Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)

I am very grateful to my noble friend for his intervention, and I very much hope there was such an understanding—but I am afraid I cannot find a trace of that agreement. Turning to the answer given to a question put to Jack Straw on this question in January 2009, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, asked him about the future of the justices of the Supreme Court. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, noted that the Law Lords performed an important function in the legislative process and asked the then Lord Chancellor what the position would be once they had retired, along the lines outlined by my noble friend—thus suggesting that there was an informal agreement that this would be what would occur. The then Lord Chancellor’s answer was: “Of course, that was one of the arguments against change and … I can see the case”. He then said that “it crucially depends on whether we continue with an all appointed House of Lords”. So the answer was that they just parked the issue, saying that it was all dependent on what was going to happen in future to the House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor goes on to say that “if we go to a 20% appointed chamber”, which was one of the things then being considered, the number of noble Lords would be “fewer”. That was why he refused to commit at that point in answer to that question. The issue was raised again in July 2009 in a question from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and it was answered by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice. He said: “My Lords, justices of the Supreme Court who are appointed after October 2009 will not automatically become Members of the second Chamber on retirement, but could be considered for appointment by the Appointments Commission. It is right to say that former Law Lords will be able to take up their places again … on retirement from the Supreme Court, and it is right that this House needs a lot of expertise, particularly in that field”.—[Official Report, 20/7/09; col. 1375.] Of course, he was right in that respect. But the reality is that that has not happened. If one looks at the appointments that have been made by HOLAC, one sees that former justices of the Supreme Court have not numbered highly among the appointments. This has been a very significant omission and now is the moment, I suggest to your Lordships, to rectify that error. At the very least, the Wolfson-Elie compromise of giving peerages to the President and Deputy President of the Supreme Court should be strongly considered by the Government, but I would suggest it should go more widely than that: every member of the 12-member court should receive life peerages on appointment. That should be the convention. There would then be no need for these courtesy titles. When they retire, they would then hopefully become engaged and active Members of your Lordships’ House.