Examinatin of Witnesses (Questions 180-199
RT HON
LORD FALCONER
OF THOROTON,
QC
28 FEBRUARY 2007
Q180 Keith Vaz: Are you in favour
of the Home Office being split and some of the functions that
are being undertaken by the Home Office being transferred to your
department? Are you in favour or against it? You must have a view
on that.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Obviously
it depends where the discussions end up but I have said in the
past publicly that a Ministry of Justice is in principle a good
idea and this might be the time to do it.
Q181 Keith Vaz: There must be two
Lord Falconers of Thoroton in the House of Lords because I have
an answer that you gave to Lord Lester of Herne Hill on 7 July
2003 in which he asks you whether you are in favour of a Ministry
of Justice and you reply: "My Rt Hon friend, the Prime Minister,
responding to the questions after his statement in another place
on 18 June set out clearly why we do not favour the creation of
a Ministry of Justice. I commend his views to the noble Lord."
This must be the other Lord Chancellor.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: David
Falconer.
Q182 Keith Vaz: Is there a David
Falconer?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: No.
Q183 Keith Vaz: You are now in favour
of it?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I am
in principle in favour of bringing together as effectively as
possible as many justice functions as can constitutionally be
put together.
Q184 Keith Vaz: You have changed
your mind since 7 July 2003?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I find
it difficult to remember what the context of that was in particular.
Q185 Keith Vaz: Do you want to have
a look?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I do
not think it would help.
Q186 Keith Vaz: We read also in The
Times that your officials have already registered a website,
www.justice.gov.uk. Do you know about this? Is that right?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: That
is true.
Q187 Keith Vaz: Why have they done
this if there is not going to be a Ministry of Justice?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I said
there are discussions going on. They may or may not reach some
conclusion. I cannot tell you when they will reach a conclusion
but they are well advanced.
Q188 Keith Vaz: Looking down the
list of ministerial responsibilities, your department seems to
have 50 separate areas to look after. The Home Office has 70.
The Attorney General appears to have 16. This is the list published
by the government. The Attorney General is quite keen not just
to get more secretarial support, which is what you seemed to be
indicating, a couple of extra diary secretaries perhaps. He wants
a beefed up department. You have been in all three of these departments,
so nobody is more experienced at answering these questions than
yourself.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: It
is a question of having gone through the experience of having
been in the Home Office, the Law Office Department and the Lord
Chancellor's Department.
Q189 Keith Vaz: You can see that
there is a possibility, not just of splitting it two ways but
possibly three ways and some of the functions that the Home Office
has should perhaps go to the Attorney General's office and some
of your functions—for example, human rights, et cetera—should
go to the Attorney General's department. Would you oppose a beefed
up Attorney General's department?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: It
goes back to the question of what role you think the Attorney
General should play. If you think he can be a legal adviser and
a minister as well, it would be possible to address the issue
whether or not responsibilities of a ministerial sort such as
human rights and freedom of information should go to the Attorney
General.
Q190 Chairman: That decision might
be pre-empted by a decision next week that a certain set of functions
should be shunted off to the Attorney General's office which would
pre-empt the debate about what his role should be, would it not?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: That
is, in theory, true. The debate about the role of the Attorney
General needs to precede any conclusions about what happens to
the Attorney General's role.
Q191 Keith Vaz: Do you think that,
as a result of these changes that have come about because of problems
specifically with the way in which the Home Office is handling
immigration rather than any of the other areas, to give the Home
Office a better focus, this would improve the delivery of justice?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: Only
if the changes improve the delivery of justice are they worth
doing. They have two bits to them: the terrorism issues and the
justice issues. The conclusions that are reached have to improve
both.
Q192 Keith Vaz: You are sure this
is not just reform for reform's sake because this has been an
area that has had a lot of modernisation obviously led by yourself
and the Prime Minister over the last four or five years? It really
does need to be done, does it?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: There
is no point in doing it unless you see, for example, better outcomes
in relation to reducing reoffending, quicker criminal, civil,
family cases, much more effective use of court time. There is
only ever any point in doing it if you can identify an outcome
for the people using the public service affected.
Q193 Keith Vaz: Going back to this
list, which I know you cannot comment on because you are reluctant
to do so, there are no areas in that list which cause you concern
in respect of any conflicts of interest that may occur if, for
example, prisons or any other of those areas come into your department?
You have looked at that very carefully?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: You
have to consider very carefully issues of conflict of interest
but currently courts and legal aid are the two big areas of expenditure
in the Constitutional Affairs Department. The courts are independent
between the defence and the prosecution. I do not see any conflict
there. The debate is about prisons and probation. I would not
see any conflict there. Criminal policy is another area. I would
not see any conflict there.
Q194 Keith Vaz: You assume you are
getting all those next week?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I do
not know if I made it clear that there are discussions going on.
I have a script that I keep to in relation to this. I would not
like to comment further. You have many journalists who could answer
these questions. They appear to be well informed.
Q195 Keith Vaz: Can I move on to
judicial appointments? You must be very pleased with the performance
of the Judicial Appointments Commission, bearing in mind that
they have just had to completely look again at the way in which
they have appointed circuit judges. Have they done well in your
eyes?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: It
is extremely important that we have a Judicial Appointments Commission.
It would be wholly wrong to seek to judge them by one particular
competition where they accepted that they were not happy with
their procedures and changed them.
Q196 Keith Vaz: They are pretty critical
of your department, are they not? Have you seen the memorandum
that was given to this Committee as a result of our letter to
Baroness Prashar?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: No.
Q197 Keith Vaz: She says that the
Commission came to an early view that the selection processes
that it inherited from yourself, Lord Chancellor, were too lengthy
and cumbersome and that there were significant differences between
the old and the new processes; that they would make sure, presumably
unlike what happened previously, that there should be robust quality
assurance. Are you disappointed at this criticism from your successor
body?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I would
be amazed if a new body taking on a role like judicial appointments
did not think that we could improve on the way it was done before.
If they were not improving on the way it was done before in a
whole variety of ways, there would not have been any point in
setting them up. I regret that my department was not as good as
they are going to be but I am delighted they are going to be better.
Q198 Keith Vaz: Do you think one
of the problems is that the people who were responsible for the
last lot of problems in the selection of immigration judges that
you told the Committee about previously were seconded to the Judicial
Appointments Commission? Basically, they have the same people
who worked for you working for them so it is not a surprise that
this has gone wrong. Do you know how many are still seconded?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: I do
not know but perhaps I can write and tell you. The arrangements
are new. Inevitably there will be a huge overlap in people because
it is a difficult role to perform. My department was doing it
before. It is quite right that lots of people who were doing it
before are now doing it in the Judicial Appointments Commission,
but it is a different set-up. It is a different accountability
arrangement. It is a totally different way of doing it. I would
expect there to be different results.
Q199 Keith Vaz: Can I assume that
as a result of these serious problems it is a bit disappointing,
having modernised the system and created a new commission, that
the first thing they do—
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: It
is one competition. It is the appointment of circuit judges. They
have accepted they made a mistake. They have gone back in relation
to that particular competition and they are in the process of
putting it right. I do not regard that as an indication of the
fact that I should regard them, in your words, as disappointing.
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