Clause 8 - Local justice areas
Courts Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
Thank you, Mr. Illsley. I can now welcome you, and all members of the Committee, properly. I welcome in particular my hon. Friends the Members for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) and warmly congratulate them on their appointment yesterday to the shadow ministerial team. My hon. Friend the Member for Witney is now shadow Deputy Leader of the House, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe is a shadow Minister for the Department for Work and Pensions.
Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 would ensure that local justice areas were the same as local government areas. As with the argument that we had a few days ago that courts boards areas should be coterminous with police authority areas, here we need to minimise confusion and overlap. While preparing for this debate, it occurred to me that in drafting amendment No. 12 I might have inadvertently made an error. When I reread the amendment, I thought that it probably should have read ''local justice area'' rather than just ''local justice''. Before the Minister picks that up, I plead guilty that I might have left something out. The amendment would certainly be clearer with the word ''area'' added.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome will speak to the couple of Liberal Democrat amendments, Nos. 118 and 119, in this group. My reading of those is that they aim for the same thing—avoiding confusion—but we shall hear from the hon. Gentleman in a moment. Even if the Minister cannot accept the amendments as they stand, I hope that he understands what we are getting at. There is no need to change local justice areas so that they cross over local government boundaries, and I hope that he will acknowledge that ours is a genuine attempt to improve the Bill by trying to avoid confusion.