Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)

But the rule of law is what we have set ourselves as our first project. Last week, I had breakfast at the Supreme Court. Never have I been surrounded by so many stars in the galaxy as I was then. I made the point that the United Nations charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European convention all have as Article 6 access to a fair trial. I started my remarks on that occasion by stipulating that the architecture of my entire life has been built on the fact that, when I was five and a half years of age, a letter from my father’s solicitor to my mother indicated that, because she was the guilty party in their relationship, she should leave his client’s—my father’s—house within one week and take her children with her. My mother could not defend herself against that because she did not have two pennies to put together to get the legal counsel or support. In any case, the law was different then. Out of that little exchange in the Supreme Court has come a magnificent response from one of the justices, who specialises in access to justice and brought out a report in 2016 about how to deal with people not having access to justice and wanting to have its recommendations implemented all these years later. I look forward to the future—all those voices to listen to and all those cases to weigh up. I have to say that politicians should try a little harder, and the lawyers should try a little harder, to realise that not everybody is one of them.