Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

The hon. Gentleman is nodding. There is general agreement that this needs to be quicker, and the proposal helps to streamline the process by reinforcing an administrative move to a system of self-certification rather than a medical assessment by a doctor in every case—only in those cases where the self-certification reveals a cause for concern will candidates be asked to undergo a medical assessment. The proposal should speed up and streamline the process. No systems are perfect and obviously if further problems remain, we will address them. I hope that provides some reassurance to the hon. Gentleman. The Joint Committee was in favour of the proposal, but questioned whether it could be achieved without the need for legislation. The Government view is that legislation is needed to provide absolute clarity. Sections 96 and 97 of the 2005 Act provide for medical assessments of those who have been selected for appointments to be conducted by the Judicial Appointments Commission. Paragraph 5 of the schedule makes amendments to the provisions in section 96 of that Act relating to medical assessments. Sub-paragraph (3) adds new subsections (2A) and (2B) to section 96 to enable the Lord Chancellor to request a person who has been selected for appointment by the Judicial Appointments Commission to provide information about his or her physical or mental condition. The Lord Chancellor may specify a period in which the information has to be supplied. Sub-paragraph (4) amends section 96(3). The amendment made to that section provides that the Lord Chancellor may also request a candidate to undergo a medical assessment and for a report of that assessment to be made available to the Lord Chancellor. The provisions replace section 96(3) under which the Lord Chancellor may direct the Judicial Appointments Commission to make arrangements for any assessment of the health of those who have been selected for appointment. Sub-paragraph (5) modifies section 94(4) and sub-paragraph (6) inserts new subsections (4A) and (4B). These provide that the Lord Chancellor may, after consultation with the Lord Chief Justice, notify the Judicial Appointments Commission that he or she is not proceeding with an appointment if the circumstances specified in new subsection (4A) apply. These circumstances are if the candidate does not comply with a request to provide information under the new subsection (2B) or to undergo a medical assessment under proposed new subsection (3)(a), or if the Lord Chancellor is not satisfied on the basis of a medical report under proposed new subsection (3)(b) that it would be appropriate to proceed with the appointment. Sub-paragraph (7) amends section 96(5) to make it clear that if a candidate is rejected, any other selection for the same appointment or recommendation is to be disregarded and that the candidate must not be selected again pursuant to that request for the same appointment or recommendation. Sub-paragraphs 8 and 9 are transitional provisions that ensure that the new procedures apply only to requests to undergo medical assessments made after the relevant provisions of the Bill have come into force. Paragraph 6 is a consequential amendment in relation to Scotland and Northern Ireland. It ensures that where reference was made in section 97(1)(e) to the duty to consult the relevant head of judiciary under section 96(4)(a), the reference in section 97(1)(e) now refers to the duty to consult the relevant head of judiciary set out in section 96(4B). Paragraphs 7 and 10 provide for the removal of magistrates from schedule 14 to the 2005 Act. Schedule 14 to that Act lists the offices that comprise the statutory recruitment and selection remit of the Judicial Appointments Commission. Magistrates were included in schedule 14 under the title of justices of the peace as it was originally intended that recruiting and selecting for the role should be a part of the Judicial Appointments Commission's remit. The current system has the considerable advantage of providing invaluable local input into the process of recruiting and selecting local people to deliver local justice. Advisory committees are composed of local magistrates and at least one third of local lay persons. This helps to ensure that the recruitment and selection of magistrates is firmly grounded in the communities in which they serve. I hope that the whole House will agree that that is a desirable outcome. Agreement has been reached between the Lord Chancellor, the Judicial Appointments Commission, the Lord Chief Justice and the Magistrates' Association that the Judicial Appointments Commission will not in future take responsibility for the recruitment and selection of magistrates. Paragraph 10 of schedule 5 to the Bill removes magistrates from schedule 14 of the 2005 Act. The recruitment and selection function will therefore remain for the foreseeable future with local advisory committees, where it is performed effectively and with a high degree of independence by dedicated volunteers drawn from among magistrates and members of the local community. Paragraph 7 of schedule 5 amends section 118 of the 2005 Act to ensure that even though magistrates have been removed from schedule 14, they will remain within the scope of the disciplinary powers exercised by the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor. This could have been done by making an order under section 118, but in this instance the Government feel that primary legislation is the most efficient way to make the necessary changes. It most closely reflects the current arrangements, under which the disciplinary scheme applies to magistrates by means of primary legislation. Paragraph 8 of schedule 5 clarifies that confidential information obtained during the appointment or disciplinary process can be shared with the police for specified purposes relating to the prevention or investigation of crime, including for the purposes of criminal proceedings. Current sections of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 covering the disclosure of confidential information do not explicitly allow such information to be provided. We do not consider the proposal to be controversial: it is considered that any indication that a criminal offence had been committed could be disclosed to the police without the need for an explicit gateway, but without a legislative change the Ministry of Justice could be left open to the possibility of litigation that would be costly in terms of both time and money. We therefore want to make it completely clear that confidential information could be disclosed to the police. We are confident that sharing confidential information for the purpose of preventing a crime, or for the purposes of a criminal investigation or procedures, will be compatible with the principles of data protection. The Data Protection Act does not stand in the way of such disclosures, so they would either be compatible with data protection principles or fall under the exemption to the Act that relates to the prevention or detection of crime, or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders. The proposal was raised in the White Paper, welcomed by the Joint Committee, and also supported by the JAC. It will bring the judicial appointments process into line with the process in other organisations. Paragraph 1 of schedule 5 corrects a typographical error. I was perhaps harsh with the hon. Members for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) for alleging that the Government had allowed an anomaly to creep into the devolution legislation. They were wrong about that, but I hold my hand up to the typographical error. The error came about because the original section 21(4) was substituted by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which also inserted section 21(4A). The amendments came into force on 3 April 2006, and this has been the first legislative opportunity to correct the error. The correction is uncontroversial and has no adverse impact, but I apologise to the Committee for the fact that it was allowed to creep in in the way that it did. I turn now to the question asked by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) about why we dropped certain provisions. We did not drop them: the way that I would phrase it—and I hope that he will agree that this is an accurate reflection of what happened—is that we listened. We consulted extensively on this Bill, and we listened carefully to what hon. Members, the Joint Committee and other people said. We took to heart what the Joint Committee said about making changes to a process that in effect has been in operation for only a short period. We remain committed to nearly all the proposals put to the Joint Committee, but we take the point that it might be sensible to allow the changes already in place to bed down before we decide exactly how to take them forward. We will continue to develop the entire judicial appointments process in partnership with our judicial partners separately from the Bill. We recognise that there is more work to do, and I think that the judiciary agree. We do not regard this as a closed chapter, but merely as an onward step in the process.