Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I tread on very thin ice, but I think that I can assure the noble and learned Baroness that that is the case. If not, I shall make sure as soon as possible that the Committee knows that I am wrong.

[Baroness Hamwee]

I want to ask my noble friend a question about Amendment 140. He described the circumstances and need for flexibility in the ability to appoint temporary High Court deputy judges. I would like to ask about the business for which they would be needed, in proposed new Section 94AA(2)(a), which refers to both an “urgent need” and the “disposal of particular business”. He mentioned the need for special expertise, but has he any further examples of what the “particular business” might be? I take it that we are not being asked to agree to temporary appointments to deal with urgent business per se. It is the term “particular business” that interests me. I could have pictured this clause better if it did not refer to “particular business” but to “business” in general. I am sorry that I did not give the Minister notice of the question. He may wish to come back to it at a later point.

[Lord McNally]

I, too, am rather sad that my noble friend did not give me notice of the question. I am pleased that we are bringing in a role for the Judicial Appointments Commission in the appointment of deputy High Court judges. To put it bluntly, there was a suspicion in some areas that the appointment of deputy High Court judges was the last surviving remnant of the “tap on the shoulder” system of appointments. Therefore the proposals to bring the appointments commission into the process are important.

However—I say this in the presence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, with all his vast experience—we were determined not to put the Lord Chief Justice of the day into a straitjacket. He has to be responsible on a day-to-day basis for deploying the judiciary and, if there is a need to appoint a deputy in an emergency, we should have the ability to do so. Hence, in introducing the provision, there are many references to exceptional circumstances and a definite period so that this emergency procedure would not lead, again, to a way of appointing deputy High Court judges by a tap on the shoulder. It leaves the Lord Chief Justice of the day with the wriggle room to deploy efficiently but makes sure that the main appointment of deputies now comes within the ambit of the Judicial Appointments Commission.

As for specific examples, the best I can do is to write to my noble friend giving her some examples, which I hope will reassure her. I shall, of course, put a copy of the letter in the Library of the House for the benefit of the Committee.