Draft Judicial Pensions (Remediable Service etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 General Committees

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Edward. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship.

I thank the Minister for his explanation of these very complex yet wholly necessary regulations. I think his ministerial counterpart in the other place, Lord Bellamy, said it best when he labelled them

“44 pages of the densest technical complexity one could imagine.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 June 2023; Vol. 830, c. GC375.]

These measures seek to provide a remedy in response to the McCloud judgment in 2018. In that ruling, the Court of Appeal found that the Government’s 2015 reforms to judicial pensions constituted unlawful direct age discrimination and indirect race and sex discrimination. Although it is worrying that the 2015 reforms overlooked those issues, I welcome the Government’s acceptance of the ruling.

The Opposition will not oppose the draft regulations, as we need this remedy to be put in place as quickly as possible, but I hope the Minister will address a couple of points. First, I note that when the regulations were debated in the other place back in June, the Minister in the Lords was unable to conclusively answer if they were the final regulations needed to implement the McCloud remedy. Six months on, can the Minister provide that clarification? Can he also shed light on the proposed timetable for implementing the remedy? Many judges and their families will eagerly await the chance to make their decision on it, so it is important that the scheme is launched without any further delay.

Finally, while judges are perhaps better placed than most to understand their choices under the options exercise, will extra independent advice be needed? As the Government stated previously, this is a rather unique situation, and it is important that each person affected makes the right choice for them and their family. Is the Minister confident that existing advice services such as the Money and Pensions Service will be able to offer the necessary guidance? Will the Government make any further efforts to ensure that informed decisions are made?

As I said, we welcome the regulations and their intended aim of providing a remedy for those who have faced discrimination. We want the situation to be resolved in a fair way as soon as possible, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to the points we have raised.