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Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : Is the Minister aware that I have never heard so much flannel in my life? The Government are capable of trotting out a load of baloney, day in and day out. There are 4 million people on the dole according to the real figures, when the kids on slave labour schemes are added. There is a £14 billion balance of payments deficit. Manufacturing industry is going down the pan. He comes here talking about setting up advice shops. I have some advice for the Government--"Shut up your shop and let somebody else take it over."
Mr. Heseltine : I just have this to say to the hon. Gentleman : if he has never heard so much flannel, it would be simple for him to go to the Library of the House and get recordings of his endless, repetitive and tedious interventions day after day after day.
Mr. Richard Tracey (Surbiton) : Unlike the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), many hon. Members will thank my right hon. Friend for what he has announced. Nine years ago, in my area of Kingston upon Thames, I was involved in setting up exactly the sort of thing that he is talking about ; it was called the Kingston small business advice service. It has prospered and grown and has worked with the local authority and with our TEC, AZTEC, which covers Kingston, Merton and Wandsworth. Recently, it has done excellent work at the British Aerospace works in Richmond road, Kingston, which closed down. May I recommend it to him as one of
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the pilots? May I suggest that he involves the academic and university world too? We involved the former Kingston polytechnic, now Kingston university, and the regional management centre. We found that they have a great deal to offer.Mr. Heseltine : I am very much aware of my hon. Friend's long- standing interest in the whole subject. It sounds as though we may have a competitive bid, based on considerable experience, from Kingston. I heard what my hon. Friend said about the involvement of the academic world. It is up to local initiative to determine the extent to which it draws together the academic opportunities and advice that are available. That is very much up to those who are formulating competitive bids.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : Had they been in existence, what assistance would one-stop shops have been to the three directors of Matrix Churchill who faced a prison sentence? Would the management of one-stop shops have been knowledgeable enough about the facts that were known to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, in his department, to the right hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave) in the Foreign Office and to the Minister of State who is sitting beside him, the right hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury)?
What advice will one-stop shops dealing with some of the firms that export the most sensitive armaments and armament-making machinery give to anybody exporting arms, for example, to Iran? Will they be briefed in such a way that never again can there be a repetition of the disgraceful episode involving many civil servants and ministers who had read the papers and who knew that those three directors of Matrix Churchill were not themselves responsible for that for which they faced trial?
Mr. Heseltine : I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has had to say. I will make it my personal responsibility to see that Lord Justice Scott is fully apprised of the interest which the hon. Gentleman expressed in linking the initiative of one-stop shops with the Matrix Churchill affair. If the whole concept is as improbable to Lord Justice Scott as it is to me, I will give the hon. Gentleman a further assurance : I will refer the whole matter to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence to see whether he can find some equally improbable link with the sinking of the Belgrano.
Mr. James Hill (Southampton, Test) : My right hon. Friend will be aware of the importance of my constituency, Southampton, in the export trade. For a long time, the local chamber of commerce, which is very active, has been co-operating not only with the local council but with the local newspaper and various people in the area who deal with the accountancy work of export. No doubt, a proposition for funding will be put forward from my area. I hope that the golden opportunity to make an application will be taken up because the geographical position of Southampton would no doubt entitle it to be one of the 15 pilots.
Mr. Heseltine : I know that my hon. Friend will use his considerable endeavours to persuade his local industrial and commercial community to respond to the initiative. I hope that he will make the point that it will not be the
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regional location of Southampton which will play a role in the judgment that we reach but the quality of the bid that is put forward. I look forward to seeing a bid.Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : I have looked forward to the statement of the President of the Board of Trade, and I support the proposition that he has put before the House. In a small way it is an important initiative. Cumbria TEC will bid for a one-stop shop. We intend to win and we will make it successful in exactly the same way as we made the enterprise zone successful in the early 1980s. All we have to do is win the competition.
