THE government last night pledged to push ahead with plans to scrap the post of Lord Chancellor and set up a UK-wide supreme court, despite defeat in the House of Lords.
Downing Street said ministers remained "convinced" the plans were right and were determined to see them introduced after they were blocked by peers on Monday night.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the government had a "very clear ide
a of how to progress", but would not rush into announcing its plans.
Peter Hain, the Commons leader, has threatened to reintroduce the Constitutional Reform Bill in the Commons and invoke the Parliament Act to force it through.
However, there is some doubt that could be achieved before the general election, expected next year.
The government’s reassertion of its policy came as Scotland’s most senior judge, Lord Cullen of Whitekirk, told a committee of the Scottish Parliament that he saw no need for a supreme court.
Lord Cullen, the Lord Justice General and Lord President of the Court of Session, said ministers had caused "resentment" by the way they had announced the plans.
And he told Holyrood’s justice 2 committee that the government had decided to press ahead with the policy without sufficient public debate.
The Law Lords currently act as the final court of appeal for all UK jurisdictions in civil cases and for England, Wales and Northern Ireland in criminal cases. The bill would remove this function from the Law Lords, replacing them with a supreme court as the final court of appeal. It would also scrap the ancient post of Lord Chancellor and set up a judicial appointments committee.
The government was defeated after Monday night’s debate as peers voted to delay sending the bill to the Commons, by diverting it first to a special Lords select committee for extra scrutiny, amid claims the reforms were being unnecessarily rushed.
Lord Cullen, who warned in the second reading debate in the Lords that the legislation could threaten the independence of Scots law, yesterday repeated his calls for those concerns to be addressed.
"When the consultation paper came out last year, the government stated what was to happen as a matter of policy, not as a constitutional question, which is an extraordinary situation," he said. "That, I think, was widely resented, and that resentment was all too evident in the Lords debate."
Lord Cullen insisted the current arrangements worked "perfectly well".
"What we have is the result of an accumulation of experience, conventions and practice, over many, many years; so the question is, what’s the need?
"The whole problem is when there is so much uncertainty about how much it’s going to cost, where is the location going to be, and who’s going to pay for it, the proposal acquires an air of uncertainty.
"And we shouldn’t be on the threshold of something pretty fundamental, that’s meant to last for years and years, in a complete state of uncertainty."
Lord Cullen called for Scots law to be protected in statute, in the text of the bill, rather than by "ministerial assurances".
The Lords stand-off on Monday came after peers voted to send the bill to a special select committee after concern from a powerful coalition of Law Lords, including the Lord Chief Justice and Tory peers.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said the vote was a "serious matter". Ministers regard the move as an attempt to wreck the bill.
The spokesman said: "We continue to want to make progress and achieve the reforms which we have set out to achieve. Following last night, we need to reflect on how we are going to achieve that result. That we will do."
He said the will of the Commons should be heard. Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, also underlined the government’s determination to see its plans through. "We are determined to reform the process, for example, by which judges are appointed; we are determined that there should be a supreme court.
"What we need to do is use existing processes to ensure that we can have the bill properly considered by both Houses of Parliament."
Oliver Heald, the shadow leader of the Commons, said the government wanted to use its Commons majority to stifle the justified criticisms of the judges and constitutional experts in the House of Lords. "What Labour should be doing is discussing sensible arrangements for this bill in the House of Lords rather than abusing the system and childishly taking its ball home," he said.
