§ Mr. GerrardTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what action he intends to take to ensure that more people from ethnic minority communities in the London borough of Waltham Forest are appointed to all tribunals under the independent tribunal service; and what is the present composition of all tribunals serving Waltham Forest.
Mr. John M. TaylorTo encourage more ethnic minority practitioners to come forward for consideration, the Lord Chancellor has made widely available to ethnic minority practitioners and representative groups the booklet which sets out the requirements for each appointment and describes the judicial appointments system generally.
The Lord Chancellor's policy is to appoint to judicial office those best qualified, regardless of sex, ethnic origin, political affiliation or religion and appointments must be justified on merit. The Lord Chancellor appoints only the legal chairmen of the tribunals under the independent tribunal service.
Information held on the ethnic origin of 18 members of the social security appeal tribunal in Walthamstow, which serves Waltham Forest, shows that three out of the 18 are from ethnic minorities.
Figures are not kept separately for that area for the other tribunals under the service. For the whole South Eastern region, one out of 105 members of the medical appeal tribunals/vaccine damage tribunals and 66 out of 454 members of the disability appeal tribunals are from the ethnic minorities.