Examination of Witnesses (Questions 278
- 279)
TUESDAY 2 DECEMBER 2003
RT HON
LORD HOPE
OF CRAIGHEAD
Chairman: Good morning, Lord Hope, and
welcome. We are very glad to have you giving evidence to us this
morning. We will do our normal, formal business of declaring interests,
before we go into questions.
Ross Cranston: I am a
recorder and barrister.
Keith Vaz: I am a non-practising
barrister. My wife holds a judicial post.
Mrs Cryer: I am a non-practising
JP.
Q278 Chairman: Unless there is anything
you want to say to us by way of opening, we will proceed?
Lord Hope of Craighead: No, I
do not have anything to say, except to thank you very much for
thinking of asking me. I have no particular statement to make.
Chairman: It is our pleasure.
Q279 Mr Soley: First of all, can I ask
why you are opposed to the change that is proposed, what is your
objection to a supreme court?
Lord Hope of Craighead: Can I
make it clear that I am perfectly content to go along with the
policy and make the best of it, because I think our job is to
keep the system running and to fit in behind the policy which
is decided. I did not want it to be thought that I was in favour
of it, if given a free choice. My own view is that we benefit,
I benefit personally, by being in Westminster, for a variety of
reasons, partly because I find it an extremely good position in
which to keep myself informed about what is going on generally,
about the way legislation is being developed and what members
of the public are thinking. There is a great deal of to and fro
in the corridors with people, and I am concerned that if we are
moved to another building we will be cut off from that source
of information. As somebody who lives in Scotland and is here
as a visitor to London during the week, I am concerned that I
may lose some of the benefit of that information. We have access
to parliamentary papers and all the other things and access to
an extremely good library. I am concerned also about being drawn
back, as it were, to The Strand, if that is where the location
is, closer to the Inns of Court, which tends to strengthen the
English link, whereas I have always looked on the House of Lords
as a court which serves Scotland in its own jurisdiction. The
idea of a UK supreme court is a slightly misleading one from the
Scottish point of view. There is also a cost element, but that
is not really for me. It is a very economic system as it is, at
the moment, and for us to set up our own institution, servicing
ourselves, with our own building, and so on, is adding a great
deal of extra expense which might be better spent elsewhere in
the judicial system.
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