Senior Judiciary: Women

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

This is a difficult problem and the more that I have read about it the more difficult I think it is. It was much debated during the passage of the 2013 Act. The Government are doing their best to encourage diversity but the problem probably starts much earlier, in the structure of the relative professions. The number of women applicants for High Court positions is, sadly, still relatively low. That is less the case in the lower judiciary. The position is that there is one woman in the Supreme Court, and 19 out of 108 High Court judges are women, as are seven out of 38 Lords Justices in the Court of Appeal. This is a regrettable state of affairs and, clearly, we hope that things change.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare a paternal interest since my daughter sits as a part-time district judge. Given the high proportion of women among criminal and family law practitioners in particular, will the Government rethink the position that they set out in their response to the Transforming Legal Aid consultation in which, in relation to the need to promote diversity, they said that even if the reform of legal aid were,

“to make the attainment of the objectives more difficult, we consider that the changes are necessary and justified”?

Will the Government accept that they have a responsibility in this area, rather than simply asserting, as they did in the same response, that for underrepresented groups like women and BME aspirants, the primary responsibility is that of the Bar and the solicitors’ profession?

[Lord Faulks]

I agree with the noble Lord that the primary responsibility is for the professions: the Bar Standards Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The question of legal aid, we submit, is not the right instrument in order to encourage diversity. The provision of legal aid depends upon trying to target those most in need of legal aid in accordance with the available budget.