The House of Lords select committee on the government's Constitutional Reform Bill has failed to agree to its most important proposals, it announced last week.

The Bill seeks to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor, to create a supreme court, and to reform the judicial appointments system, but only the last of these was broadly agreed by the committee.


It was divided on the proposals to transfer powers from the Lord Chancellor to the secretary of state for constitutional affairs, and did not agree on whether provisions for guaranteeing judicial independence in the Bill were adequate. The committee also disagreed on whether to replace the Law Lords with a supreme court.


However, it did agree that a judicial appointments commission should be set up to recommend the appointment of judges to a supreme court and that the secretary of state should then make the appointments.


The Bill will be debated by Parliament this month. It was instigated in the House of Lords and has yet to be debated in the Commons.


The failure of the select committee to agree a way forward came after the current independent Commission for Judicial Appointments published a heavily critical report on the way senior judges are appointed.


The commission said the current system is 'opaque, outdated and not demonstrably based upon merit', adding that it needed a complete overhaul before any further judges are selected.


Key findings from its audit of the 2003 High Court competition included substantial inequalities in the treatment of candidates, as well as a substantial inbuilt bias towards silks and against circuit court judges and solicitors.


Peter Williamson, the Law Society President, said: 'The Law Society strongly supports the main principles of the Bill... it is essential that it now gets through Parliament as rapidly as possible.'