Woolf warning on Home Office change

Former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf said that the Whitehall shake-up represented a major change in the constitution and should be carefully considered rather than "scrambled" through.

The reform, due to come into effect next month, will move Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer into a new Ministry of Justice with responsibility not only for the judiciary but for prisons, probation and preventing reoffending. The Home Office, under Home Secretary John Reid, will focus on fighting crime, handling immigration and counter-terrorism.

Lord Woolf told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, in an interview broadcast on Tuesday: "We should work it out beforehand and not wait until we have created the change and then somehow or other try to scramble to get it into place. This is a very big change for our constitution."

Lord Woolf's comments come shortly after he warned the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee that the division of the Home Office should be planned carefully to avoid repeating old problems in the new department.

Lord Woolf said that Britain's unwritten constitution, which was the guarantor of individual liberties, was being changed without public consultation. This left him "concerned for our well-being as a nation", he said.

He told Today that the creation of the new Ministry of Justice threatened relations between the Lord Chancellor and the judiciary.

"My concern in relation to this new Ministry of Justice is that it might, if it is absorbing what was previously the bulk of matters that the Home Office dealt with, be unable to have the sort of relationship we hitherto have had with the Lord Chancellor.

"There is close co-operation on matters where this is appropriate between the Lord Chancellor of the day and the judiciary.

"This arises from what is now history, but is still an important influence - the fact that the Lord Chancellor was head of the judiciary, so it is natural that the judiciary should listen to what he has to say and talk to him in confidence about their concerns. If the Lord Chancellor is watered down as to his traditional roles because of these new responsibilities he is being given, that would be worrying from this regard."