Mr. Heseltine : I thank the hon. Gentleman for a wholly constructive view. I make no secret of the fact that it was precisely because he approached the issue of an enterprise zone in Cumbria in that manner, and with enthusiastic endorsement, in the early 1980s that he helped persuade me that there should be an enterprise zone in that part of the world. I believe that it has been a great success. Without wishing to be partisan, I would only say that if his hon. Friends were to adopt as constructive a view to the policies on offer, they might find that their areas gained a great deal more than they do as a result of the somewhat daunting interventions of his hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (Colchester, North) : I welcome the statement of my right hon. Friend, particularly on behalf of the businesses and people of my constituency. Does he recall that there was recently a successful DTI one-day export initiative, arranged in conjunction with the local chamber of commerce, to which DTI officials had to come from outside the county, thereby demonstrating the need for our own one-stop shop? Will my right hon. Friend enlarge on the criteria which will be used to assess quality so that we may submit a bid for a pilot scheme?
Mr. Heseltine : I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. He raises an important point which is of concern to us in government--that, so often with these initiatives, civil servants from regional offices or from central Government have to go to local areas to promote activities which it would be far more desirable to see initiated, promoted and managed by local people.
As to the precise ideas that are involved, they are obviously substantial. Large numbers of organisations provide many and varied services. It is precisely because I want all hon. Members to understand the nature of the opportunity that I have taken the liberty of sending them directly their own personal copy of the prospectus that I have announced today.
Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : Will the Secretary of State accept that the initiative will not stop the haemorrhage of jobs and that small firms in the main depend on large firms which under the Government are going bust in considerable numbers? Will he accept that the Labour Government, which experienced unemployment of one third the current level of nearly 4 million, established one-stop shops for small businesses--the small firms information centres, which had a common logo and identity throughout the country?
That Government also established small firms counselling schemes, which used experienced business men and women to advise businesses on how to develop. In his scheme, surely there should be some regard to unemployment and to the areas which need most
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assistance. Is it true that he could award three or four contracts to the same area, which would be absurd when another area in much greater need failed the competition?May I ask the Secretary of State about self-sufficiency? Under the Labour Government, the first counselling session was free, and there was free access to the service of the Small Firms Advisory Bureau. Will that be the case under his scheme, or will the charges which produce self-sufficiency mean that small businesses will be unable to afford to use them?
Mr. Heseltine : I am interested to hear the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) say that the things that I have announced this afternoon were already in practice under the last Labour Government. I find that mildly surprising, as the last Labour party manifesto included a commitment to do many of the things that I have announced this afternoon, making it quite apparent to me that they did not exist on the scale and with the degree of coherence that I have announced. They were never one- stop shops on the basis that I have announced this afternoon.
The loss of jobs, the recession that we face and the consequences for large and small companies are not things that have flowed from the policies of this Government ; they are a consequence of the most severe and prolonged world recession that we have seen, one which is affecting the capitalist world across the globe. It serves no purpose, in trying to understand how we cope with the problems, to try to pretend that somehow or other the solution of these problems is in the hands of any one government.
I will not be persuaded to try to adopt a process of allocating these schemes as a result of the competition in a way that reflects what is called broadly fairness across the country, because the consequences of doing so is to decide the winners, not on the basis of the quality of the scheme but on other factors. When the hon. Gentleman says, "But shouldn't it be done on the basis of need?", I very much agree with the thinking behind that, but one may well address the need more urgently and realistically by waiting a little and allowing the quality that can be achieved to be demonstrated elsewhere before one addresses the need in the areas where it is greatest. That is why I am preoccupied with ensuring that it is the quality of the scheme that is the determining factor and not other issues of the sort that the hon. Gentleman has drawn to our attention.
Mr. Heseltine : As to cost, we have found that, where charges are made for services, they have not been a deterrent for companies taking them up. Companies are used to buying a service that is of quality, and the test is often not whether it is free, but whether it is good. If it is good, companies will pay for it. As for helping companies, as hon. Members know, we have a consultancy scheme which has been a significant success and to which companies contribute. I am looking at whether we can continue with that scheme and, if so, on what terms. The fact is, however, that payment has not been a deterrent to the success of the scheme but its desirable quality which has made the scheme a success.
