My Lords, I will speak on the group of amendments consequential on Amendment 126. We have been talking about complex matters to do with public sector pensions, but this is a simple amendment that I will seek to explain to the House. I open by thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, for supporting this amendment. I look forward to the contribution later from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton.
5.15 pm
The Bill proposes harmonising the mandatory retirement age for all judicial officeholders at 75 years old. This group of amendments seeks to amend the mandatory retirement age to 72. I recognise that a lot has changed in the 27 years since the mandatory retirement age was set at 70. Life expectancy has risen, people are working longer and the mandatory retirement age has been abolished for most professions. None the less, the opposition Labour Party has reservations about raising the retirement age to 75 rather than 72.
When the Ministry of Justice consulted on this, it consulted on both 75 and 72 as possible retirement ages. While the overwhelming majority of respondents to the Government’s consultation, some 84%, supported raising the MRA, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, the President of the Supreme Court and the
Lord President in Scotland were unanimous that it should be raised only to 72. In addition, the Magistrates’ Leadership Executive also favoured 72.
When the Minister comes to respond, I am sure he will quote other judicial associations that favour 75 over 72, as well as the results of the Ministry of Justice consultation, in which some 67% of the respondents favoured 75 over 72. I seek to persuade the House that the lower age, 72, is a more appropriate age and that 75 is a step too far. I believe it has distinct disadvantages. I base my argument on two principal reasons. The first is that it militates against judicial diversity. The second is that the mental decline of older members of the judiciary is a factor that should be borne in mind.
Simply put, raising the MRA to 75 will reduce the opportunities for candidates from BAME backgrounds. As we know, it is a scandal that only 1% of the judiciary are from a BAME background at the moment, and this has not changed in the last decade. The situation for magistrates is a bit better, but the same argument applies and there is still plenty of room for improvement among the magistracy as well.
Regarding mental decline, I remind the House that I sit as a magistrate. I regularly appraise colleagues, and this is a sensitive issue for me to address. It is my experience that some colleagues experience a mental decline. As a magistrate, it is a sensitive issue to appraise these colleagues. Of course, one has to be robust, but it is not unusual to find oneself appraising a colleague who has been a long-standing friend and having to have a frank discussion with them about some level of mental decline.
I will give a particular example from my own experience of sitting in the youth court in London. Almost always, when I have youths in front of me, I am considerably older than their grandparents. I see very serious crime in the youth courts, and a very high proportion of it is centred around communication apps for whatever the offence is—be it drugs, knives, or whatever. It is a reality that, although I am not nearly 70, I feel distant from the nature of the crimes; although I can understand their severity, the way that they are communicated among the youths is something that I have to work on to fully understand. But it is not only youth crime; it is also adult crime. I am also older than the grandparents of many of the adults that I see when I sit in magistrates’ courts in London.
I believe there is a limited administrative effort available for changing and updating the judiciary, and that effort should go into expanding the magistracy and increasing diversity. That limited administrative effort would be far better used in this way rather than in increasing the age of retirement to 75. I put forward 72 as a compromise, which has been consulted on, and I think it would be a step too far to go straight to 75 without taking into account the factors to which I have referred. I beg to move.