Clause 10 - Appointment of lay justices etc.
Courts Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Shipley, Labour)
Subsection (4), as the hon. Gentleman has rightly pointed out, enables the Lord Chancellor to make rules about lay justice training. The amendment seeks to impose an unnecessary restriction on the potential ability of the Lord Chancellor to train lay justices. I am concerned about the amendment. Although I can understand the natural curiosity of the hon. Gentleman, he is insisting that the contents as well as the rules of the training courses should be laid before both Houses of Parliament, which is a slightly worrying suggestion to make. Doing so would be a little excessive and perhaps an unprecedented level of parliamentary scrutiny. We obviously want to see training for lay justices up and down the country, but we also feel that the basis of that training should have a degree of independence.