Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the report by the University of Manchester entitled Racial Bias and the Bench, published in November 2022, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the implications for its policies of the findings on the adequacy of the level of take-up of race training by legal professionals; and if he will take steps with the (a) Lady Chief Justice and (b) Chief Coroner to increase the take-up of this training.

Everyone has a right to be confident in the justice system, regardless of their background. In 2023, the government published an update to the Inclusive Britain Strategy – our ambitious response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities Report – which included the important work we are doing to improve diversity in the judiciary and magistracy.

To preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lady Chief Justice, the Senior President of the Tribunals, and the Chief Coroner have statutory responsibility for judicial training, under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and Coroners and Justice Act 2009 respectively, exercised through the Judicial College.

The legal profession in England and Wales is independent of Government. Legal professional training and statutory responsibility for encouraging a diverse legal profession sits with the approved regulators, overseen by the oversight regulator, the Legal Services Board.