Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Lloyd of Berwick Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

115: Clause 18, page 16, leave out lines 24 to 27

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Amendments 115 and 116 are both concerned with the constitution of the Supreme Court. Amendment 120 is concerned with diversity, and applies not only to the Supreme Court but to the Court of Appeal and the High Court. These amendments were all grouped together, but it might be convenient for the Committee to hear the argument first on Amendments 115 and 116, and to hear the Minister’s reply on that before I develop the argument on Amendment 120. They are closely connected, and so that might be convenient, as it would enable me to rest my voice and the Minister a chance to get in—I was going to say, before it is too late.

At Second Reading I expressed some surprise, even incredulity, that we should be seeking to introduce part-time judges into the Supreme Court. So far as I know, there are no part-time judges in the Supreme Court of the United States, or in the International Court at The Hague, or indeed at any other supreme court anywhere else in the world. The Explanatory Notes give no reasons for this sudden change in the constitution of the Supreme Court so soon after its creation. However, the reason appears to be that the Government want to encourage more women and ethnic minority judges to apply for membership of the Supreme Court. Thus, if the Government’s view is accepted, one could have 11 full-time white judges—including, by convention, always two from Scotland and one from Ireland—plus one part-time woman judge and another part-time black judge, making 13 judges in all, but only 12 full-time equivalents. That seems to be the idea.

What, then, is the difficulty? Everybody agrees on two things. First, that in choosing judges at any level, one must always choose the best available candidate. This principle is now enshrined in Section 63(2) of the 2005 Act, which says that selection must be solely on merit. I said that everybody agrees about that, but that is not quite true, because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, does not agree. He believes that merit is only a threshold, and is supported in that view by Professor Cheryl Thomas. However, their view was, I think I can say, decisively rejected by the Constitution Committee, so I will say no more about it.

The second thing on which we are all agreed is that we need greater diversity among the judges, and particularly at the top. The difficulty is how to achieve that second objective without infringing the first. This problem has been around for a long time—almost for as long as I can remember. If there had been a quick solution, successive Lord Chancellors would, I am quite sure, have found it by now. However, sadly, there is no quick or easy solution.

The Government think that they may now have found a way forward. They argue that we should be able to appoint part-time judges in the Supreme Court in order to enable women with family commitments to apply for that appointment. I say at once that that is a very strong argument—indeed a decisive one—at the circuit judge level and below, where applications are likely to come from much younger women. However, I cannot see what relevance it could have to the Supreme Court, where the only family commitments that any applicant is likely to have will be those of a grandparent. I cannot for the life of me see how the argument could apply in the place of male judges from ethnic minorities.

The truth is that if we enact Clause 18 and Schedule 12, it will not make the slightest difference to the number of women or black judges applying to become Supreme Court judges. In practice, therefore, if this part of the Bill is enacted, it will do nothing at all to increase diversity at that level, which is the whole object. I suggest that since that is the only reason given for taking this novel course, we should think no more about it.

It may be said at this stage that this is a depressing outlook, which was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, during my speech at Second Reading, and I was very glad that he made that intervention. However, I have to tell him and the Committee that it is not all gloom. If one takes the figures given on page 25 of the Constitution Committee report, in 1998 only 10% of all judges were women. By 2005 the figure was 17%, and now it is 22%—more than double. Of the 2,500 appointments made by the Judicial Appointments Commission since 2005, 35% have been women. One finds the same picture in the 2010 report from the advisory panel.

In 1998, there were no women sitting as Law Lords, only one woman in the Court of Appeal, and only nine in the High Court. By the end of 2011, there was one woman sitting in the Supreme Court; there were five women in the Court of Appeal, in contrast to one; and 18 in the High Court, in contrast to nine. There are at least 78, and probably many more, on the circuit Bench.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

Given that the noble and learned Lord kindly mentioned my intervention, he will agree that it specifically related to another aspect of inequality of access, whereby 75% of judges—and the percentage is higher, the higher up you go—as compared with 7% of the population, were educated at public schools. Although his point about women is a good one, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, said that my point on public schools was a bad one on the grounds that there is no way in which you can manipulate appointment on merit to deal with something that happened 50 years ago, such as where you went to school. I simply ask the noble and learned Lord, if I concede that you cannot do anything in terms of social engineering at this level, whether he will agree that the judiciary should take on board that it is highly damaging if nothing is seen to be done at the junior barrister level regarding access to chambers. Mummy and daddy can afford to take you through that period, but working-class people cannot have that access. Will the noble and learned Lord take that point in any way at all, because he did not do so at Second Reading?

