I agree with the hon. Gentleman wholeheartedly. I will return to that point later. The exchanges that sparked those headlines came when the Attorney General was asked by one of his Back Benchers whether it was time for MPs to get involved in approving appointments at the Supreme Court level. The Attorney General responded:
“I do think that we are going to have to look again at our constitutional arrangements…there may very well need to be parliamentary scrutiny of judicial appointments in some manner.”—[Official Report, 25 September 2019; Vol. 664, c. 666.]
As I said, I think the subsequent headlines required considerable journalistic licence. It would be useful if the same headline writers would publish the subsequent remarks that the Attorney General made during Attorney General’s questions last week, when he said that
“certainly US-style hearings—would be a regrettable step for us in our constitutional arrangements.”—[Official Report, 3 October 2019; Vol. 664, c. 1360.]
Similarly, I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s words this morning at Justice questions in defence of judicial independence and against any notion of political appointments.
With impeccable timing, as soon as I received notification that I had secured this debate, I received a written answer from the Minister—I welcome him to his place—confirming that there were no plans to change the judicial appointments processes. The answer continued:
“Our judges are selected following a rigorous, independent, merit based process which is key to maintaining the quality, integrity and independence of our world class judiciary.”
That answer echoed the point made by the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell).
In the light of all those assurances, I wondered whether it was worth proceeding with this debate, but I think it is. I am grateful to hon. Members for staying to take part. It is still relevant to proceed because, despite the words of the Minister, the Attorney General and the Lord Chancellor, one fairly significant member of the Government does not seem to be singing from quite the same hymn sheet—perhaps not for the first time. Between the Attorney General’s original comments and his clarification, when the Prime Minister was asked about the consequences of the Supreme Court judgment by The Sunday Telegraph, he said:
“It will take a while to be worked through. But I think, if judges are to pronounce on political questions in this way, then there is at least an argument that there should be some form of accountability.
The lessons of America are relevant.”
Whether the Prime Minister was thinking about putting the UK on the path to a US-style system, under which Supreme Court judges are political appointees, as The Sunday Telegraph interpreted it, only he knows—I very much hope not.
The pot was stirred even more firmly by a former Conservative leader who told The Times at the end of last week that
“more and more people are beginning to ask, with some legitimacy, whether it might be time to hold hearings as they do in America to find out what their political views are and what we can expect. We need to know more about these people.”
I could not disagree more strongly with that statement. A better response to the Prime Minister’s comments came from a former Cabinet colleague of his in an article for The Sunday Times this weekend:
“If he means we should learn from the weaknesses of the US system, he is absolutely right. If he means we should copy that system, he is wrong. It involves far too much political interference in the appointment of judges and also too much judicial law-making.”
My ambition in this debate is, therefore, quite modest: to achieve as broad a consensus as possible, saying clearly and loudly that we believe in the rule of law, the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary; that our appointments processes must always respect that; and, specifically, that we reject the politicisation of the judiciary, in particular through
US-style appointments processes. The Prime Minister and some of the less sensible members of the Conservative party should stop stirring that pot.
I am not saying that the appointments processes in the UK are absolutely perfect, whether through the Judicial Appointments Commission of England and Wales, through its Northern Ireland equivalent, through the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland or through the appointments commissions that are convened for the purposes of selecting Supreme Court justices. No system is perfect, and they have all been criticised. It is absolutely right that we should keep those systems under review and scrutinise them to ensure that they deliver the appointment of the best judges.
Other hon. Members may want to make suggestions about how we can improve each of those systems, including to better protect judicial independence or to improve the scrutiny and accountability of judges through ombudsman and complaints processes. I have no doubt that more can be done to improve diversity on the bench, for example.