The Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, this week rejected the justice select committee's report into the creation of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), rebutting claims that it was of constitutional-level importance, and sidestepped whether Whitehall should have had 'proper consultation and informed debate both inside and outside Parliament'.


The committee said in a report this summer that the creation of the MoJ was a constitutional change that required consultation, that the government had failed to learn 'crucial lessons' from the way the Constitutional Reform Act was handled, and that the move had created a 'highly undesirable' spat between the senior judiciary and Lord Falconer.



But Mr Straw, in a government response published this week, said while the 'major changes' in that Act, including the end of the role of the Lord Chancellor as head of the judiciary, 'can rightly be said to have been of constitutional importance', setting up the MoJ 'was predominantly a machinery of government change', a stance the justice committee has consistently rejected.



As to the relationship between Whitehall and the judiciary, Mr Straw said he agreed that 'public conflict between the judiciary and the executive is highly undesirable'. But on the question of how to fix this, he reiterated his regular refrain that he takes his role and the relationship with the judiciary 'very seriously indeed' and that he is 'working closely with them to resolve matters of concern'.



Mr Straw's response sidestepped the committee's criticism about a lack of consultation by considering it with the constitutional question, without addressing whether the government should have consulted on the move either way.



Rupert White