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for intervening again. I had interpreted his question at Second Reading as referring to diversity as a whole, and not limited to the number of judges who had been to public school. The Government’s case is based on the need to appoint more women judges, rather than more men, from people who have not been to public school. I am afraid that I do not have the comparative figures from 1998 and today on those who have been to public school, but I could perhaps find them and let the noble Lord know in due course.

The lesson that I draw from the figures that I have given is surely clear enough. If you want more diversity at the top, in the sense that Government and all of us want diversity, you must start at the bottom and work up, as we have already done and as the figures show. Women with family commitments are already being appointed in large numbers as part-time judges to the circuit Bench and below. In due course, the best of those women—and I can tell the Committee that from my experience the best are very good indeed—will, like the best men, reach the top via the High Court and the Court of Appeal. Yes, we all accept that it is a slow process, but there is no short cut to the top—a short cut implied in the proposal to allow women to sit part time in the Supreme Court—nor should there be such a short cut without infringing the overriding principle that the appointments must be solely on merit.

I have one last point. Introducing part-time judges into the Supreme Court would, on any view, be a major change. The court has been in existence only since 2010. It is surely too soon to effect such an important change without much more thought and further consultation. This is a point that I suspect will be developed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. The answers given to question 13 in the recent consultative exercise would have been all but useless in relation to the Supreme Court, even if the basis on which that question was asked had been comprehensible, which it was not—to me at any rate. In contrast, the composition of the Supreme Court was given much thought by the Select Committee in 2004. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, was a member of that committee as Lord Chancellor and he played a full part. He will remember that there was much discussion about whether the Supreme Court should consist of 15 judges, as some thought, or nine, as others thought, so that it could sit en banc. However, it was never once suggested by the noble and learned Lord or anyone else that we ought to have part-time judges in the Supreme Court. Yet the diversity problem at that time was even greater than it is today.

[Baroness Jay of Paddington]

My Lords, I simply wish to ask the noble and learned Lord whether or not the strictures that he has applied to appointments to the Supreme Court would apply also to the High Court and the Court of Appeal, because—I speak in my capacity as chairman of the Constitution Committee, which the noble and learned Lord kindly cited—we recommended that the Senior Courts Act 1981 should be amended to allow flexible working to be included at a senior level, but not at the Supreme Court.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Indeed. I have to answer the noble Baroness by saying that I am certainly not at the moment persuaded that part-time judges should be appointed to the Court of Appeal. I simply do not see how it would work. I take the same view about High Court judges. The way to the High Court Bench for the sort of women whom the noble Baroness has in mind is via the circuit Bench. There is a clear way through for them. Indeed, one noble Baroness who is here today has taken exactly that course.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

Perhaps I may follow up on that. I am not clear why the noble and learned Lord thinks that it is okay for there to be part-time circuit judges but not part-time High Court judges. I say that because I appointed High Court and circuit judges who had young children. I am completely unclear as to why the noble and learned Lord draws a distinction.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

The noble and learned Lord, as Lord Chancellor, never appointed a part-time judge to the High Court. He quite rightly appointed plenty of part-time judges to the circuit Bench, and that was correct because they are obviously likely to be younger. We have to encourage young women with family commitments to come forward at that stage. The noble Lord will be the first to accept that not many such women apply to become members of the Supreme Court.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

The noble and learned Lord will confirm that I was not legally entitled to appoint them to the High Court. That is the point of the amendment.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I confirm that the noble and learned Lord was not entitled to appoint to the High Court, but there was no need for him to do so because he could, and did, appoint to the circuit Bench, from which High Court judges would emerge. He knows that very well.

