Lord Justice Potter, Ladies, Gentlemen; I am pleased to have the chance to share a few of my own thoughts with you before your day gets under way. Mine takes me straight from here to the State Opening, so you'll forgive me for not remaining to hear some of the discussions. I am sure that I hardly need emphasise how important the subject of today's conference is to me personally - and to Lord Falconer also.
You, and your predecessors, and mine too, have been talking about the need for greater diversity for many, many years. The first anti-discrimination legislation was put on the Statute book more than thirty years ago. Since then, Governments have had to bring more and more legislation forward to address the persistent problem of inequality and discrimination. In some quarters we are clearly succeeding, in some it has gone ‘underground', and in some it is institutional.
As you know, the Government intends to create a single Commission for Equality and Human Rights. In itself that is no mean feat, and in some ways it would be easier to leave things as they are - but we firmly believe that attitudes that beget discrimination arise from the same unwholesome origins and need to be tackled strategically and systemically. The new Commission will take that forward.
What of our own profession, the Law? In 1984 the Bar Council set up the first of its three diversity committees, to deal with Race and Religion. This was followed in 1991 by one for Disability and in 1992 by one for Gender, Sexual Orientation and Age. And in 1995, they unanimously adopted a detailed equality code.
The Law Society has also placed equality and diversity at the heart of its agenda. The Solicitor's Support Network is made up of a number of bodies recognised by, but independent from, the Law Society. Groups such as the Black Solicitors' Network set up in 1995, and the Group for Solicitors with Disabilities, which was set up in 1989 form part of this support network.
I welcome all these initiatives, and others that I have not mentioned. But somehow - whilst the messages, the principles, the values of diversity are widely accepted - in reality, diversity is permeating the dense structures of our legal professions only very slowly. We need to speed up the process.
This event is designed not just as an opportunity to talk about the need for a diverse profession - which we all accept - but also to look at the barriers, systems and attitudes, both real and perceived, that prevent a diverse profession becoming a reality. I hope that you will be able to come up with some practical approaches to address these issues.
When I joined the DCA last July, it was my great privilege that one of my first meetings as minister was to discuss women in the profession with Mrs Justice Linda Dobbs, Dame Brenda Hale and Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss.
You know as well as I do why diversity is important. Only through diversity can we harness the wide range of talents and experiences that exist in this country. It is not just about equality, it is good for business. The more diverse the legal sector is, the more representative it is. A representative profession better understands the needs of the consumers. And those consumers are becoming more aware, and more demanding every day.
Unfortunately, if you understand the need for diversity you also know about barriers to entry. Let's not kid ourselves, barriers exist and they obstruct talented solicitors and barristers from reaching the height of their chosen profession.
According to Law Society figures in 2003, there are more black or minority ethnic solicitors than ever. This is the good news. But let's not get over-excited. Whilst those figures show that just over 25%, or 2,620, students studying their law degree are from a black or ethnic minority background - which is good news, those same figures show that just under 8% of solicitors with practising certificates in 2003 were from an ethnic minority background. So, I have to ask myself, what are the opportunities for these students entering one of the most competitive careers in the market place?
And of course, these sorts of diversity questions don't only apply to the Solicitors profession. As we look at the number of barristers at the self-employed Bar a similar picture emerges. 10% of the self-employed Bar are from an ethnic minority background and 14% of the employed Bar are from an ethnic minority background.
It is a fact that women and ethnic minorities have to fight as hard as ever to enter the profession. And once part of the profession they have to battle even harder if they are to reach the top of the profession. When I meet law students, they are not talking about going to law school, they are talking about going to the Russell Group of Universities. When they talk about entering the legal profession, they are talking about going to the top ten city firms or leading commercial chambers. When they talk about career progression they talk about partnership, and not just in family or immigration and asylum.
We would all agree that it is a great profession to be in. It is one I fought hard to be part of. But I still remember sitting in Inner City Tottenham, filling in forms. I was quite sure that my N17 postcode would be a bar to getting in.
I have no regrets about entering the legal profession, and I have no doubts that other young black lawyers like myself, women, or those with disabilities, can contribute greatly to our society.
Sadly, some people still seem to think that there is some sort of dividing line between race and merit. Suspicions are always aroused if you so far as mention increasing diversity, as if that means opening up the floodgates to any wannabe's who tick the right boxes. That should never be the case. Merit must always be the first basis of appointing lawyers and barristers, or for that matter, judges. People need a representative legal profession that they can trust.
