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Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [HL]

My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will find nothing to mistrust in anything we are seeking to do. I have listened to the noble Lord with great interest. I reiterate that this is about eligibility and not appointment. It is critical that we keep in mind the importance of the Judicial Appointments Commission in everything we do in this area. This is not about the Lord Chancellor simply choosing someone he considers might be appropriate; it is about thinking through the category or type of expertise needed and saying that appropriately qualified people can apply. It does not mean that they will be appointed. It is very important to keep that in mind throughout all our discussions on the widening of the pool and the role of the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, in holding together the Judicial Appointments Commission. Making that clear in the work that she is doing is fundamental to it. Whereas I am quite content to talk to noble Lords about whether we have the wording of the clause right, I find it difficult to know how one could alter it without doing the opposite to what we seek to do, which is to accept the fact that flexibility for the future is important in setting up the new Tribunals Service. That means enabling us from time to time, when we consider the expertise needed in the Tribunals Service, to consider people from another jurisdiction who have the relevant expertise on which we could call. That is all that we are seeking. If Members of the Committee can find a way of saying that with which they feel more comfortable, I have no difficulty, but I have not been able to find one other than that in the Bill. I have tried to give examples of our thinking. If I could give all the examples, I could put them in the Bill and that would be that, but those are the sorts of areas that we have been looking at. It is essential to keep in mind that this is only about eligibility. If the Judicial Appointments Commission did not exist, there could be reasonable fear that the provision could be moving away from that which we hold dear about appointment on merit for particular roles. That is all we are seeking to do but, as the Committee would expect, I am happy to discuss that.