Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

Yes, my Lords, it is part of the general process of reform at both the tribunal level and in other parts of the judiciary. So there will be employment judges from now on.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

Perhaps I may help my noble friend by illustrating the kind of particular business there could be. In the old days it was not so much a tap on the shoulder as a ring-round by the Lord Chancellor’s Department to find someone who could go and do particular cases on very short notice. I recall being asked to go to Leeds with the inducement that I could stay in the judges’ lodgings—not much of an inducement, I may say—to try three large medical negligence cases. They said, “Don’t worry, they’ll all settle”. In fact, they all stood up. That is the sort of instance when counsel on both sides are all ready to go ahead on a fixed date but there is no High Court judge to take it. Everybody assumes that the cases will settle but they do not.

[Lord McNally]

Not for the first time when I find myself out on the thin ice, my noble friend supplies a plank for me to walk back to dry land. I thank him for that intervention.