| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, I intervene briefly to support Amendment No. 1A, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. On balance, the continuity provided by the presence of the Lord Chancellor in this House and in the Cabinet is of value to Parliament and to government. We took this view before, and I stay with it.
I am sad that our late colleague, Lady Strange—Cherry Strange—who died last week, and who once said that she loved "our" Lord Chancellor, is no longer able to join her voice to ours today. We very much miss her, and her flowers.
I hope this amendment is adopted.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I echo the kind words of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson. Lady Strange was indeed a very colourful presence whom we shall all miss very much. She was dedicated to the House of Lords and had a great love for this place and all that it stands for. She entered the House in 1986 and was one of the hereditary Peers to win election to the House in 1999. She will be remembered, as the noble Lord said, for bringing flowers to the House from her home in Perthshire, but of course she will chiefly be remembered for her commitment to the causes that she championed—in particular, foreign affairs and the provision for war widows. She became president of the War Widows' Association in 1990; she was also an author and novelist and continued her passion for writing in her contributions to the inHouse magazine.
I remember Lady Strange well when she attended the Cenotaph ceremony last November on behalf of the war widows—and my goodness, she was an impressive presence. Her presence here will be greatly missed and I pass on my condolences on behalf of the House to all her family and friends.
Lord Borrie: My Lords, I am sufficiently an old-fashioned lawyer to think that at any rate in the foreseeable near future the Lord Chancellor would most desirably be in this House and a lawyer of substantial qualification, as set out in the Bill. But I do not believe that there should be a statutory requirement for either of those things. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, has listed quite a number of provisions in this Bill that suggest that a lawyer would be the best person to
15 Mar 2005 : Column 1229
exercise those powers, which still include important matters of appointment and discipline, and so on—they have not all disappeared into the realm of the Judicial Appointments Commission. As for the more traditional reasons of having someone with a prime responsibility in Cabinet to uphold and promote the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, I see great value in having a lawyer of substantial experience in that job.
I accept a lot of traditional arguments, with regard to the Lord Chancellor being in this House, that it is desirable to have in charge of the Department for Constitutional Affairs someone who is at any rate just slightly removed from the midst of party politics. Of course, as has already been said, the Lord Chancellor in the past has to some extent been involved in party politics in most cases. As he is here, perhaps I should refer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, who I believe was a judge rather than in party politics before he became Lord Chancellor. But Lord Hailsham, for example, was one of the most active politicians, even wishing to attain the leadership of his party at one stage in the 1960s. The situation has varied a great deal.
In recent times, in the main, once the Lord Chancellor has been appointed he has maintained that little bit of distance between himself and the hurly-burly of ordinary politics. In practice, for the reasons to which the noble Lord, Lord Renton, referred, the House of Commons now—compared with when he was first there, 50 years ago—has very few senior lawyers. If you accept, as I do, that it would be best to have a lawyer as Lord Chancellor, it would be difficult to find one in the House of Commons in the present day and age; certainly compared to 50 years ago, and earlier. A Member of Parliament and a senior practitioner are both so busy in their work that it is virtually impossible to combine the two.
So, in practice, I dare say that the Lord Chancellor in the foreseeable future will be from this House or will be created a Peer to sit in this House. That is much more likely than his being a Member of the House of Commons. But I do not see the need for a statutory requirement. Indeed, one can imagine the unlikely event of a senior lawyer being in the House of Commons, such as a former Attorney-General of a certain seniority, who might prefer to remain there and continue to serve his constituents rather than come up here. Well, if he was suitable for being Lord Chancellor, why not let him be appointed?
So let us have flexibility while saying that there should not be a statutory requirement for the Lord Chancellor either to sit in this House or to be a lawyer.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, in his observations, save in his conclusion. I believe that one must deal with the issue of whether the Lord Chancellor should be a lawyer and whether he should be in this House on the basis of generality. It is no good citing the exception, because it is the exception who proves the rule. Lord Jenkins has been cited on a number of occasions, and he is an exception that would have proved the rule. But it is no more legitimate to
15 Mar 2005 : Column 1230
say of the Lord Chancellor that the exceptional non-lawyer might fill the post than it is to say that the exceptional private might make a good general, the exceptional nurse a good surgeon or the exceptional draftsman a good engineer. You have minimal qualifications to ensure that in less than perfect circumstances you are not landed, as you could be in this hugely important office, with someone who is plainly unfit to undertake the task.
It is not good enough for the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, to cite the rather tenuous, quasi-judicial function of John Prescott as warranting the position that we have in this Bill. Other noble Lords have mentioned the vast raft of purely legal functions there are in this Bill. I wonder how many of your Lordships have had the stamina to look at Schedule 6, which relates to the protected functions of the Lord Chancellor. There are more than 300 protected functions—and in the past two years we have given the Lord Chancellor a huge number of protected, purely legal, and often complex functions. There were the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the Courts Act 2003 and the Communications Act 2003, as well as the finance, nationality and enterprise Acts, and so on.
In an age when the legislation that we pass is becoming more voluminous—we are up to 14,000 pages a year—and more complicated, to believe that a lay person could satisfactorily undertake all that and the major functions in the Bill to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, referred, is Cloud-cuckoo-land.
The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, referred to the oath in which the Lord Chancellor says that he will defend the independence of the judiciary. How can a lay person satisfactorily do that without any knowledge of sitting as a judge and without any inside knowledge of the way in which the judiciary is subject to huge pressure, as it is? The exceptional person might be able to do that, but we deal with the generality.
Briefly, I shall address the question of why the Lord Chancellor should be in this House. I rather agreed with the remarks of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford. Last week, like other noble Lords, I went down to the other place on three occasions to see how it dealt with our amendments to the Prevention of Terrorism Bill. I had been down there before, but I am bound to say that I was struck, not to say astonished, by the different tenor and feel of the proceedings there. In saying that I do not wish to disparage what Members do in that House; they are men and women elected and in the very heart of partisan politics. But it is unreal to suggest that it is a place suitable for the sort of considered, deliberate and I would hope objective constitutional considerations that are the principal function of the Lord Chancellor when he or she sits on those Benches.
I was struck by the intimidating atmosphere and noted in the three hours during which I sat there that only one woman MP had the confidence to stand up and speak. I noticed the intense partisanship. We should consider carefully whether it would be right to place a Lord Chancellor in that assembly, especially
15 Mar 2005 : Column 1231
given its increasing anti-lawyer bias, which has been expressed by the present Home Secretary on more than one occasion recently.
I make two short points to close. First, the Lord Chancellor is a twin pillar with the Lord Chief Justice: the two are essential and mutually supportive. I do not believe that you can remove from the Lord Chancellorship his position in this House and attribute of being an experienced judge or senior lawyer without seriously undermining the balance of that relationship.
Finally, this is not our office to give away. The Lord Chancellor is the Lord Chancellor of the people of this country and these islands. It is an ancient office and one of very few offices which resonates with the public at large. It is one of the very, very few offices which still has public respect and trust. I do not see that it is open to us to deal with that office in the way that was originally suggested and is still suggested. I strongly urge noble Lords to support the Motion standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |