Parliamentary Standards Bill

That is one of the skills of being a judge. I have no doubt that any current judges who had the misfortune to be appointed to this body would do their best to apply their judicial skills, but that is not the point. Judges must be separated from politics, and seen to be so. We do not have a written constitution in this country, but whether those who prefer a written constitution like it or not, we do have a separation of powers. Importing current judges on to political bodies of this nature would be a mistake. The other point that flows from the amendment is that there are statutory limits on the numbers of people who may serve as judges in the High Court, the Court of Appeal or the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords. It is not widely known—and even where it is known, it is often ignored—that those people are already fairly fully employed. Taking a serving judge off the current bench of senior judges would simply add delay to the existing criminal and civil jurisdictions, and place additional work on the backs of the current judiciary at a time when they have plenty to do already. There are only two logical conclusions: either that sub-paragraph (2) be deleted, as advocated in amendment 61, or that membership of the IPSA should be restricted to retired or former senior judges.