Clause 24 - Attorney general
Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill
5:30 pm
Mr Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead, Labour/Co-operative)
I wanted to make the same point as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton about the age of MPs. We have heard recently from the Chairman of the Select Committee on Transport, Local Government and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who is over that age and is performing a
sterling job in bringing her experience to bear. I am not sure that this is the time to conduct this business, but I am 56, and if I were as hale and hearty as the Transport Select Committee Chairman, I would probably want to carry on doing this job, hoping to do it as well as she does.
Many of us have signed early-day motions on ageism in an attempt to oppose strongly the general way in which the Minister has talked today. I agree with him that it has been of benefit to stop the open-ended age limit on being a judge, which sometimes made it difficult to get rid of incompetent people. However, perhaps the same principle should not apply to the most senior position, which is a short-term appointment anyway, and when those making the appointment have a large field to choose from. Maybe this is not the place to start breaking that ageist pattern of reasoning, but I am disconcerted by the Minister's reasoning. Having signed an early-day motion on ageism, and believing that the House gets tremendous value from people in that age range, it would be inconsistent of me to give the Minister my wholehearted support. I hope that, in his response, he will say that he will think about the issue between now and Report.