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[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I will not intervene on his intervention, but the noble Lord is wrong.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I beg to move.

[Lord Carswell]

My Lords, I support the amendment—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall)]

My Lords, I believe that the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, has been moved, and the name of the noble Lord is not, I think, on that amendment. However, the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell, is on it.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My amendment has been moved by me and supported by two other noble Lords who would like to speak to it.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I think that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd is correct that because the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell is on the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell, should come next.

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[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Could I ask the noble Baroness a question? Much of what she said dealt with flexibility. I think that everybody in the House is in favour of maximum flexibility, both at the High Court level and above where it is possible. The real question is whether flexibility demands part-time judges. The view of some of us is that it does not.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

If I may respond to the noble and learned Lord, it seems to me that it has to be one of the possibilities in the whole panoply open to those making appointments. I do not imagine that it would happen very often but it might be that someone exceptional could be appointed who would say, “I will sit during these parts of the year and will be available to you then”. I do not believe that that would bring about resentment from other colleagues once they saw the quality of the work done by people of real ability.

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[Lord McNally]

Hansard will note that, with the full understanding of the Committee.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, I will be brief because I do not intend to divide the Committee. I am grateful to the Minister for his reply.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jay, was quite right to refer to the Lord Chief Justice’s evidence to her Constitution Committee. However, the point he was surely making was that there is already a great deal of flexibility in the High Court. That point was also made by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, during my speech. Indeed, it was made very recently by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. For example, if a judge is unable to go on circuit for family reasons or any other reason, he or she will of course stay in London and other arrangements will be made. That is already happening in the High Court. I say “he or she” because flexibility applies to both sexes; it applies to men as it applies to women. The thought seems to have been that somehow flexibility will help only women. That is not the case; it helps men also.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, also made a strong point on the importance of flexibility—as did the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger. The truth is that we are all in favour of greater flexibility, just as we are all in favour of greater diversity. However, greater flexibility does not require the appointment of part-time judges. That is what this debate is not about. It is about whether part-time judges should be appointed not in order to give greater flexibility but to solve the never-ending problem of diversity—how to get more women into the higher courts. When the Minister said in his reply that flexibility and diversity for men and women were all one thing, he missed the whole point of this part of the Bill, which is intended to increase the number of women in the higher courts. All that I can say is that it will do no such thing.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I greatly appreciate the noble and learned Lord giving way. I again ask him to clarify whether he accepts that diversity encompasses more than just gender. It encompasses several strands, including disability, sexual orientation, ethnic minorities and so on. The Bill nowhere states that it is intended only to increase the number of women. It speaks in terms of diversity.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I could not agree more; of course we are not talking about women but about, above all in this context, black and ethnic minority judges, as I made clear when moving the amendment. As the noble Baroness made clear, we are also talking about other forms of minority, including people with disabilities, for example. However, the whole thrust of this part of the Bill is intended, as one can see from the history, to get more women, as well as ethnic minority judges, into the High Court.

I will not say any more about those who have supported the amendment, except to emphasise the extremely effective point that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Carswell, made regarding the collegiality of the Supreme Court. I certainly had a sense of that when I was in the Supreme Court, and I also felt it throughout my time in the Court of Appeal, although one obviously does not have that sense as a High Court judge. We were all members of one court. I do not think anyone can tell what the effect of the appointment of part-time judges will be on that essential concept of collegiality in both those courts.

