§ 31. Mr. Phil Sawford (Kettering)What steps she is taking to encourage greater openness and transparency in the appointment of magistrates. [126366]
§ The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Jane Kennedy)The process is open and transparent. My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor revised the directions to which his local advisory committees work in 1998, in order to establish a national unified system for recruiting magistrates. A copy of the directions is in the Library. The local committees actively seek to encourage applications from all parts of the community by using a range of methods, including advertisements in local newspapers, leaflet drops and local radio and television programmes.
§ Mr. SawfordI thank my hon. Friend for that answer. I welcome all the efforts that are being made to encourage greater openness and transparency, but I fear that in all too many cases there is still a shroud of secrecy over the appointment process through the advisory committees. Will my hon. Friend consider more steps to encourage 709 greater openness, not only in that appointments process, but in the manner in which the advisory committees are appointed in the first place?
§ Jane KennedyI hear the point that my hon. Friend makes, but I repeat that we believe that the process is open and transparent. That is not to say that my noble Friend does not make every effort to ensure that the benches reflect the communities from which they are drawn. It might be helpful to the House and to my hon. Friend to know that the Northamptonshire advisory committee, which covers the area of my hon. Friend's constituency, has recently undertaken a number of activities to encourage recruitment and raise the profile of the magistracy. While my hon. Friend raises fair concerns and makes legitimate comments, we make every effort to ensure that the benches reflect the community.
§ Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire)We of course welcome as broad a variety of people as possible on the bench, but does the Minister agree that it is important for the best calibre of people to become magistrates, and that the sort of tokenism she described is wrong? We should not appoint people because they are women or because they are black. We must have the best calibre of people, irrespective of who they are.
§ Jane KennedyI find some comments that are made from time to time about the lay magistracy disappointing. The Lord Chancellor defined the personal qualities that an individual must possess to be suitable for appointment as a magistrate as: good character, understanding and communication, social awareness, maturity and sound temperament, sound judgment, commitment and reliability. Candidates for the bench are drawn from people who have all those qualities. However, it is fair to say that every effort should continue to be made to find more candidates who are women, and more candidates from ethnic communities, to be sure that the benches reflect the communities that they are there to serve.