Parliamentary Standards Bill

The basic reduction in the age of retirement for the judiciary was made by the right hon. and noble Lord Mackay in 1995. It was his proposal to reduce the retirement age from 75 to 70. I have no proposals to reduce it still further, and I would be reluctant to do so. As the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, many members of the senior and less senior judiciary are very capable of carrying out further functions after they have retired. Let me deal with the points made by the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory). I do not accept—and there is no provenance for this—that if an appointment is made by the Speaker, by virtue of that fact it is a creature of the Executive. Many, many appointments are made which have nothing whatever to do with the Executive. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who is not in his place, said to me that he had been appointed by Her Majesty to two positions, neither of which have anything to do with the Executive. We considered whether, as is standard in respect of the Comptroller and Auditor General, for example, there was something to be said for the appointment to be formally recommended by the Prime Minister, but we ruled that out rather quickly so that the recommendation should go direct from the Speaker. As was made clear by the ceremony last Monday, in which I took part, the Speaker, who is elected to serve the House, has to have his or her appointment approved by Her Majesty, but that never goes near the Executive, nor should it. I hope I can provide reassurance on that. The purpose of ensuring that if there is discontent with the individual or individuals, they can be removed only on an address of both Houses, is to bring that into line with the arrangements for the removal of members of the High Court and above, to give them assurance that they are independent. That makes sense, but I accept the right hon. Gentleman's objections to only the Leader of the House or the Leader of the other place being able to put that motion before the House. I acknowledge that that provision should not be in the Bill, so I will seek the approval of the House for amendment 52.