Lord Hermer (Lab)

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, and other noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. We do not accept Amendment 60 for three reasons, beyond the fact that it falls outside the intended scope of this single-issue Bill. First, the amendment seeks to fetter the power of a Prime Minister to shape the Cabinet according to his or her own choosing. Under this amendment, if the Prime Minister wished to choose a sitting MP to be Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, as has been the case for every Lord Chancellor since 2007, that person would have to vacate their seat and trigger a by-election; or, if this amendment were to be accepted, the Prime Minister would be required to separate the roles of Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. In the Government’s view, that would be a constitutionally inappropriate fettering of the Prime Minister’s discretion to pick a Cabinet of his or her own choosing. Secondly, there is no constitutional or public policy rationale to justify taking us back to the position that we were in before 2005. One cannot, for the reasons set out by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, simply pick and choose without going wholesale back to the 2005 position—putting the Lord Chancellor back on the Woolsack and as the senior judge—because what else is left of the Lord Chancellor’s role? It cannot simply be a rationale driven by nothing more than to have a member of the Cabinet committed to upholding the rule of law. That should be a commitment consistent with the ministerial code for all members of the Cabinet but, if I may say so, I also see it quite properly as a role for an Attorney-General. As the House will be aware, with the Prime Minister’s and the monarch’s grateful permission, the oath of the Attorney-General was changed when I took it to include an express commitment—although it would always have been implicit—to the rule of law. Thirdly, the amendments fail to address what we would respectfully say are the most important attributes for a Lord Chancellor in the post-2005 age. Those attributes were identified by the Constitution Committee, which considered the Lord Chancellor’s role in a report two years ago—and I acknowledge the committee’s current chair, who is not in his place, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. In its final analysis, the report said that “character, intellect and a commitment to the rule of law are the most important attributes for a Lord Chancellor to possess”. We agree, and we do not consider that the acid test of those attributes is the House in which a Lord Chancellor should sit. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor exemplifies the qualities of a great officeholder committed to the rule of law. More widely, as she has made clear, this entire Government see the rule of law as our lodestar. I have no doubt that the Prime Minister has appointed my right honourable friend in the confidence that the House in which she sits is no hindrance to her in discharging her vital constitutional responsibilities. For those three reasons, I respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment.