Judicial Appointments (Amendment) Order 2023

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Grand Committee

The Government consulted widely on this proposal. We consulted members of the Judicial Diversity Forum, the Judicial Appointments Commission, the three legal professions—barristers, CILEX members and solicitors—and the Legal Services Board. All consultees were in favour of encouraging more CILEX members to join the Bench. The Government are required formally to consult the Judicial Appointments Commission and the Lord Chief Justice, and I am happy to report that both have confirmed that they support the order. With that background, I commend the order to the Committee.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a non-controversial instrument and we, the Opposition, support it. I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the priorities, particularly the priority to encourage diversity. He said that about 50% of newly recruited judges are women, and 14% are from ethnic minorities.

I want to drill down a little on that latter figure. My understanding is that the ethnic minorities are not evenly spread: some ethnic minority groups are far worse represented than others. From my perception as a magistrate, black men are about the worst represented in the magistracy, and I suspect that it may well be the same for the judges. It has to be said that we see a larger proportion of black men in our courts as defendants, so this is a concerning situation. It emphasises the importance of encouraging diversity and actively recruiting among certain ethnic minority groups to try to improve that situation.

The Minister made another point about people from non-graduate backgrounds applying for judicial appointments and said that they can work their way through CILEX to become a judge, as he showed. As he knows, I sit as a magistrate, and I remember that when I was first sitting as a magistrate, we still had a few magistrates’ clerks who were non-graduates. I understand that this is still possible, although it is quite unusual these days. Certainly all the legal advisers I have spoken to think it is something that should be kept as a route for people to work their way up through to becoming a legal adviser and then on to becoming a judge if that were possible. I do not know whether the route up through the magistrates’ clerk’s career, if I can put it like that, is something else that would be covered by this or is already covered within these provisions. I look forward to the Minister’s answer to that point. I think it is a good thing to maintain non-graduate routes potentially to the very top as there are in other professions.

It would be useful if the Minister set out what he sees as the next step for further encouraging diversity and widening opportunity. What more does he hope to do in his current role to promote those desirable objectives?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I understand—and I will correct the position in writing if I am wrong—that CILEX members can already be appointed as legal advisers. Speaking for myself, I would certainly support the idea that we should preserve non-graduate routes from the “lowest” position right through to the highest. I think that is essential so that everyone can work their way up without necessarily having to spend enormous sums of money on obtaining very expensive legal qualifications, in some ways, top-heavy legal qualifications, as is currently sometimes the position. The noble Lord’s point on that is very well taken, and the Government must certainly bear it in mind.

As to judicial diversity in general, the judicial diversity forum works on this. There is a programme known as PAGE which supports potential judicial applicants from underrepresented groups. I understand that, by December last year, 667 lawyers had participated in workshops run through that programme. The MoJ is providing considerable amounts of funding and there is in additional £200,000 for 2023 for the targeted outreach programme—TOP—managed by the Judicial Appointment Commission to support diverse candidates towards more senior roles. By December 2022, 229 candidates had had one-to-one advice from a senior team with expert knowledge of the selection process to improve their chances. Forty people who participated in the PAGE programme have subsequently become judges. It is perfectly true, as the noble Lord said, that in terms of ethnic minorities the position is somewhat unbalanced and there are fewer black participants than the Government would wish, but it is the case that black PAGE participants who have applied to be judges have been appointed at a rate more than double that of the wider pool of black candidates over the past three years, so there is some evidence of success in this programme, which needs to be fully reinforced.

The Government are very conscious of the situation to which the noble Lord refers and will continue to work on improving that matter, as well as on encouraging female candidates from ethnic minorities. That is another very important element of outreach and is emphasised in the TO programme run by the Judicial Appointments Commission. This is ongoing work and I hope the Government will never take their foot off the pedal in this regard. I commend the order to the Committee.