Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I want to record my complete agreement with everything that has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I am grateful for the manifest signs of revision and of hard work the noble and learned Baroness the Attorney-General has plainly put in since she took over. Like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, we need more time to consider the letter. I received a copy during the afternoon, for which I am grateful. It is very important that we do not rush this provision for reasons that are quite often missed. A prosecuting advocate in a magistrates’ court is quite often the only lawyer present, apart from the court clerk. A very heavy responsibility rests on him or her to ensure that the prosecution is at all times fair and that the court is never misled. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, the primary and overriding duty of the advocate is not to the prosecuting authority, but to the court itself. I am grateful to see that the ambit of the designated caseworker’s abilities will be restricted in the way in which we have been told this evening. None the less these cases will often be brought against people who are unrepresented. Their livelihood and reputation may well be at stake even though these are not now imprisonable offences. We should take account of the grave misgivings of the Magistrates’ Association. As we were reminded yesterday, magistrates take 95 per cent of the cases tried in England and Wales. I think that it is in the order of 2 million cases every year. It is not just a question of being opposed, as it states in its briefing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, mentioned. It states: "““We are strongly opposed to this provision””." That is an extremely important point. I should like to hear from the Attorney-General whether there has been any consultation with the magistrates with a view to assuaging their concerns, which were unusually strongly expressed—that was the association’s exact language. There has been some reassuring progress, which has not gone far enough to make me happy, but I am hoping that reassurance will be reinforced.