HC Deb 31 January 1994 vol 236 c616
38. Mrs. Anne Campbell

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what estimate he has made of the value of the appointment of chief justices' clerks.

Mr. John M. Taylor

An increasing number of magistrates courts committees have already appointed a single head of service, in some cases called a chief justices' clerk. I am aware of no such committee returning to its previous management structure.

Mrs. Campbell

Does the Minister agree with the chairman of the Cambridgeshire magistrates courts committee, Mr. Alex Cook, who has said that the appointment of chief justices' clerks will be an expensive addition to the management tier and that existing justices' clerks will lose status, authority and independence?

Mr. Taylor

I do not think that I should answer for people's dignities from the Dispatch Box, if that be the line of the inquiry. However, I wish to ensure from the Dispatch Box that the Lord Chancellor and I can be properly accountable to Parliament for the expenditure of £350 million per annum. The appointment or emergence of a chief justices' clerk is not to create a new tier of management but is, rather, the emergence of the head of an existing tier of management who is accountable to the local magistrates court committee. That is the way it should be.

Mr. Sims

I understand why my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor may wish to alter the structure and administration of magistrates courts, but does he not appreciate that if he puts in charge of local administration people whom he calls chief justices' clerks, the individual justices' clerks in the local courts will feel that they are losing their authority and, in particular, their independence to give legal advice to magistrates? If the task of a chief justices' clerk is simply to be, as it were, a chief executive, why not call him that?

Mr. Taylor

The Lord Chancellor has never regarded the actuality of the name as crucial, although it has clearly emerged as the preferred name. The chief justices' clerk will not have any say in the advice given in court by an individual justices' clerk. That advice will remain trenchantly independent, and the legislation will say so.