Merit and diversity don't have to sit at opposite ends of the table. We can have a strong, independent, profession and judiciary, which is also diverse. As I said in Parliament, in seconding the Queen's Speech last year, I am never anonymous. Black people in working life elsewhere say the same thing.
I want to see the top law firms and top chambers take a leading role in diversity. I am very pleased to see that there are several representatives from those firms here today. If people from non-traditional backgrounds can see the leaders of the profession setting the standard, then this will hopefully encourage smaller firms and chambers to try and keep pace. We need to maintain momentum and pressure in this area.
Recruitment should be open and fair, but most importantly it should be available to those from all backgrounds. We need to be more creative, frankly, in the ways we reach out to students so that we encompass all students including those from non-traditional backgrounds. We need to recruit from a wide pool - new and old universities, traditional and non-traditional backgrounds. Yes, lawyers need a good qualification in the Law, but aside from that they can bring with them a whole range of experiences and talent to the job.
When people ask me how I became a Government Minister and how I became a lawyer, I am really grateful to DJ Freeman for sponsoring part of going to Harvard, and to lawyers in Peterborough for mentoring me. Without this help I wouldn't be here.
Why, when Ethnic minority students win places in top law firms are they being channelled into less commercial areas of law? They work hard to qualify. They work hard to get training contracts. Just like all law students do. Yet they find themselves caught in the centre of a corporate maze, where the exit routes are too often career dead ends. They have neither the contacts nor the networks that other lawyers are able to rely on.
And why, when people do get training contracts, do male trainees receive a salary, on average, 7.9% higher than women trainees.
And it's not just recruitment where changes need to occur. Retention policies also need revision. The discussion paper that you have before you today, has specifically highlighted the difficulties faced by ethnic minority employees and women, especially in promotion opportunities with in larger Law firms. This is not good enough. What we certainly do not want to see are students from non-traditional backgrounds being dissuaded from pursuing a career in law because they believe that their career path will be limited. Let's stamp this out.
Career progression should be equal for all, regardless of sex, background or ethnic origin. But career progression chosen by the individual, not the system. The system is dictating that path for too many. In the same way that we would not be happy with women lawyers being channelled into family law, we should not be content with black and ethnic minority lawyers finding only that they're doing asylum and immigration work.
So why are students from new universities not being offered the levels of professional sponsorship that those from old universities are being offered? The available data we have suggests that 78% of students from Oxbridge have their fees paid by a professional sponsor compared to just 27% from new universities. Are we satisfied with that dividing line? Is it any wonder then, that students who achieve excellent results but go to a new university don't succeed when firms do not sponsor them?
So for those people who say the barriers don't exist, let's imagine a young black man, from an inner city area. None of his family or friends are lawyers. But he wants to be one. He works hard, he gets good grades, but doesn't attend a red brick university, but he can't get any work placements because he doesn't have any contacts in the profession. So he doesn't get a city contract because of his lack of experience, and if he does become a lawyer, he will probably be channelled into less commercial work.
What are the big law firms and chambers doing to ensure they have a more diverse make-up? It is not enough to import diversity from overseas, or sit back and hope that the problem will fix itself. To be told that the top ten firms think that keeping figures on their BME lawyers would be ‘intrusive', as an excuse for not facing up to the issue simply. If those with the resources at their disposal can't lead the way, how can we expect others to?
I know this all sounds very critical of the profession, and I want to say some really excellent work is being done. For example the Crown Prosecution Service's Law Scholarship Scheme, launched by Harriet Harman last year, or the Legal Services Commission sponsorship scheme. The Law Society and Bar Council have introduced a number of initiatives, such as the diversity access scheme, which I was delighted to launch last year and the Bar's ‘Speakers for Schools', and University Visits schemes are very worthy.
But let's be quite clear. The reason these schemes were created was to overcome the barriers that exist in the system and they are only touching the tip of the iceberg. More needs to be done. The legal profession should be taking a leading role and setting an example to the other professions when it comes to recruitment and retention. My own Department has just launched a consultation on diversity in the judiciary. It is a sign that things are changing at the DCA - new thinking is being injected.
Whilst the make-up of the professions is, and will, continue to change, the solution does not lie simply in the passage of time. I want to lift the barriers to entry and progression. To pull down the glass ceilings. To re-direct the dead-ends. We have got to help people jump over the obstacles that exist.
This afternoon a series of seminar groups have been arranged to look at how we might do this in practice. These discussions will cover 4 broad areas;
It can only be a beginning, but I hope that genuine changes will come, and that women, ethnic minorities and the disabled will benefit from it.
Thank you.