I should mention the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. He was unable to imagine a woman who would be willing to accept part-time appointment to the House of Lords but not full-time appointment. The question comes back to this: if that is the case, the purpose of this part of the Bill is not to cure the problem of diversity. Instead, the purpose is to send out what the noble and learned Lord called a signal; a gesture. I am opposed to gesture legislation, which is what this amounts to. It will not make any difference in practice. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Earl Attlee]

If the noble and learned Lord wants to speak to another amendment in this group, I would advise him not to withdraw his amendment. Otherwise the Lord Speaker will inevitably have to go on to further amendments in accordance with the Marshalled List.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I am very grateful to the noble Earl. I will defer begging leave to withdraw the amendment until I have moved the other amendment.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord can speak to his other amendment if he wants. He cannot move it, but he can speak to it now.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, the second amendment in my name and the names of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Carswell and Lord Woolf, is concerned only with diversity. It affects the judiciary at all levels. The amendment would leave out line 27 of Clause 18 and Part 2 of Schedule 12.

The Government accept that judicial appointments must be solely on merit. However, the Government argue that there might be cases where two candidates were of exactly equal merit, like two candidates getting the same marks in an examination, in which case the woman or the black man should be preferred. At least, that is the idea. “Solely on merit” is thus to be given a special meaning.

How is it going to work? Let us suppose there is a vacancy in the Supreme Court. The candidates will almost certainly come from the Court of Appeal. Let us suppose that there are two candidates from the Court of Appeal. Their abilities will be well known to the selection commission. The Bill provides that the selection commission shall consist of an odd number of members, not less than five. Is it conceivable, I ask, that all five members would find the two potential candidates of exactly equal merit? The answer is no. I suppose it is just possible that two members of the selection commission might favour one candidate, and two might favour the other, and the fifth member of the commission might be unable to make up his mind one way or the other, but this seems so unlikely in practice that it should not be the subject of legislation.

I am not alone in taking the view that I do. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger—who is still in her place, I hope—the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, and the Lord Chief Justice, all doubted whether candidates for the Supreme Court would ever be exactly equal. So did Christopher Stevens, the chairman of the Judicial Appointments Commission.

The idea that the Equality Act might be used where there are two candidates of exactly equal merit comes from a recommendation of the advisory panel in its 2010 report. As the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, will recall, it was recommendation 21. In a progress report of May 2011, the Judicial Appointments Commission said that it had always been able to distinguish between the relevant merits of different candidates, and that it did not anticipate that the Equality Act would ever be relevant in practice. Therefore I suggest that the idea should have been dropped then and there; it was nothing but an idea.

The members of the Judicial Appointments Commission operate in the real world. Part 2 of Schedule 12, which is based on the idea that one can have exactly equal candidates for these posts, is a good example of the sort of make-believe world in which Governments so often seem to exist.

That leaves only one argument. It is said that even though Part 2 of Schedule 12 would be useless in practice, it would send out a strong signal that diversity is of importance. This was the view of the Constitution Committee, stated in paragraph 101. It was also touched on by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, at Second Reading.

I do not believe that legislation should be used for the purpose of sending out signals. Moreover, in this context the signal is surely rather demeaning. We would be saying to highly intelligent women lawyers, “You may not have been the best but be of good cheer, you were first equal”. If I were the first black judge to be appointed to the Supreme Court, I would want to know whether or not I had been the best candidate, as I would under the existing law. Under the new law, I would not know. If I was only equal first, surely I would want to know who the other candidate was—and no doubt the other candidate would want to know who I was. Moreover, if I were a black judge, what would happen if the other candidate were a woman? How would the equality principle apply in those circumstances? I have formed the view that the Equality Act is of no assistance in this context. Of course it is of great importance in many other fields, but in appointments to the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal it is of no assistance at all: indeed, it could do nothing but harm in the manner that I suggested. I beg to move.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord made a slight mistake. He did not beg to move; we can just carry on debating the amendments in this group.

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[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, I am in favour of the amendments proposed in paragraph 9 in part 2 of Schedule 12 and am therefore opposed to the amendment that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, advances.

I speak from my experience of being engaged in judicial appointments as Lord Chancellor, which is not the same as that of the noble and learned Lord, that there is always somebody who is the best candidate. My experience of judicial appointments is that you are very often comparing people who came with completely different experiences and particular specialities, who are both aiming to fill the same position. You could have a solicitor who was very experienced in dealing with general litigation, widely admired for his wisdom and sense, and a criminal barrister widely admired for her advocacy skills. The idea that one was better than the other and that one should approach judicial appointments on the basis that one was trying to grade the candidates for an Oxford First as 1, 2, 3 and 4 was not remotely my experience.