Mr. Richard Spring (Bury St. Edmunds) : May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his most welcome announcement today? The Suffolk TEC will be submitting
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a bid on behalf of the community of Bury St. Edmunds. The local business community is very much behind the scheme and very supportive. Will my right hon. Friend, however, give an assurance that, in the provision of the database, there will be adequate information, particularly on the availability of British goods and services?Mr. Heseltine : My hon. Friend is reflecting the clear indication which has developed in the course of questions on my statement that we will have a significant number of bids, and I am delighted to hear that the Suffolk TEC is helping to co-ordinate that from Bury St. Edmunds.
An attempt now to demarcate British goods is out of keeping with the fact that as from 1 January 1993 we are moving to a single market. It is very important, as I am sure both my hon. Friend and the whole House will agree, that we persuade British industry very rapidly to adjust its thinking to that of a manufacturer or a provider of service in the whole of the single market and not just in the British sector of it.
Mr. Peter Hain (Neath) : I welcome the President's statement, but I ask him to refer to the Secretary of State for Wales consideration of the Neath Development Partnership as a pilot project in Wales. May I also remind the President that over 19,000 small businesses are small post offices ? Why, in addition to making his statement on one-stop shops, did he not have the courage to come to the House and say that he supported the colossal loss of jobs in the Post Office, which will directly limit the ability of local post offices and the small businesses running them to do their jobs properly ? Is this not a precursor of privatisation ? Why has he flouted the authority of the House by allowing this announcement to be made before he has completed the review that he announced in July ?
Mr. Heseltine : I have long admired the work that has been done in Wales in providing a more co-ordinated approach to many of the policies discussed this afternoon. It is because my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales have, within their overall responsibilities, a much more flexible way of handling many of these policies that they have not felt it necessary to move in the way that I have with my announcement this afternoon. That is not to say that they are not interested in what has happened. They have looked very carefully at the proposals, and I have no doubt that if they see advantage in them they will themselves seek to adapt them to the interests of their territorial responsibilities. I have, I think, dealt with the issue of the Post Office. The Post Office has not announced that a significant number of people will be made redundant : it has announced its employment profile over the next five years and has clearly indicated that it does not expect to see compulsory redundancies ; it simply expects that, of those who naturally leave the Post Office, some 7,000 a year, not all will be replaced. The reason is that the Post Office is seeking to maintain its reputation for excellence and is mechanising its services, as it is now able to do, in order to improve and maintain them. This means that, on average, over the five years 3,000 jobs will not be replaced. That is very different from suggesting that the Post Office has announced 15,000 redundancies--
Mr. Heseltine : Nineteen thousand.
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Mr. Gary Streeter (Plymouth, Sutton) : I thank my right hon. Friend for his excellent statement, which will be widely welcomed by the business community in Plymouth. I would like to encourage him not to listen too carefully to some of the moaning minnies on the Opposition Benches who rejoice in bad news and cannot stomach good news. Can he confirm that the coming of the single market on 1 January 1993, to which he has already referred, will be a significant boost to our own businesses to enable them to compete with our rivals, both in Europe and elsewhere in the world?
Mr. Heseltine : I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I know very well the area that he represents today. I believe that what we have announced is designed to improve the quality of service to British companies, companies operating in this country. The services that they now receive are often good, but one of the issues that emerged from the research that I did on taking this job was that only 40 per cent. of companies took advantage of the services provided by the chambers of commerce, the Confederation of British Industry and the Department of Trade and Industry. That means that some 60 per cent., albeit many of them smaller companies, do not take advantage of them, either because they do not know of the services or because they do not believe them to be any good.
There is therefore a considerable responsibility on all of us who are responsible for these services to ensure that the customer--in this case, the customer who is not taking advantage of our services--is listened to and consulted, and we must tailor our services to meet his needs. That we intend to do in a much more proactive way, with a much higher quality and better co-ordination of our services.
