Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

We have got an excellent building. Those who represent the top of this country's judicial processes deserve an appropriate building. Far from being lugubrious, I suspect that it is now a rather good place to work. It has retained the best features of the Middlesex Guildhall intact; I am particularly pleased that the building contains a very prominent portrait—there might be two in the building—of John Fielding of Somersetshire, who did so much to establish our modern judiciary and the role of modern courts. I am a great supporter of the Supreme Court and of how it has developed. Should it be for the Lord Chancellor now to have any involvement in the day-to-day running of that court? My answer to that is no. However, although I thought that I could have couched the hon. Gentleman's new clause in more felicitous terms, it would achieve a result that I could support. That leaves me in a great dilemma were he to call a Division, because were I to support him it would be for reasons almost diametrically opposed to those for which he believes his proposal is necessary. I would be tainted by association with his arguments and I do not want that, nor do I want my hon. and right hon. Friends to be so tainted. I hope that the Minister will advance such a strong argument in rebuttal that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his new clause. I also hope that on another occasion we will look at properly strengthening the role of the president of the Supreme Court, not by making him empty the dustbins, but by allowing him to appoint his own staff. He should make the dispositions on staffing and any other arrangements of the Supreme Court that he thinks best, rather than come back to the Lord Chancellor to ask for permission. I would support amendments along those lines, because having set up this new body, with which we should be very pleased, now is the time for the Lord Chancellor to let go. That takes us back to the debates that we had earlier this afternoon and the reluctance, it would seem, of the Executive entirely to let go of matters that are within their power. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that in the long term that is precisely what the Government intend to do.