I am always suspicious of people who advance arguments along the lines of, “I live in the real world”. The real world involves making comparisons between people where it is essentially not possible, in any meaningful way, to grade them as 1, 2, 3 or 4. You will find that there are people applying for jobs who are of equal merit. That is the position, whether you are dealing with an appointment for one position or with a wider appointment, for example encouraging people to fill 15 posts as circuit judges—

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Would the noble and learned Lord explain why his experience as Lord Chancellor is so very different from the experience of the Judicial Appointments Commission, which has said quite clearly that it has never found people to be of equal merit and does not anticipate that this clause will help in the future?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I do not know who the noble and learned Lord is referring to. If he is referring to Mr Christopher Stephens, I have had no conversations with him. All I can do is set out my own experience in relation to this.

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So I do not accept that there is support there for this view. It is, as I say, much too narrow a view of what we are trying to do and I hope, just as I am often asked to listen to what the House has said on this matter and think again, that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, will listen to the voices around the Committee and think again, because I think that he is on the wrong track on this. I am sure that after careful consideration, when we get back to Report, he will be an enthusiastic supporter of the Government.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Of course, having listened to the noble Lord, I am bound to think again and I shall. At this point all I will do is agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that this question does not arise at the lower levels at all. At the lower levels there will usually be a large number of vacancies and a large number of applications, so there will be no question at all of putting candidates into any sort of order. However, it clearly does arise where one has one or two candidates from the Court of Appeal applying for the Supreme Court, or one or two candidates from the High Court applying for the Court of Appeal. At that level I say that there has never been any difficulty in choosing between them, so once again, this is a provision which will not help in practice.

To those who say the opposite, I shall read how the recommendation of this advisory panel was dealt with—it all comes from that recommendation. When that recommendation was considered, again, in 2011, the answer was as follows:

“The JAC will always select on merit and has to date been able to distinguish between the relevant merits of different candidates based on a careful assessment of an applicant’s entire profile and background”.

Certainly, background is taken into account as the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, would stress.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My understanding is that the Judicial Appointments Commission does not appoint to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. I understand that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, is saying that there is no problem with this provision in relation to the appointments that it does make—so he appears to be disagreeing with Mr Stephens—and in relation to the area where he is disagreeing, that is not a matter for the Judicial Appointments Commission. So I am not quite clear what point he is making.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

The point is whether it arises in practice that it is impossible for whoever is making the appointment to choose between two equal candidates. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, says he often had that difficulty. If that is a real difficulty, it is very surprising that the Judicial Appointments Commission, which has made innumerable appointments, has never found that difficulty in practice, and it says that it does not anticipate, therefore, that the provisions of the Equality Act will ever be relevant in practice, either at its level or at any other level.

[Baroness Prashar]

Let me explain this by giving an analogy. When you make senior appointments, let us say to the High Court, you make a selection. It is like knowing that you want fruit: do you want apples, pears or whatever? That is the point at which you make a judgment. What the noble and learned Lord read from basically explains that you judge the candidate against those criteria. You will take all those considerations into account before making that selection. The distinction is that you will never get two equal candidates. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said, let us say that the noble Baronesses, Lady Jay and Lady Neuberger, applied. It would be a question of equal merit but against the background of what was needed you would go for one particular noble Baroness because she would match the merit criteria. I think that the confusion is that they are not absolutely equal but they are of equal merit.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I regret to say that the difficulty of that is that when one talks about equal merit one is in danger of infringing the very first requirement that all appointments must be made solely on merit and the view that has been expressed over and over again that that is not a threshold. That view was rejected by the Constitution Commission, which said that it is wrong to regard merit as a threshold, which the noble Baroness appears to have done—and perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, too. It is not a threshold. You have to get the best person.