Mr. Patrick Nicholls (Teignbridge) : This is a very worthwhile initiative, and it will take someone who is uniquely ignorant of the needs of small businesses to dismiss it as an irrelevance. A number of local authorities, of which Teignbridge district council is one, have a very good track record in promoting particular initiatives to increase employment. Will my right hon. Friend say what role local authorities like that will have? Much of the expertise in knowing what is available to small businesses will lie in Departments of State and, in particular, in my right hon. Friend's own Department of Trade and Industry. How will pilots be able to bring forward proposals which might incorporate civil servants who have that particular expertise?
Mr. Heseltine : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising two very important issues.
I am fully aware that there are local authorities which have been drawing very much closer to the wealth-creating sector. A principal reason for this is that Government policy has given them every incentive to do so ; with the use of schemes such as city grant and city challenge, a partnership has been been fused between local wealth-creating and local bureaucratic services, greatly to the benefit of both.
The scheme is based on exactly the same philosophical approach to try to give local authorities and the wealth-creating sector every incentive to come together to prepare the best services possible to meet local needs. It is for them to decide how the services that they provide can be fitted into the concept of a one-stop shop.
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My Department provides many services on a regional basis, which may therefore be too remote from the customer's immediate needs. I intend to leave the initiative to explore how the departmental services can best be tailored into the competition to those participating in the competition. As can be seen from the prospectus, I have instructed officials in my Department that they are to be constructive and co-operative and must allow the private sector and local authorities to explore how they can sub-contract, provide locally or collocate the services of the DTI wherever legally possible. We are in an exploratory stage, in which there is a great deal of opportunity and from which we all have much to learn.Mr. Jim Cousins (Newcastle upon Tyne, Central) : The President of the Board of Trade has pledged a universal and comprehensive service, but he has committed the resources and cash for only a single year's experiment. How fast does he expect the scheme to expand? Where will the money come from, apart from charges on small businesses, as he made clear in an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer)?
Mr. Heseltine : I can give an indication to the House and share my preliminary views--it is important that I do so--but this is an experiment. Within my budget, I have significant resources available for the support of small and medium enterprise. I expect an increasing part of that to be used year by year to extend the range of small one-stop shops if they are successful. The rate at which we do that can be explored in the light of the response.
All hon. Members will have been impressed by a clear theme that has emerged from this afternoon's statement, which is the number of bids that we shall get from all round the country. The training and enterprise councils are now hard at work in mobilising resources locally. I hope--I can but express it as a hope--that, when the first 15 have been chosen and the first tranche of public money is available to support them, a significant number of other bidders will say, "We don't wish to wait for the second or third competition : this is an idea whose time has come," and they will then make progress. It is well within their ability to do so, because revenues are available to the chambers, local authorities have the capacity to support them if necessary, and private companies can contribute additional cash.
All those opportunities exist. We shall see how it goes, but my present intention is to announce 15 pilot schemes by the early part of next year and then extend the opportunity on a second and third-year basis, provided that there is support from within my Department.
ROYAL ASSENT
Madam Speaker : I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts :
Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol, Etc.) (Amendment) Act 1922 Car Tax (Abolition) Act 1992
Llanelli Borough Council (River Lliedi) Act 1992
Durham Markets Company Act 1992
City of Bristol (Portishead Docks) Act 1992
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Orders of the Day
Judicial Pensions and Retirement Bill [Lords]
Order for Second Reading read.
5.13 pm
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. John M. Taylor) : I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time This important Bill has passed its stages in another place and now comes to this House for our consideration. It makes new arrangements for judicial pensions and amends the law relating to the date on which certain judicial office holders are required to retire. It may help to inform our discussion if I say a little about the Bill's history and describe some of its main provisions. Let me start with pensions. As my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor said in another place, the occasion for the Bill was the change in the tax position of pension schemes brought about by the Finance Acts of 1987 and 1989.
