Clause 10 - Appointment of lay justices etc.
Courts Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 13, in
clause 10, page 6, line 13, at end insert
', and the rules and the contents of the training courses shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament.'.
I hope either that the Government will not resist this amendment on such an important matter, or, even if they feel that they must, that they might table a similar Government amendment. We on the Conservative Benches think that it is important that
there be some scrutiny by both Houses of Parliament of how lay justices are to be trained.
Earlier in our proceedings reference was made to the fact that in this country we are tremendously fortunate to have about 96 or 97 per cent. of criminal cases dealt with by amateur volunteers—people who devote their lives to public service as justices of the peace. Without their dedication, we would not have such a highly regarded legal system. When I talk to people in other countries, they are amazed that we are fortunate enough to have a system that relies so heavily on volunteers, which of course can save Governments of any party a huge amount of money—it would be much more expensive for the taxpayer to transfer to an entirely professional judiciary.
Although we have volunteers who do all that work as justices of the peace, Parliament needs to have sight of the content of their training courses. I cannot see why there should be any opposition to that. We are saying not that Parliament should interfere, but simply that it should see what is on the syllabus.
I used to have great concerns about a completely different matter many years ago, which was how teachers were trained. I was suspicious about some of the things that were in the teacher training college syllabuses, but, fortunately, when we were in government my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), then Secretary of State for Education, looked at what was in the syllabuses and got a lot of the political correctness taken out. However, that is a different matter and we are not talking about that here. We are talking about Parliament having a view about what is going to be in the syllabus, as I have called it, for training lay justices. The point is shortly stated, but it is nevertheless an important one and I hope that the Government will not seek to resist the amendment.