Battle on for lord chancellor job

The lord chancellor title at least has been saved

The lord chancellor must continue to be a member of the Lords and a senior lawyer, peers insisted inflicting a defeat on government reform plans.

Ministers ditched plans to scrap the 1,400-a-year-old lord chancellor post but still want changes.

Current Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer says holders of the job should not necessarily be a lawyer or a lord.

Opposition peers rejected his appeal, voting by 229 to 206 to say in law that lord chancellors must also be peers.

The defeat for ministers in the report stage of the Constitutional Reform Bill in the House of Lords is the latest blow for the reform plans, which include replacing the law lords with a new supreme court.

Lord Falconer warned insisting the lord chancellor was in the Lords would mean sometimes depriving the country of the best person for the job.

The important thing was to expect the lord chancellor to be a competent minister, he said.

"What we are seeking to achieve is not something good for this House but something good for the nation as a whole," argued Lord Falconer.

Lord Woolf predicted judges' independence would be better than ever

But some Conservative and crossbench peers said it would be wrong for the minister charged with protecting the independence of judges and the rule of law to be an MP trying to "climb the greasy pole".

Lord Lloyd of Berwick, a former law lord, said peers were agreed that the lord chancellor should no longer act as a judge in any court cases.

But he said any lord chancellor would only enjoy the full confidence of judges if he was both a peer and a senior lawyer.

Court costs

Under the bill, the lord chancellor would be replaced as head of the judiciary by the lord chief justice.

Current Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf said the judges' council believed the lord chancellor should be a senior lawyer qualified to be a High Court judge.

It was also preferable, but not vital, that the holder of the title sat in the House of Lords.

The judges also wanted the bill to ensure the supreme court did not start work until it could be housed in a suitably prestigious building and have enough resources without damaging funding for existing courts.

'No more rescues'

Lord Woolf said concern about the funding for the court explained his earlier "coolness" to the supreme court idea.

But he said the bill was a "gigantic step forward" as it included the "concordat", the new agreement setting out the relationship between the lord chancellor and the lord chief justice.

"Above all, it means the independence of our judiciary will be safer than it has ever been," he said.

"That independence will no longer depend on the hope that in the future there will be, as there has been in the past, a benevolent lord chancellor or prime minister who is prepared to mount his steed and ride to the rescue of the judiciary."

Best candidate

Lord Woolf urged peers not to let "short term advantage" to let them miss the window of opportunity of making the changes law.

Liberal Democrat frontbencher Lord Goodhart said ensuring the lord chancellor was in the House of Lords did not guarantee they were the best person for the job.

"What it does do is guarantee that time to time the best candidate for the job will be ruled out," he said.

And former Labour minister Lord Richard said MPs should be able to hold to account the lord chancellor, who would be in charge of a budget of £3bn.