The Finance Act 1987 established 20 years as the minimum accrual period for a tax-approved pension scheme to provide maximum pension benefits. The Finance Act 1989 requires the salary on which benefits from tax-approved schemes are calculated to be capped at a specific level. That level increases annually in line with price inflation. The level for this tax year is £75,000. All private sector schemes were automatically capped by the 1989 Finance Act for new entrants from the time that Act came into force--for most people that was on or after 1 June 1989. The same result was achieved for members of public sector pension schemes by amending regulations.
By July 1989, the only group of pension scheme members who were excluded from the cap was the judiciary. The judicial pension schemes can be changed only by legislation, because the judicial schemes are statutory in recognition of the need to safeguard judicial independence. We are making the necessary legislative changes in the Bill.
The Bill, however, does much more than simply bring the judicial schemes more into line with the standards that now apply to all other pension schemes in the public and private sectors if they are to benefit from the privileges of a tax-approved scheme. The Government have taken the opportunity provided by the Bill to make some much-needed changes to the current judicial pension arrangements. Those changes were trailed in consultation papers published by my noble and learned Friend, the Lord Chancellor, and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Scotland, in December 1990. The Government announced in July 1991 how they intended to proceed ; this Bill, introduced in another place on 4 June this year, is the result.
I said that changes were needed for the simple reason that the existing judicial schemes are rife with anomalies and
inflexibilities. They are extremely complicated and carry a good number of difficulties for those who have to try to make out their rights under them. That is hardly
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surprising, given that each class of the judiciary has its own scheme. The result is some half a dozen different judicial pension schemes, all with different accrual rates.For instance, in England and Wales, High Court judges, circuit judges and chairmen of industrial tribunals have 15-year accrual periods ; stipendiary magistrates, district judges and members of the Lands Tribunal, on the other hand, have a 20-year accrual period ; and for the immigration adjudicators, the accrual period is 40 years. Those disparities are perhaps even more marked when one looks north of the border and across the Irish sea.
Mr. Roger Evans (Monmouth) : Is it in the slightest bit surprising that there are different accrual periods when High Court judges are normally appointed in their 50s and immigration appeals adjudicators are normally young boys who have undertaken a qualification period of three years' practice at the Bar? It does not follow as a matter of reason or consistency.
Mr. Taylor : We are making progress in the name of reason and consistency and I shall have more to say later about the age of appointment of High Court judges. Although my hon. Friend has already shown, not only by his text but by his tone, that he has a dispute with the measures currently on offer, I may be able to engage his sympathy in an alternative suggestion.
Mr. Paul Boateng (Brent, South) : I would not bet on it.
Mr. Taylor : The book is not open.
There must be something to be said for having much greater homogeneity in the various classes of judges' pension arrangements, not least to assist the most able in gaining promotion. My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans), perhaps with a measure of exaggeration, suggested that some adjudicators started as mere boys. Be that the case or not, I should like to see, and my hon. Friend might too, a more homogeneous overall pension structure that enabled people to be promoted and take greater responsibility without facing hideous actuarial decisions in middle life when they should be going forward without pressure or obstacle and taking greater responsibility.
I was seeking to describe the further range of differences that apply if one looks north of the border or across the Irish sea. For example, Scottish sheriffs have a 20-year accrual span compared with the 15-year span enjoyed by their English and Welsh counterparts, the circuit judges. District judges and supreme court masters in Northern Ireland have a 30- year span compared with the 20-year span of their English counterparts.
Those differences are the result of history and cannot be justified today. Apart from the glaring anomalies that exist between the different judicial offices, the different schemes can make it disadvantageous for a judge to move, on promotion, to a different office. I do not think that this is the right time to go into the technicalities of the aggregation rules, but their general effect is that a judge who wishes to take the pension of the second office loses the benefit of his years of service in his first office. A judge who wishes to aggregate his service in both offices may do so, but only on retirement and only on the basis of the salary and the pension scheme of the lower office. This is not only unfair, it can act as a disincentive--not merely an obstacle--to promotion.
