Facts: Mr Sarfraz was a GP who had been removed from the register by the General Medical Council. The Independent Safeguarding Authority includes him on its children’s and its adults’ barred lists and the Disclosure and Barring Service (which succeeded the ISA) maintained that decision. Mr Sarfraz applied to the Upper Tribunal for permission to appeal the DBS decision. The tribunal refused the application and refused permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal against that decision. The appellant argued that the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 s13 conferred a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal from the Upper Tribunal except in the cases mentioned in section 13(8), which included appeals against decisions of the Upper Tribunal on an application for permission or leave to appeal from the First-tier Tribunal; it followed by necessary implication that appeals against decisions of the Upper Tribunal to refuse permission to appeal to itself from a body other than the First-tier Tribunal could be appealed under section 13.

Judgment: the Court of Appeal (Lord Dyson MR, Kitchin LJ), dismissed the application: whilst there was force in the argument that the exceptions to the right of appeal provided by section 13(1) were set out exhaustively in section 13(8), the principle in Lane v Esdaile1[1891] AC 210. required to be followed: in the absence of express statutory language to the contrary, a provision giving a court the power to grant or refuse permission to appeal should be construed as not extending to an appeal against a refusal of permission to appeal.