Charles Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton

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The Rt Hon. The Lord Falconer

Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain
Succeeded by	Incumbent

Born	19 November 1951
Political party	Labour

Charles Leslie Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton, PC, QC (born 19 November 1951) is a British barrister and Labour Party politician. In June 2003 he became the Lord Chancellor and the first Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (a position created originally to replace the position of Lord Chancellor).

Educated at the Edinburgh Academy, Trinity College, Glenalmond, and Queens' College, Cambridge, Falconer became a flatmate of Tony Blair when they were both young barristers in London in the late 1970s in Wandsworth. They had first met as pupils at rival schools in the 1960s. At school, he dated Amanda Mackenzie Stuart, an ex-girlfriend of Blair's, immediately when she became single. While Blair went into politics, Falconer concentrated on his legal career. They met up again in 1976 when working as barristers in the same building. He practised from Fountain Court Chambers in London, and becoming a Queen's Counsel in 1991. He married privately-educated Marianna Hildyard, a barrister as well in 1985 [1]. Her father, D.H.T. Hildyard, was the British Ambassador to Chile in Santiago. She became a QC in 2002. They have four children: Hamish, William, Rosie and Johnnie. Hamish is at St John's College at Cambridge. They have an £2.5m house and a £250,000 basement flat in Islington. They also have a £550,000 country retreat in Thoroton (between Bingham and Bottesford in Nottinghamshire). His father used to live in the village, and they rent out his old home[2].

Having had a privileged education and upbringing himself, he placed his daughter and three sons at independent Westminster School [3]. Tony Blair later used teachers from this school to privately tutor his children. This proved to be an electoral problem when he tried to be selected for the seat of Dudley East before the 1997 election, which had been held by John Gilbert. He intended to keep his children at Westminster if selected, which caused the local selection panel to drop him from the admittance procedure. He could afford the fees easily; he earned around £500,000 annually.

In May 1997 Blair became Prime Minister and Falconer was made a life peer as Baron Falconer of Thoroton, of Thoroton in the County of Nottinghamshire (he was the first peer created on Blair's recommendation), and joined the government as Solicitor General. In 1998 he became Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, taking over responsibility for the Millennium Dome after the resignation of Peter Mandelson. He was heavily criticised for the failure of the Dome to attract an audience, but resisted calls for his resignation.

He joined the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions as Minister for Housing, Planning and Regeneration after the 2001 election and moved on to the Home Office in 2002. At the Home Office he was responsible for criminal justice, sentencing and law reform, and annoyed some of his fellow lawyers by suggesting that their fees were too high.

In 2003 he joined the Cabinet as the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, becoming also Lord Chancellor 'for the interim period' before the office was abolished. The government argued that the position of a cabinet minister as a Judge and Head of the Judiciary was no longer appropriate and would not be upheld by the European Convention on Human Rights. The announcement was generally seen as a rushed one as the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor would require primary legislation. Removing the Lord Chancellor's judicial role was a policy known to be disliked by Lord Irvine of Lairg, the previous Lord Chancellor.

The post of Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs took over the remaining responsibilities of the Lord Chancellor, and also became the sponsoring Department for the Secretary of State for Wales and the Secretary of State for Scotland. Falconer announced his intention not to use the Lord Chancellor's power to sit as a judge and stopped wearing the traditional robe and wig of office. Falconer hoped to be the last to hold the title, ending 1,400 years of tradition. However, Lord Falconer has said to a House of Lords select committee he now "regrets" campaigning for the historic role of Lord Chancellor to be abolished. He even joked about reinstating the traditional practice - abolished by his predecessor Lord Irvine - of making the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshall walk backwards ahead of the Queen to show respect. "I was keen to walk backwards, but was told I could not because all the other people now walked forwards and I would look like a crazed... I would be a very, very odd Lord Chancellor on that basis," Lord Falconer told the committee.

In a recent radio address on the BBC, he rejected calls for an English parliament to represent the people of England despite the fact that Scotland has its own parliament (see West Lothian Question.)

[edit] Freedom of Information Act

In his role as constitutional affairs secretary, Lord Falconer has sought to make it easier for government bodies to refuse to release documents under the Freedom of Information Act (2000), on the grounds that they are too expensive and too time-consuming for civil servants to find. Currently, the legislation allows requests for information to be refused if the cost they will incure exceeds £600 for Whitehall and £450 for other public bodies. Lord Falconer's proposed changes would make no difference to this level, but would expand the number of activities that would be included in the totals, making it easier for government parties to refuse requests for information. At the end of March 2007, Falconer's department announced that it would not introduce the proposals to parliament, but would instead have a second three-month consultation with the public (the previous consultation, also of three months, ended three weeks previous to this). Media elements reported this change as a 'backtracking', and Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, was quoted as saying 'This raises the strong possibility that the government will decide to leave the current arrangements untouched.'[4]

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Charles Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton

Legal Offices
Preceded by Sir Derek Spencer	Solicitor General for England and Wales 1997–1998	Succeeded by Ross Cranston
Political offices
Preceded by The Lord Irvine of Lairg	Lord Chancellor 2003–	Incumbent
New Title New Office	Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs 2003–	Incumbent
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by The Lord Irvine of Lairg Lord Chancellor	Presiding Officer in the House of Lords Lord Chancellor 2003–2006	Succeeded by The Baroness Hayman Lord Speaker

Order of precedence in the United Kingdom
Preceded by The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury	United Kingdom Order of Precedence (gentlemen) (England and Wales)	Succeeded by The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. The Lord Archbishop of York
Preceded by Ivan McKay	United Kingdom Order of Precedence (gentlemen) (Northern Ireland)
Preceded by Sheriff Principal (within term and bounds of Sherriffdom)	United Kingdom Order of Precedence (gentlemen) (Scotland)	Succeeded by The Rt. Rev. Alan McDonald