2. What is the Counsel General’s assessment of the implications for Wales of the report by the justice council on increasing judicial diversity? OAQ(5)0034(CG)

The recommendations relating to the personal development and career progression of lower-ranking judges and tribunal members could have a positive impact on career opportunities for the Welsh tribunal judiciary.

Can I thank the Counsel General for that response? The report concludes that a purely organic approach to increasing diversity means that change is happening far too slowly and calls for systematic and structural changes to promote change. Does the Counsel General agree? What discussions has he had in respect of how the Welsh Government can contribute to the change process? It’s not a huge improvement if a public-school man is replaced by a public-school woman. We want real diversity.

Thank you for that supplementary question. Of course, you raise some of the points that were very much raised in the Justice report, which effectively said that the senior judiciary is dominated by privately educated white men and may need targets with teeth to improve diversity on the bench. There is, of course, a significant process of change under way at the moment, and the study by the reform group Justice, which the Member has referred to, is in fact very highly critical of the slow progress that’s been made, as in fact have been senior members of the judiciary themselves. So, we wait to see the outcome of those considerations, but they have described very much that the failure to ensure that the judiciary reflects the UK’s ethnic, gender and social composition has become a serious constitutional issue.

We are very alert to these issues in respect of that part of the judiciary that comes within the responsibility of Welsh Government. In representations that we make, we make very clearly the points in respect of diversity. We also make the point very strongly that it is vital that there is Welsh representation in the higher courts by judges with a knowledge and understanding of devolution and the law as it applies to Wales. So, those two aspects are very much within Welsh Government consideration in any opportunity there is to promote that increased diversity that we all want to see.