Senior Judiciary: Women

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I wonder whether, as a former woman judge, I might add something. I agree with what the Minister said about the problem being further down, but I wonder whether the Government might look at women who leave the professions, both the Bar and solicitors, because of the stresses of family life, who ought to be encouraged back several years later but will require some training? Nowadays, it is of course possible to go up the ladder, as indeed I did—my husband called it a hawsepipe—to go from a fairly junior position through to the High Court and even higher. You need to get the women back who have left because they have skills that are underused.

[Lord Faulks]

The noble and learned Baroness is of course right. That is probably a significant reason why more are not applying for the higher judiciary. There is flexible part-time working as a result of the 2013 Act, and I think that more people should be encouraged to sit part-time earlier in their career in order to develop the career pattern that will then make them more inclined to apply, and of course it is important that women who otherwise might not apply do so. I entirely accept that. It is something that the sub-committee on diversity and the judicial diversity task force, which are both concerned with this, are looking at very carefully.