Ministers shrug off top judge's attack on reforms

The Government today stood firm on its controversial plan to set up a supreme court - shrugging off a ferocious attack from the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf.

Lord Woolf said proposals for a supreme court to replace the House of Lords as the highest court in the land would create a "second-class" institution which was the "poor relation" of others around the world.

He also stepped up his condemnation of ministers' plans to bar the courts from reviewing asylum cases, calling the move a "blot on the reputation of the Government" which could trigger a campaign for a written constitution.

His onslaught was dismissed by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, whose department swiftly signalled there would be no retreat. In his speech at Cambridge University, Lord Woolf, the most senior judge in England and Wales, said the proposals by David Blunkett to reform the asylum appeals system were "fundamentally in conflict with the rule of law".

He backed calls to delay the asylum changes - which would stop failed asylum seekers going to the High Court for judicial reviews - adding: "It is particularly regrettable that the Lord Chancellor ... should find it acceptable to have responsibility for promoting this clause."