| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
The Prime Minister: First, I thank my hon. Friend for his support for our proposals, which is all the more gratifying for its rarity.
Secondly, as I have pointed out, there may have been a misconception. The independent judicial appointments commission and the question of whether
the Lord Chancellor sits as an appellate judge in the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords have to be dealt with by legislation. There will be ample time to debate those things in the House of Lords and, obviously, in the House of Commons, too. That is why the notion that what happened on Thursday was somehow all suddenly implemented by Monday is not right.
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham): Can the Prime Minister tell us the costs of the changes that are already going through and of the changes that he would like to put through? Could it be that this is rather an expensive way of getting rid of an old man in tights? Might it have been cheaper to buy him a pair of trousers?
The Prime Minister: I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman exact details of the costs, but I hope that he will agree that making sure that the Lord Chancellor is actually concentrating on the core business of running the courts system is actually a far more efficient use of his time.
David Winnick (Walsall, North): I welcome the changes, which are long overdue, but can my right hon. Friend explain why the appointments that he made last week include people with titles such as Vice-Chamberlain and Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeoman of the Guard? What on earth does the Master of the Horse do? Clean the horse? Is not it time that, in a mature democracy such as ours, we got rid of such Ruritanian titles and jobs, the wigs, the gowns and the swords, including in the House of Commons?
The Prime Minister: I think that we have been radical enough for the moment.
Mr. A.J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed): Does the Prime Minister realise that these important and necessary reforms will get off to a pretty bad start if it remains unclear whether he is talking about a supreme court in the American sense of a constitutional court, or merely removing the Law Lords to sit in another building? There are certainly genuine anxieties at present about just how independent the judicial appointments commission will be and they could remain, especially when we have a Home Secretary who says:
- "I just like judges who help . . . us to do the job."
With the greatest respect, people cannot have things both ways. There are issues to be resolved about the precise nature of the supreme court. That is why we said that a consultation paper would be issued before the recess. It is also why debates will be held in both Houses. All the issues can be resolved then.
Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North): On the point about rushing to judgment in this matter, does my right hon. Friend agree that, 10 years ago, as shadow Home Secretary, he won the Labour party conference over to a judicial appointments commission, a ministry of justice, judicial independence and a Select Committee
on legal affairs? It is rather like saying that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister was rushing into regional government when he made his announcement earlier this week when, in fact, he started campaigning on the issue more than 20 years ago.In the week when those policies have finally come to fruition, I urge my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to stay with the big picture and leave the pygmies opposite to suck up the media trivia. He should re-read the speech that he made 10 years ago, when he stated that
- "Labour would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a"—
- "with a new electoral system".
The Prime Minister: It is always worrying when previous speeches are quoted back. However, my hon. Friend is right to say that many of the changes that we are advocating have been advocated for a long time by many people inside and outside this place. I come back to the main point. The whole basis of the changes that we are making—rather like the devolution changes—is not that we retain power, but that we give it away. I am going to be giving away the ability to nominate the Lord Chancellor, who sits in the Cabinet, is the Speaker of the House of Lords and appoints the judges. I find that proposition odd in today's world, when, surely, there should be clear separation between Executive, legislature and judiciary.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): In the light of the nature, tone and content of the Prime Minister's statement, is it right that the principle of the supreme court and the judicial appointments commission is a given and that the consultation exercise will simply be about the mechanics of the principles that he has announced?
The Prime Minister: We have set out what we want to do as a Government. That is how Governments announce their policy. They say, "That is what we want to do." There is then a consultation process, which we shall initiate with the consultation papers. After that, there will be a debate in both Houses—I emphasise "both". Of course there will be debate.
We have set out our view that there should be an independent judicial appointments commission, but it will be for this House and the other House to debate the details of that. For the life of me, I cannot see why that is a wrong process.
Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley): Will the Prime Minister give us an assurance that he would not contemplate appointing Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales from English constituencies such as Beckenham and Ribble Valley?
The Prime Minister: We have no need to do so.
Mr. Peter Duncan (Galloway and Upper Nithsdale): The people of Scotland know that this botched reshuffle has done nothing to address the problems of the Scottish
economy or our air transport problems. In concluding the consultation on air transport, does the Prime Minister expect his part-time Secretary of State for Transport to advocate more use of the London hub airports, or his part-time Secretary of State for Scotland to advocate more direct flights to Scotland? What will happen if they disagree?
The Prime Minister: I thought that the hon. Gentleman did pretty well. He should be shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, but he is not because someone sitting for Bromley has that post.
On the part-time point, I remind the hon. Gentleman that he was elected on a manifesto that stated:
- "We will keep the position of Secretary of State for Scotland with the holder of that position also having an additional UK role within the Cabinet."
Mr. Chris Bryant (Rhondda): The British constitution has many pantomime elements, but is the Prime Minister surprised by the pantomime antics of the Tory party? Yesterday, we had Widow Twanky and today we had Buttons, who could not recognise a decent constitutional change if it was lying in his bed when he came home at the end of the day. Is not the truth that, when we were redrafting the German constitution in the 1940s, this country insisted on precisely the changes that we are about to see, and that what was good for Germany in the 1940s is good for Britain now?
The Prime Minister: I do not think that we will take that too far. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend has got Conservative Members on a sensitive point. Of course, the point that he makes in relation to the constitutional changes is right, and I would simply point out that the Conservatives opposed the constitutional changes in respect of devolution, that they opposed the minimum wage and that they have opposed virtually every constitutional change. We still have not heard—perhaps someone will ask them at some point in the next few days—whether, if these changes are so terrible, they are pledged to reverse them. We should be told.
David Burnside (South Antrim): Will the Prime Minister inform the House what advice he received from his Cabinet Secretary before he announced these constitutional changes? When the Prime Minister is formulating his strategic planning for constitutional change, which role model does he prefer: the constitution of the first French Republic after the revolution, or our constitution after the Glorious Revolution of 1688?
The Prime Minister: It is a bit much, when I am giving away the power to anoint—appoint, I should say.
[Laughter.] It is a bit much, when I am giving away the power to appoint the Speaker of the House of Lords, to say that it is the equivalent of the French revolution. That is a somewhat extreme statement, and I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman, like other hon. Members, would have welcomed the fact that I will have given up power if these changes go through, which is why I hope that he and others will support them.
Vera Baird (Redcar): Can my right hon. Friend convince the Leader of the Opposition that women cannot have great faith in a judiciary that is 95 per cent. male and that ethnic minorities cannot have great faith in a judiciary that is almost 100 per cent. white and excludes anyone like them? Are not the Tories simply being reactionary? They want judges to carry on being picked, by secret soundings and tittle-tattle in Pall Mall clubs, from among white men from the upper middle classes—a group only a little less representative than they are.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |