The Lord Chancellor and first Secretary of State for Justice sits at the pinnacle of the justice system. He wields huge power over the public: he is in charge of policy on courts, legal aid, prisons and the Probation Service, sentencing, the criminal law and constitutional affairs. Unlike previous holders of the office he no longer heads the judiciary. Straw is the most experienced and oldest (born 1946) politician in Cabinet — he has been both Home and Foreign Secretary as well as Leader of the Commons — and can set the course, within his time of office and budget constraints, for the profession and wider justice system. He went to Leeds University and was active in student politics, famously serving as president of the National Union of Students from 1969 to 1971. A year later he was called to the Bar and despite claiming still to be nervous each time he enters Lincoln’s Inn, his career as a barrister was short-lived; he has been in politics almost continuously since 1974. He won public sympathy when it emerged that his 17-year-old son had sold cannabis to a newspaper reporter. At present he is overseeing the Government’s constitutional reforms while keeping the crisis of prison overcrowding at bay. More emollient with the judges than his predecessor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, he has done a deal with the judges on a new framework for joint running of the courts.

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