Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
RT HON
LORD FALCONER
OF THOROTON
QC AND ALEX
ALLAN
28 FEBRUARY 2006
Q140 Keith Vaz: One of the things
that you have done is increase the number of women and ethnic
minority people on the bench between April 2004 and September
last year. Of the appointments that you made 37% were women and
12% were from ethnic minorities, but when the commission takes
over they are under no obligation to follow any of the statements
or comments you made about diversity; they can basically do their
own thing.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: They
have got a statutory duty to widen the pool for those who apply
to be judges. I have got absolutely no doubt that Baroness Prashar
and her commission will be just as active and just as committed
to increasing diversity as I and my predecessors have been. I
referred to this committee before in relation to this. One of
the points that makes a real difference in relation to increasing
diversity is that there is a will on the appointer to do it, and
I am quite sure the commission have that will, but it is more
than just having will, you also need to do things, both to widen
the pool and to convince people who would not otherwise apply
that they have got a prospect of getting an appointment if they
do apply.
Q141 Keith Vaz: You were on the radio
a few days ago concerning the right of the Prince of Wales to
speak out on controversial issues from the political agenda. Does
he have the right to do this?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: What
I said on the radio was that the Prince of Wales is plainly entitled
to have views on things and to express those views. Examples I
gave were rural affairs, the environment, the Armed Forces and
architecture. The monarch and I think the Prince of Wales cannot
get involved in party politics. The fact that the views that they
express might coincide with a view expressed by a political party
does not make those views political views. Examples of that are
the things the Prince's Trust have done where they have made a
number of innovative proposals which have been adopted by them,
for example, getting unemployed into work, helping with youth
unemployment. They have been adopted in some cases by both political
parties; that does not make them political.
Q142 Keith Vaz: In answer to James
Naughtie you mentioned environmental issues and basically cows
and buildings, non-controversial issues.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I am
not sure about that.
Q143 Keith Vaz: If the Prince of
Wales made a comment about the A&E at Windsor General Hospital,
that would be "crossing the line", in your words. He
is not supposed to cross the line but you finished that by saying,
"I do not think he does".
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I do
not think he does and I do not think the fact that you talked
about health or education—because he has also talked about
education—would necessarily mean that you were crossing
the line. I think if he said something about a specifically party
political issue, as it were, espousing one party political side
against another, that would be inappropriate, but, as I say, I
do not think he has done that.
Q144 Keith Vaz: Alex Allan, you have
obviously got the best team that you can possibly have in your
department. You choose them on the basis of merit, is that right?
Alex Allan: Yes.
Q145 Keith Vaz: Why do you need to
spend £9 million on outside consultants?
Alex Allan: They are employed
on a number of specific projects. One of them, for example, was
when we launched the consumer strategy, when we decided that we
needed to have much more information about consumers in the courts,
what sort of service we were providing and what sort of service
consumers wanted, we employed consultants on that, for example.
Another one was looking at how we could improve our enforcement
programme. We employed consultants to advise us on how we could
achieve our objective of stepping up the level particularly of
fine enforcement.
Q146 Keith Vaz: What are your civil
servants doing? In 1997 your department only spent £700,000.
From £700,000 you now spend £9 million and you pay one
consultant £2,100 per day. Who is this? Is this Karl Rove?
Alex Allan: As I say, these consultants,
where we have employed them, are aimed at specific business areas.
They are aimed at improving the way we do it, in many cases improving
our value for money.
Q147 Keith Vaz: Who could be worth
£2,100 a day?
Alex Allan: I cannot reveal the
individual but the project on which he is engaged is one looking
at how we manage all the finances in the DCA, including something
like £6 billion we have under management, whether it is in
the Court Funds Office or held in trust for various vulnerable
people.
Q148 Keith Vaz: That is more than
we pay the Lord Chancellor and he appoints all the judges, he
has a huge budget.
Alex Allan: We paid what we believed
was the market rate for the skills we needed.
Q149 Keith Vaz: Is this gentleman
or lady still being paid £2,100 per day and can anyone apply
for this job?
Alex Allan: The appointment was
made through the competitive process.[1]
Q150 Keith Vaz: One final question about
the Supreme Court building. It is rather sad to see the Supreme
Court Justices wandering around the Strangers' Dining Room together
having their lunch without a building of their own. When are we
going to give them their building?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: We
have identified the building: it is Middlesex Guildhall. Detailed
work is going on at the moment to make sure it is a building fit
for a Supreme Court and that detailed work will produce a precise
series of dates when it is going to happen and I am absolutely
sure there will be a first class dining room as well.