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There are other anomalies. For instance, certain judicial officers in schemes with a 20-year accrual span have to serve for two years before qualifying for a pension on the ground of ill- health. No minimum period of service is, however, required of office- holders in 15-year schemes.It seemed to the Government that the obvious way to cure the existing anomalies and inconsistencies was to create a unified pension scheme in which service throughout a judge's career would count towards his or her final pension. The new scheme should cater equally for all members of the judiciary. So far as the public are concerned, a judge is a judge, regardless of the level of judiciary to which he or she belongs. The Bill meets those objectives and it does so on the basis that in general the new arrangements do not prejudice the pension position of those already holding judicial office.
By virtue of clause 1, the new scheme will apply to new entrants to the judiciary, to those in the existing schemes who elect to go into the new scheme and to those serving under the present arrangements who are promoted to an office with a different pension scheme after the new arrangements come into force. Clause 3 provides for a single accrual span of 20 years for all the judicial officers holding on a salaried basis an office listed in schedule 1. As I have already explained, the reason for the 20 years is that it is now the minimum period allowed for a tax-approved pension scheme.
Much time was spent in another place debating whether that period was appropriate for members of the higher judiciary. It was argued that those judges tended to take up appointment relatively late in life and that, with the reduction in the retirement age to 70, many of them would not be able to qualify for a full pension. It was said that that was contrary to the public interest because it would discourage those best qualified to accept judicial office. Furthermore--this was said with a particular reference to the circuit judges who currently have a 15-year scheme and can retire with a full pension at 65 provided that they have served for 15 years--it would encourage some judges to stay on the Bench for longer than perhaps they would otherwise wish, simply to accrue their maximum pension entitlement before their 70th birthday. That too was said not to be in the public interest.
The Government's answer, given many times in another place by my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, is this : the quality of our judiciary is, and must always be, paramount. The pension arrangements for all members of the judiciary must be as generous as the public purse will allow. However, there can be no reason, so far as the 20-year accrual is concerned, for treating the judiciary any differently from other members of society. What the Government can do--and have done--is to recognise the special position of the judges, who come to this career relatively late in life, by ensuring that they can keep in full the benefits of any pension arrangements that they have made prior to taking up judicial office. In other words, they can keep those, and are entitled also to whatever pension benefits they have accrued under the statutory judicial scheme. The judiciary are in a unique position here. Revenue rules would normally require those in pension schemes with an accrual period as short as 20 years, to bring into account for pension purposes any retained benefits-- that
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is, previous pension arrangements--in assessing at the end of the day whether their pension was within the Revenue's overall limit of two thirds of final remuneration. The judges do not have to do that--a significant benefit to those judges who have taken advantage of the tax rules to build up personal pension provision during practice. It is the position under the present pension arrangements. It is retained by clause 18.It was argued in another place that that was all very well, but that that special concession was of no help to those judges who had no retained benefits. The Government's answer to that is this : the Revenue recently agreed that, provided retained benefits are brought into account, the judiciary may, if they wish, buy added years or make additional voluntary contributions to increase the value of their judicial pensions. As the scheme will be recognised as a tax-approved scheme, judges will qualify, in the same way as anyone else, for tax relief on their contributions. Clause 10 provides the means for establishing the voluntary contribution schemes for the new arrangements. Schedule 3 amends the existing legislation so that voluntary contribution schemes may now be established for those covered by the present arrangements.
Let me tell the House briefly what will be the pension position of those covered by the Bill. The full pension after 20 years' service will be half the salary paid to the judge in whatever period of 12 months during the previous three years gives him the best result. For service of less than 20 years, the pension will be one fortieth of the salary paid to the judge--in whatever period of 12 months during the previous three years gives him the best result--multiplied by the whole length of the judge's service, calculated in years and days. In addition, judges will be entitled to a lump sum of two and a quarter times the annual rate of their pension. At present, the lump sum is twice the rate of the pension. There will be provision for a death gratuity of twice pensionable pay. That was raised from one and a half times pensionable pay by a Government amendment in another place. As now, there will be provision for spouse's and children's pensions.
