Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick]

My answer to the noble and learned Lord is that if the legal system is able to accommodate this type of problem—that judges regularly take time off to carry out other activities—then, like all other professions, it ought to be able to accommodate a female judge taking time off on a regular basis for domestic reasons. It remains to be seen whether allowing part-time judges to sit will result in more women judges at high levels. These powers are permissive, not obligatory, and no woman or man—although one anticipates that it is likely to be women who are so appointed—will be appointed unless it is practical.

My primary objection to these amendments is based on the factor to which the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, referred—which is the message that is sent out—although I arrive at a different conclusion. I suggest that it would be a very unfortunate message indeed for the law to confer an exemption for the senior judiciary from one of the most important means of enabling talented women to rise to senior positions in all professions. Watering down the part-time provisions in this Bill would wrongly suggest, wrongly, that the senior judiciary is not serious about doing all that it reasonably can to assist talented women to be appointed at senior levels. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Warnock]

My Lords, I had no intention whatever of entering this debate but it seems to me that there is quite a serious analogy here between the teaching profession at the top level and the legal profession. There is no doubt that in a school, particularly a boarding school, part-time members of the staff, although they are respected and have authority, are not regarded as the most senior, reliable and ready to sacrifice their time. They are not, in fact, of the same level of authority as the full-time members of staff. Nothing would be more destructive of the trust which the general public have in the senior judiciary than if the Supreme Court were divided among the “real” members and the “unreal” members—the part-timers who could not take on the really difficult and complicated cases.

I rely on this analogy strongly to support the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, because I believe that, for one thing, it is quite uncertain that this provision would have the apparently desired effect of encouraging more women to come forward; and quite apart from that, it would have the disastrous consequence of dividing the Supreme Court between the top and the lower levels.

[Baroness Neuberger]

My Lords, not being a lawyer, I enter this debate with a certain amount of nervousness. However, I did chair the Advisory Panel on Judicial Diversity, and I support everything that my noble friend Lord Pannick said. I disagree with the amendment for one very important reason. I want to add to what my noble friend said one important fact which comes from the evidence that the panel took from individuals and various bodies when compiling our report.

You could not put a sheet of paper between the six members of the panel, one of whom was a Court of Appeal judge, in our clear belief that flexible working ought to be available to the most senior levels. We did not necessarily use the word “part-time” because we thought that there were other ways of doing it rather than the conventional two days on, three days off. When we spoke to women who were thinking about whether they should apply to the Judicial Appointments Commission to go to the High Court, we were told time and again that unless some form of flexible working was available, they would find it very difficult.