My Lords, those of your Lordships who were here at Second Reading will recall that I told the House that when I was in my 20s and full of ambition and great principle, I thought that it was necessary, when drafting a Bill for the parliament of Wales back in 1967, to have a separate Welsh jurisdiction to determine the laws that that parliament would pass. As I indicated at Second Reading, I have changed my view; I think it is a matter of complete practicality. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who said that the joint jurisdiction has not served Wales well. There is no joint jurisdiction. There is a single jurisdiction and it has operated over four centuries to provide the same standard of justice in Wales as in England. When he was called on to give an example of where it goes wrong, he talked about courts, as though a Welsh parliament would create new Crown Courts west of Swansea or in mid-Wales and would have the funds, judicial power and practitioners to man such a system. It is purely a practical question. To demonstrate that, I quote from the noble Lord’s amendment. Under the heading “A6 Judiciary”, the amendment states:
“All of the judges, judicial office-holders”,
and others,
“become judges … of both … courts”—
that is, the existing judges would continue to operate in both England and Wales. The amendment then proposes:
“All of the persons by whom the jurisdiction of the Crown Court constituted by section 4 of the Courts Act 1971 is exercisable become the persons by whom the functions of both of the courts to which that court corresponds”.
In other words, practitioners and judges in criminal courts could operate in both England and Wales. Where is the separate jurisdiction in that? Proposed new Section A6(3) states that all the existing judges and others should become judges in the courts of both England and Wales. The same situation is proposed for family courts and the legal profession. Therefore, the proposal put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, is that existing judges and practitioners should operate in the courts of both countries. How could that be possible if there were such a distinct and arcane system of Welsh law that only Welsh practitioners could understand it? Lawyers are accustomed to dealing with separate parts of the law, whether it is Welsh law, administrative law, the law relating to trusts or whatever. Practitioners and judges deal with differences between the laws passed by the parliament in Wales and those passed by the Parliament in England. There is no problem with judges doing precisely that. At the moment an Administrative Court sits in Wales and deals with legislation passed by the Welsh Assembly quite adequately—the Lord Chief Justice and an old friend of mine, Mr Justice Wyn Williams, sat in such a
case last week—and no problem arises from that. However, the hare has been started, and for that reason I have advanced, as a matter of practicality, my Amendment 10.
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The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, and other noble Lords referred to the working party that has been set up to consider the question of a separate jurisdiction, which has met only once so far, as we understand it. There is no transparency about what it does or about the appointment of its members, and no suggestion as to when it will produce a report that will be of any use. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, hoped that it would be received this autumn before we finish these proceedings; I very much doubt that that will happen if it has met only once so far and has not met the Welsh Government at all, as the noble Baroness said a moment ago. I suggest that a body of commissioners should consider the issue—it is a live issue in Wales, so let there be a body to consider it—but that it should take evidence in public so that everybody can hear what is being talked about and it does not happen behind closed doors. The Welsh Government and the academics of Wales can give such evidence as they think fit, it can be tested and considered, and ultimately a report should be produced within three years of its constitution to deal with the problem that has been put forward.
The amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, suggests a sitting commission that continues for all time, so that the issue is never put to bed. To my mind, this issue has been raised so it should be dealt with properly and considered, a report should be put forward, and if legislation follows from that so be it. However, from a purely practical view based on years of experience as a member of the Wales and Chester circuit and as someone who has dealt with the law on both sides of the border and had experience of other jurisdictions abroad, in the Far East, Jamaica, Trinidad and places like that, I believe that a separate and distinct jurisdiction for Wales is not necessary and should not be followed through.