PM stands by reshuffle shake-up
Tony Blair has defended his decision to abolish the traditional role of Lord Chancellor and the separate Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales in last week’s reshuffle.
Delivering a statement to the Commons this afternoon, the Prime Minister told MPs that the changes were ‘essential acts of constitutional modernisation,’ which built on the success of devolution, human rights and freedom of information legislation and Lords reform.
The major changes to the functioning of government include the shifting of the Welsh and Scottish Offices into the new Department for Constitutional Affairs, and the abolition of the role of the Lord Chancellor in favour in order to separate the executive from the judiciary.
The PM’s statement – which had been requested by the Speaker of the Commons – follows widespread criticism over the manner in which last week’s reshuffle and the announcement of key constitutional changes was carried out .
Defending the abolition of the Lord Chancellor’s role in a riotous Commons this afternoon, Mr Blair insisted that it was ‘increasingly anomalous’ for a minister to choose judges.
But pointing to the proposed independent judicial appointments commission, he insisted that this new body, as well as the establishment of an independent supreme court, would be subject to consultation over the summer recess.
Both would require legislation, giving Parliament ‘ample time to debate them,’ he stressed.
As for the role of Speaker of the Lords, peers had been invited to choose their own chair by a process that they would determine, the PM assured.
On the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales, the Prime Minister said that there was ‘no longer a requirement’ for these posts to stand separately, defending their amalgamation into the new Department for Constitutional Affairs.
Responding to the statement, Conservative leader Iain Duncan-Smith described the PM’s shake-up as the most ‘botched, bungled and damaged reshuffle of all time’.
He criticised the planned abolition of the Lord Chancellor’s position, arguing that the Prime Minister had acted as though the UK constitution was his ‘personal plaything’. Stressing that his party was not ‘afraid of change’, he recognised that the constitution was constantly evolving.
However, the constitution should be changed only after thought, consideration and proper debate, he stressed.