Any judge who has served for five years will be entitled to an immediate pension at the age of 65. Judges between the ages of 60 and 65, who have served for five years, will be able to take early retirement with an immediate pension that is actuarially reduced. Those limits do not apply to ill-health retirement, the payment of a death gratuity, or the payment of spouses' and children's pensions. As a result of amendments by the Government in another place, the Bill now provides for enhancement of service in respect of ill-health pensions and for an increase in the lump sum payable following early death after retirement. Again as a result of Government amendment in another place, the scope of those eligible to receive a children's pension was considerably extended.
The Government believe that the new pension arrangements set out in the Bill are fair and reasonable to not only the judiciary but the public purse from which the pensions are paid. On 10 November, my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor placed in the Libraries of both Houses, tables prepared by the Government Actuary comparing a range of pension benefits for stipendiary magistrates and district, circuit and High Court judges under the existing and new arrangements. I commend these to hon. Members. The tables include the improvements to the derivative benefits that I mentioned
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a moment ago. I believe that the information provided in the tables is sufficiently comprehensive to enable those studying them to form a fair view of the pension position under the existing and new arrangements.The retirement provisions of the Bill are covered in clauses 26 and 27, with the accompanying schedules 5, 6 and 7. As with pensions, part of the aim is to introduce consistency. At present, judges and judicial officers have a variety of retirement dates. Not only are the ages different as between different judicial offices, but in addition some provisions relate to the attainment of a particular age, while others relate to the completion of the year of service following a particular birthday.
For example, the retirement age for circuit judges in England and Wales, sheriffs in Scotland and county court judges in Northern Ireland is at present the end of the year of service in which they reach 72, whereas High Court judges in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, judges of the Court of Session in Scotland and other senior judges retire on their 75th birthday. Furthermore, for some appointments, particularly in tribunals, there is no statutory retirement age, although in general in such circumstances comparable retirement ages have been applied as a matter of administrative arrangement.
In the light of consultations, the Government consider that a general age is desirable and that a retirement age of 70 is more appropriate to modern conditions. Clause 26 accordingly provides for a general retirement date at the age of 70. This will apply in relation to all the offices included in schedule 5.
Mr. Patrick Nicholls (Teignbridge) : My hon. Friend says that retirement at 70 would be more appropriate in modern conditions. Does he share my view that there is a danger in accommodating fashion? We are told that a judge is too old to sit on the Bench but when that argument is used, there is no appreciation of the fact that one is looking for intellectual skill at least as much as physical ability. Does not my hon. Friend feel that in introducing a common retirement age he has been blown off course and made to succumb to the fashion of attacking the judiciary and the establishment, by depriving judges of office on the ground of age?
Mr. Taylor : I am not unsympathetic to my hon. Friend's point, which he made in his usual reasonable and lucid way. Perhaps he will allow me to reflect on it. If I do not refer to it later in these remarks, I shall return to it later.
The retirement age of 70 will apply only to those appointed after the legislation comes into force. Clause 26 and schedule 7 accordingly provide that persons holding judicial office when the new retirement provisions come into force will retain their pre-existing compulsory retirement date. Under the transitional provisions in the Bill, that arrangement will also apply if and when someone subsequently moves from one full-time office to another. For example, if a circuit judge is subsequently appointed to the High Court Bench, he will retain his present retirement date of the end of the year of service in which he reaches 72.
