Supreme Court: President

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I thank the noble Lord for his initial remarks about co-operation, which will again help with the sense of urgency. On the question of judicial diversity, one of the most encouraging things in recent days is the way in which members of the senior judiciary have been going public on the need for urgency on the matter. It is a fact that four members of our 161 judges in the High Court are of black, Asian and minority background. In England and Wales, four out of 42 members of the Court of Appeal are women and we have one woman on our Supreme Court.

[Lord Tebbit]

Will my noble friend consider that what we need on the judges’ Bench are the best judges? They should be selected solely and absolutely on merit and there should be no more talk of integration and diversity among judges than among Olympic athletes.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I could not agree more with my noble friend. The difficulty is that sometimes the idea of choice on merit slips into “chaps like us”, and that is what must be avoided.