Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I express my thanks for the very warm welcome that I have received in this House and the endless kindness of the staff in helping a new girl to find her way around a bewildering place. The three and a half miles of red carpet in the Royal Courts of Justice was something of a challenge, but in the past few weeks I have found myself equally challenged here, although staff have been...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, may I seek the Lord Chancellor's advice on whether widening the pool to include legal executives, patent agents and so on is intended for all appointments to the Bench, or at a lower level?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I declare an interest, in that I was at one time a barrister, then a judge and am now a deputy coroner and assistant deputy coroner. I support the Bill in general, and I am reminded of what Shakespeare put into the mouth of one of the characters in Henry VI, Part II: "First thing we do is kill all the lawyers". Clearly, the public have not changed today. I am concerned about several...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, forgive me for interrupting. I am much more concerned about situations where the facts are seen one way by one board but differently by another. So they come to two different conclusions, like two referees on a football pitch.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: Reading the measure, I understand that the intention is to have a light touch, but it allows for a heavy touch. That makes me as worried as other noble Lords who have expressed concerns. Unless something is put in to guide the board, there is a real danger that the measure might activate a heavy touch and defeat the Government's intention.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I declare an interest as chancellor of the University of the West of England, which provides an excellent Bar vocational course and an equally excellent practice course for solicitors. Our law faculty is rated as excellent. It is checked annually not only by the Bar Council but by the Inns of Court, which specify whether the 10 or so universities providing the Bar vocational training are good...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I support what the previous two noble Lords have said. In Clause 10 the board must consider representations and must set out whether it agrees or disagrees. In Clause 11, the Consumer Panel, "may, at the request of the Board ... carry out research for the Board", or, "give advice to the Board". But there is nothing here to say that the board has to listen to any of the legal bodies at all. If...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I should say that judges are not supposed to use Latin any more since the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, said so six or seven years ago. Perhaps I might add to what my noble friend has just said. Schedule 3 deals particularly with rights of audience—here, I declare an interest as a former judge—and the ability of the particular individual to appear in court. Under paragraph 1(7), the...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I think that is the latest idea, but not one to which I subscribe. I am merely saying what I think is the modern interpretation.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. How do the Government think sub-paragraph (3) is going to work? Having listened to the opposing views as to whether the board should be proactive or reactive, I say that surely the board will have to do a great deal of investigation to know whether an alteration should be exempt. It seems to me that nobody can do anything until the board tells them...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I hope the noble Baroness will forgive me for interrupting. I had no intention of being in any way critical of a lay chairman or lay members. I am a member of the QC panel. Our lay chairman and lay members are brilliant. It is nothing to do with that, but purely and simply how the board in shaking down is going to know, as a board, what it should exempt on alterations and what it should not....
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I also support the amendment. Under Clause 30(2)(a), the words "one or more" may make it possible to look at each individual regulatory objective, and one may be at odds with another. In particular, protecting and promoting the interests of a section of consumers may not be compatible with protecting or supporting the other regulatory objectives. I believe it is extremely important that there...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I want to pick up on what the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, said because it is not part of the amendment, but refers to a later group—the word "significant". I totally take on board what the Minister said—that an individual regulatory objective may have been so clearly breached that action must be taken. But one clearly has to take into account the general functions of the board under Clause...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I just wondered whether it should come into this group.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I am not entirely sure how appropriate it is to put forward ideas which do not come within the existing amendments. However, I hope that the Minister might consider a possible alternative under Clause 31, headed "Directions". I suggest that subsection (1)(a) should read, "that an act or omission of an approved regulator is likely to have an adverse impact". If one could ask the board to take...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I declare an interest. As a former judge, I tried cases that contained elements of forced marriage. I strongly support the Bill. I pay tribute to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Carlile, with which I entirely agree, as I agree with all the other speeches that have so far been given in this House. I am aware that the Bill is strongly supported by the NSPCC, the...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I wonder whether before the Minister replies I might just add a few words in support of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. I entirely agree with all the previous speakers. I add only that I do not think that it would be very difficult to find phraseology that would permit of deputies approved by the Lord Chief Justice or the judge in charge of the administration of...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I underline and endorse what the two previous noble Lords had to say about rural areas, particularly what is said in paragraph 324 of the House of Commons and House of Lords report on the draft Legal Services Bill, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred. I spend quite a lot of my time in the West Country, which is a rather less well off area of England where the absence of legal aid is...
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I wonder whether the Minister might consider between now and Third Reading the possibility of the words "access to justice", but in a slightly different form.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I do not mean a different form of access to justice. I respectfully agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, that it did not seem at all to be an overarching phrase, but, if the Minister sees it as such, there are other ways of using the same words that would get what we are all asking for without necessarily offending the relevant government department.