Before I open my speech, I wish to tell the House that today is Lancashire Day. On 27 November 1295, Lancashire sent its first Member of Parliament to attend King Edward I’s model Parliament. The day is well marked and celebrated in Lancashire.
We have been waiting for the arrival of court-reform legislation ever since the Government promised in the Queen’s Speech last June a Bill to modernise the court system. One can imagine that expectations were high, but instead we were left disappointed when this wafer-thin Bill, which is both narrowly constrained and obscurely drafted, was finally published. Indeed, most of its provisions were included in the Prisons and Courts Bill that was shelved more than a year ago. That Bill devoted 38 clauses and 13 schedules to the courts and judges, whereas this Bill has just three such clauses followed by a single schedule. As Lord Judge once said of another Government move, it is
“a little too late and…quite a lot too little”.