Crime and Courts Bill [HL] — Committee (3rd Day) (Continued)

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 8:45 pm on 25 June 2012.

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Photo of Lord Falconer of Thoroton Lord Falconer of Thoroton Shadow Spokesperson (Constitutional and Deputy Priministerial Issues), Shadow Spokesperson (Justice) 8:45, 25 June 2012

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, for explaining that our experiences are the same. One can test this simply by looking around the Chamber. If one had to make a choice between the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, I think that everyone would agree that they bring totally different characteristics to a particular job. Would we be able to say that one is better than the other? No, in my view they are of equal merit. This is a serious point.

If we assume that the argument is right, the question is then: is it open to the person appointing a judge-because this does not apply just to the Supreme Court, but from the top of the judicial system to the bottom-to say, for example, "We have one woman and 25 men in this job and we have before us people of equal merit. It might be sensible to increase the group with one more woman"? Apart from the judiciary, I cannot think of any other organisation in the world that would consider that to be a bad approach. It also involves moving on from an artificial approach that people have to be graded as number one and number two. I support the approach taken in the Bill and I do not support the approach of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd.