Further written evidence to be reported to the House
Health and Social Care Bill
4:00 pm
Lady Justice Smith: Briefly, my job at the moment is Lady Justice of Appeal, a judge of the Court of Appeal. I have been doing that since November 2002. Before that I was a High Court judge in the Queen’s bench division, doing a mixed bag of crime and civil work. I went off to do the Shipman inquiry in January 2001. It took me four years, I am afraid—twice as long as the Lord Chancellor warned me that it would, but there it is. That is the basis of such expertise as I have on these matters.
I must warn you, before you start questioning me, that since I returned to my day job in January 2005, it has not really been possible for me to keep up as well as I would like with day-to-day developments in medical regulation. Of course, I have a maternal interest in the recommendations that I made and their progress, or lack of it, through legislation, but you will have to forgive me if I am not aware of everything that has been going on since January 2005. I do not have access, now, to the kind of materials that I had during the inquiry.