[Baroness Neuberger]

Can I make clear what the advisory panel said on this matter? We were quite clear that the principle of selection on individual merit remains. The point that we were trying to make is that that depends on how you define merit. Your definition of merit may not be identical with mine or with that of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. We have a way of dealing with merit. The Judicial Appointments Commission has merit criteria against which we measure. Those criteria have recently been changed in relation to some of the things that may help in these diversity questions. We said that where people were of equal merit and you could not distinguish to say that one was better than another, you could then use the tipping point. Some people have liked that and some have not. Since we now have the availability of that in legislation, all six of us—without being able to put a sheet of paper between us—agreed that that was the right way to go.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I am still replying to the debate and the debate is still going on but it is quite apparent that I will not persuade the noble Baronesses. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

Do not withdraw it. There is more in the group.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

From you? I am sorry.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I am very grateful to my noble and learned friend for not withdrawing his amendment because it allows me to deal with the final set: Amendments 123A, 124A and 126A. I congratulate the Minister on the complicated group that he put together. None of us objected to it so we all are to blame for this particular procedural mess.

I think that this is the last thing we will deal with tonight. These amendments very respectfully question the wisdom of the Bill in replacing the Lord Chancellor with the Lord Chief Justice in relation to the appointment of a number of specified appointments. As noble Lords will recall, in relation to a number of specified judicial appointments, including circuit judges and recorders, the Judicial Appointments Commission makes recommendations to the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chancellor can ask the Judicial Appointments Commission either to think again or to reject a particular appointment. If the Judicial Appointments Commission then comes back with another appointment, the Lord Chancellor is broadly obliged to accept it. We put together this type of arrangement because those of us involved in the Constitutional Reform Act 2005—I have in mind in particular the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and the noble and learned Lords, Lord Lloyd of Berwick and Lord Woolf—all believed that it was extremely important that the Executive remained involved in the appointment of important and significant judicial appointments.

What is in effect being legislated for now is that the Lord Chancellor—the Executive—should remain involved—put aside the question of the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court, the Lord Chief Justice and heads of division—only in the High Court. I suggest to the Minister that that is a big mistake. The reason that the Lord Chancellor was given the residual power is that he is able, as an external force to the Judicial Appointments Commission and to judges, to say, “Think again”. The areas where the Lord Chancellor could say “think again” in a way that the Lord Chief Justice—the chief judge—might not be as willing to do might be, for example, in relation to diversity issues or to criteria adopted by the Judicial Appointments Commission.

I suspect that the main thinking behind this is that the Lord Chancellor is fed up with looking at lots of names of people to be appointed circuit judges. If that is the reason, it is a discreditable, bad reason for making the Lord Chief Justice, who does not have the resources that the Lord Chancellor has, look at them, and it removes the Lord Chancellor—the Executive—from the important position of appointing judges.

I ask the Minister to think again. This is an important issue. It reduces the stake of the Executive in the appointment of circuit judges, who are the major criminal judges in this country, and recorders, the major stepping stone from being a part-time judge to being a full-time judge. Those are the two most important appointments. To suggest that the Lord Chief Justice makes them adds nothing to the process. The pressures on the office now are huge. In my respectful submission, it is a big mistake to do that.

I have dealt with paragraph 27 about judges. Paragraphs 28 and 40, with which my other two amendments deal, are about replacing the Lord Chief Justice with the Senior President of Tribunals, who is basically a Court of Appeal judge. The Government are replacing the Lord Chancellor with a senior Court of Appeal judge in the context of senior appointments to the Tribunals Service. The Tribunals Service now covers a huge range of administrative matters and its judges are just as important in relation to involving the state as those other judicial appointments. I hope that the Minister thinks about removing the Executive from these roles and placing the burden on people who cannot carry it for administrative reasons. If one is serious about the Executive having an influence on criteria and diversity, this is the way it would be achieved. I invite the Minister to think about that.

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[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I cannot resist the temptation to ask how many people who were on the Midland Circuit in 1970 are now being appointed judges. Their age, if they were on the circuit then, would now be 68.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 115.

Amendment 115 withdrawn.