Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect on the (a) age and (b) ethnic diversity of the magistracy of raising the compulsory age of retirement for magistrates.

The Impact Assessment and Equality Statement, published as part of our Judicial Mandatory Retirement Age consultation, outlined our assessment of the potential effects of our proposals to raise the mandatory retirement age for judicial office holders, including magistrates. Our analysis suggests that raising the mandatory retirement age could help to retain valuable judicial resource and expertise but that there could be a small impact on the diversity growth of the magistracy. We anticipate that any adverse impact will be offset by our ongoing work to recruit more diverse magistrates.