At present, there are powers to extend service in some, but not all, judicial offices beyond the retirement date otherwise applicable. The application of those powers, where they exist, has been helpful in providing flexibility to meet the needs of the courts and in ensuring that the ability
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and expertise of experienced office holders need not be lost prematurely if that is in the public interest. In making that last point, perhaps I laid the foundations for the answer that I shall give my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls).Mr. Walter Sweeney (Vale of Glamorgan) : Does my hon. Friend agree that the discretion thereby reserved for the Lord Chancellor to extend the retirement age of members of the judiciary where they can serve a useful purpose and there is a need for them in our judicial system meets the criticism that might be levelled if the arbitrary age limit of 70 had been imposed? Does my hon. Friend further agree that the retention of the Lord Chancellor's discretion will allay fears of premature retirement?
Mr. Taylor : Yes. My hon. Friend raises a point that was made in another place by Lord Ackner and was comprehensively addressed--I thought, after reading Hansard --by my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. During the course of this evening, I shall endeavour to replicate my noble and learned Friend's reply. The questions being the same, there is no reason, in this day and age, why the answer should not be the same--and my hon. Friend shall have it.
It is considered appropriate to retain that flexibility and, with the introduction of a new retirement age of 70, to provide for the possibility of enabling service to be continued in the public interest. The Bill accordingly provides that service may be continued after the age of 70, but only if the Lord Chancellor or Secretary of State for Scotland, as the case may be, considers that desirable in the public interest, and then only for periods of no more than a year at a time up to, but not beyond, the office- holder's 75th birthday. It is expected that that power will be used sparingly and applied only where it is clearly in the public interest to do so, taking careful account of all the relevant considerations, including in particular such things as the health of the judicial office holder in question. Because of the particular constitutional factors which are seen to arise in their case, the power of extension will not apply in respect of High Court judges and above in England and Wales and Northern Ireland or to their Scottish equivalents.
Under current provisions, judges who have retired from full-time service may be invited from time to time to serve in retirement on a part-time basis. We believe that it is no longer fair to expect them to be available indefinitely in that way, so the Bill provides for the overriding limit of 75 to apply in those circumstances also. Clause 26 also provides that certain one-off appointments, to which the concept of retirement as such is not strictly applicable, should not be made beyond the age of 70. Clause 27 provides that a person who has retired or otherwise ceased to hold a judicial office may nevertheless complete unfinished business--for instance, by giving judgment in a case which he had been dealing with.
Any retirement age is of course a matter for judgment. Conflicting considerations must be balanced to achieve that which the person seeking to make the judgment believes to be right, both in the interests of the judges and in the public interest. On the one hand, the increasing burdens of judicial office must be acknowledged, but on the other, although the current retirement ages for the judiciary are higher than those for most other professional people, we must recognise that judges are appointed
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relatively late in life. They are usually drawn from those who have already established themselves in a successful career in the law and their years of experience are part of the necessary qualifications for the position. Accordingly, they bring with them maturity of judgment, which is essential for judicial office.We think that three score years and 10 is an appropriate general age for judicial retirement, and that is, accordingly, the age for which the Bill provides.
Mr. Sweeney : I do not disagree with my hon. Friend on that point, but does he accept that it is appropriate for the Government to consider ways of attracting younger people to the Bench, of making appointments at a younger age and of broadening the entry so that judges are more representative of the people with whom they deal in court?
Mr. Taylor : I am glad to be able to respond to that question in exactly the way that my hon. Friend would like. It must be the inescapable conclusion of those who hold the judiciary in high regard and respect that it must be sensible to start considering appointing people rather younger than is the tradition. I was surprised to find--my hon. Friend, too, may be surprised--that the average age of High Court judges is lower than 60, which is not a bad thing. He may be pleased to know that the Lord Chancellor has made it clear many times that, as the reservoir of those competent and qualified for appointment to the Bench increases--this seems inevitable from the statistics--more women and more people from ethnic backgrounds will be appointed. There will be no obstacle to them : their appointment will be encouraged.
Mr. Gary Streeter (Plymouth, Sutton) : Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Taylor : I had not intended to give way so many times. My next words were to be, "I commend the Bill to the House," but I want to be fair to my hon. Friends.
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