Q151 Chairman: That is nothing new
since the last time you came to see us because that is what you
told us then.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Quite
a lot has happened since then but could I be excused from saying
precisely what the dates and the times are and where we have got
to with various other matters as well in relation to that until
a later date?
Keith Vaz: Maybe you should appoint a
consultant to look into this.
Chairman: Heaven forbid. Let us turn
to a not unrelated matter, Mr Tyrie?
Q152 Mr Tyrie: On the House of Lords
reform, the Government plans to take forward reform by way of
a joint committee. When will that be appointed? When will the
nominations be made? Do you have in mind a timetable for consultation?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: There
are two bits to this. First of all, we said in our manifesto a
variety of things, one of which was that there would be a joint
committee to look at the conventions governing the relationship
between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. We have put
detailed proposals through the usual channels and the usual channels
are discussing it at the moment, and I hope that they will come
to a conclusion as quickly as possible in relation to that. Secondly,
we have said there should be a free vote on composition after
the Joint Committee on the Conventions has reported and that will
be some time during the course of this year. We have also made
it clear—indeed, I made it clear over the weekend—that
it would be very worthwhile, particularly in the light of the
things that have been said from the Conservative Party, to see
whether or not we could build a consensus on Lords reform. I do
not think anybody wants Lords reform to take up two whole sessions
of Parliament. If it were possible for there to be a consensus
across the political parties about what the reform should consist
of that would be a very good thing to achieve and I think it would
increase confidence in our parliamentary institutions. In addition
to the Joint Committee on the Conventions, we are also trying
to look for a consensus across the political parties.
Q153 Chairman: Has the Prime Minister
left you enough room to manoeuvre to achieve such a consensus?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: As
I think I also indicated over the weekend, there needs to be room
to manoeuvre in relation to it. I think one would find there was
more agreement than disagreement on quite a lot of the important
issues. The answer is yes.
Q154 Mr Tyrie: I will come back to
that in just a moment. I want to clarify, first of all, this timetable.
You said that you hoped to complete these discussions behind the
scenes as quickly as possible.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I did
not manage to do that but I want them to start. I have written
today and I hope that we can get them going and make progress
as quickly as possible.
Q155 Mr Tyrie: What is "as quickly
as possible"? In other words, when do you have in mind that
we are going to get some progress on the joint committee?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: You
keep putting the joint committee and the consensus discussions
together. The joint committee is looking at the conventions governing
the relationship between the Commons and the Lords. The consensus
discussions that I talked about are much more to see can you reach
agreement cross-party on the way the Lords should be reformed,
which is a much wider issue than simply what are the conventions
currently that govern the relationship between the Lords and the
Commons.
Q156 Mr Tyrie: I accept that point
but I am trying to get a feel for the timetable of this joint
committee and I have not heard anything that is giving me a clear
understanding of that.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: This
has been discussed between the usual channels and the usual channels
are trying to reach agreement across the three parties on the
Joint Committee on the Conventions governing the relationship
between the Lords and the Commons. I should say we are pressing
it as hard as we possibly can in relation to it. We have been
slightly held up by various things that have happened in the other
parties, for example, changes in leadership, but I hope it can
happen as quickly as possible.
Q157 Mr Tyrie: There is, of course,
the risk that it could happen in your party before long as well
and then we will be held up again.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Andrew,
although you responded in a rather sharp way, I was not in any
way trying to make a political point about it; I was simply trying
to retell the facts in relation to it.
Q158 Mr Tyrie: I was responding to
what I was hearing. Can I get back to this consensus point? What
do you think a consensus is likely to be? I ask you that not in
order to look into the crystal ball but by reading the book and
bearing in mind the votes in the last parliament that we have
had in the House of Commons. If I may ask you a leading question,
would you say it is more likely than not that the consensus will
lie for a second chamber that is part elected and part appointed,
given that the proposal that was most vigorously rejected was
a wholly appointed House when it was last put to the Commons?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Just
looking at the votes in 2003, it seems to me inconceivable that
the consensus could be anything other than some sort of hybrid
House.
Q159 Mr Tyrie: Do you not find that
is going to sit rather incongruously with what the Prime Minister
himself said about the hybrid House when he said, "I personally
think that a hybrid between election and appointment is wrong
and will not work"?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: What
the position is, is that if we could get a consensus, if there
was broad agreement that a hybrid House was the right way forward—and
I do not know whether we could, or whether we will or we will
not—then the position is that the Government will go along
with that.
1 Note by witness The person concerned was appointed
on a fee-paid contract on the basis of his professional expertise.
The rate negotiated against OGC benchmarks for the market rates
for the skills required Back
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