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Post-election shake up at Ministry of Justice
Prime minister David Cameron has appointed a new ministerial team at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
Led by the new Lord Chancellor, Michael Gove MP, current ministers, Mike Penning MP (his portfolio is held jointly with the Home Office), Shailesh Vara MP and Lord Faulks QC remain in their posts. They will be joined by new faces to the MoJ, MPs Andrew Selous, Dominic Raab and Caroline Dinenage. Dinenage’s post will be a joint appointment with the Department for Education.
LAG understands that solicitor Vara (pictured) will continue to hold the legal aid, courts and regulation brief.
Lord Faulks (pictured), who is responsible for MoJ policy in the Lords, is likely to play a key role in trying to steer any legislation to repeal the Human Rights Act (see June 2015 Legal Action 3) through the upper chamber.
Gove (pictured) has a combative reputation due to his time as the Secretary of State for Education, a post he was removed from amid some controversy last year in a reshuffle. Like his immediate predecessor, Chris Grayling, Gove has no legal qualification. Before entering politics he was a journalist, spending four years as a reporter at the BBC before becoming a writer and editor with The Times, from 1996 to his election as an MP in 2005.
■ One of the new Lord Chancellor’s first tasks may be to deal with protests by Criminal Bar Association members, who have voted for a campaign of ‘no returns’ and days of action. Some 1,385 of the CBA’s 4,000-strong membership voted in the ballot (a response rate of 35 per cent), of which 96 per cent were in favour of action.