government pension scheme and the first appellant. Their judicial review of the Guidance succeeded at the first instance, on the basis that the Secretary of State, in publishing the challenged part of the Guidance, was acting outside the statutory purposes authorised by the Public Services Pensions Act 2013 and the Local Government Pension Scheme (Management and Investment of Funds) Regulations 2016. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal of the High Court’s judgment, concluding that the Secretary of State was acting within the remit of the statutory purpose.
The appellants also argued that the challenged parts of the Guidance were inconsistent with Directive 2003/41/EC on the activities and supervision of institutions for occupational retirement provision (‘the IORP Directive’). The High Court dismissed this ground and the Court of Appeal agreed with that decision. That issue is not before the Supreme Court.
Judgment appealed
[2018] EWCA Civ 1284

On 7 and 8 October 2020, the Supreme Court heard an appeal in the case of R (Friends of the Earth Ltd and others) v Heathrow Airport Limited [2020] UKSC 53 ("the Heathrow appeal"). Mr Timothy Crosland, an unregistered barrister, represented the charity Plan B Earth in those proceedings, in his capacity as a director of Plan B Earth.
On 9 December 2020, a copy of the Supreme Court’s draft judgment was circulated to the parties’ representatives, to enable them to make suggestions for the correction of any errors, to prepare submissions on consequential matters, and to prepare themselves for the publication of the judgment. It was stated on the draft judgment, and in a covering email, that the draft was strictly confidential. Nonetheless, on 15 December 2020, the day before the judgment was due to be made public, Mr Crosland sent an email to the Press Association containing a statement in which he disclosed the outcome of the appeal. The statement was also published on Plan B Earth’s Twitter account. These disclosures led to the publication of the outcome of the Heathrow appeal in the national media and on Twitter on 15-16 December, prior to the judgment being delivered at 9:45am on 16 December 2020.
Lord Reed, the President of the Supreme Court, referred this matter to the Attorney General on 17 December 2020. On 12 February 2021, the Attorney General applied to the Supreme Court to have Mr Crosland committed for contempt of court.
On 10 May 2021, the Attorney General’s application was heard by three Justices of the Supreme Court, none of whom were involved in the Heathrow appeal. They found that Mr Crosland’s conduct constituted a criminal contempt of court and imposed a fine of £5,000. They also ordered Mr Crosland to pay the Attorney General’s costs in the sum of £15,000.
Mr Crossland now appeals against the finding of contempt, the imposition of the fine, and the award of costs.