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Her Majesty The Queen has approved the appointment of 119 new Queen’s Counsel. Alongside the advocates being appointed QC, Her Majesty has also approved the appointment of seven new Queen’s Counsel Honoris Causa (listed below).

The Lord Chancellor will preside over the appointment ceremony, where the rank will be formally bestowed upon successful applicants, at Westminster Hall on 26 February 2018.

Lord Chancellor David Lidington said:

I commend each of the 119 barristers and solicitors, alongside the seven Honorary Queen’s Counsel, on their appointments. The award of the title of Queen’s Counsel is a recognition of depth of expertise and eminence in their fields. It is this expertise that gives the English legal system its world-leading reputation.

Notes to editors

1. The list of 2017 to 2018 Queen’s Counsel appointments
2. The 119 Queen’s Counsel (QC) (also known as silks) appointments includes:
   • 32 women applicants of the 50 that applied. Last year, 31 out of 56 female applicants were successful;
   • 18 applicants who declared an ethnic origin other than white of the 33 that applied. Last year 16 such applicants out of 37 were appointed;
   • 21 applicants aged over 50 were appointed. Last year 20 such applicants were appointed. The youngest successful applicant is 34-years-old and the oldest is 63; and
   • Five solicitor advocates of the 10 who applied. In the previous competition six solicitor advocates were appointed.
3. QCs are appointed by The Queen, on the advice of the Lord Chancellor. He is in turn advised by an independent Selection Panel which receives and considers each application and makes recommendations as to appointment.
4. For further information, please call the Ministry of Justice press office on 020 3334 5422. Follow us @MoJGovUK.

Honorary Queen’s Counsel biographies

Professor Michael Bridge

A leading academic and Fellow of the British Academy. Professor Bridge has made a major contribution to the law of England and Wales relating to the sale of goods, in particular as editor of the leading textbook in this area and writer of numerous important articles. He has also written major texts and articles on contract law, international sale, personal property law, credit and security, and private international law. He is also a Bencher of the Middle Temple; emeritus Cassel Professor of Commercial Law at the London School of Economics; Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford; Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London; and Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore.

Professor Louise Gullifer

Director of the Commercial Law Centre at Harris Manchester College, Oxford and also Director of the Secured Transaction Law Reform Project. As well as being Professor of Commercial Law at Oxford, she is Professor of International Commercial Law at Radboud University, Nijmegen. She is part of the UK delegation to UNCITRAL Working Group VI and the UNIDROIT committee of Governmental Experts on the MAC Protocol to the Cape Town Convention. She has made a major contribution to the law of England and Wales in terms of the breadth of her work both within academia and outside.

Dr Charles Harpum

A barrister and former academic who served as a Law Commissioner and made a major contribution to the law of England and Wales as a significant architect in the shaping of the Land Registration Act 2002.

Janet Legrand

A former Senior Partner and current interim Global Co-Chair of a major law firm, Janet Legrand is also a pioneer in enhancing the role of women in the law, promoting social mobility, diversity and inclusion within her firm and the wider profession through the board of PRIME. In her legal practice she represents Governments in international disputes. Beyond the law she is Chair of the Trustee Board of The Children’s Society, a member of Council of City University of London, a Trustee of its Students’ Union, a member of the Audit Committee of the University of Cambridge, a Marshall Aid Commemoration Commissioner and board member of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.

Professor Nigel Lowe

Professor Lowe has done a mixture of international work and family law and is particularly known for his work relating to the Hague Convention. He has authored a number of books, including some of “rare authority and timeless value”, and is considered a leading academic.

Professor Nicola Padfield

Professor of Criminal and Penal Justice at the University of Cambridge and Master of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. In addition to her academic work, she sat as a Recorder from 2002-2014. She is a Bencher of the Middle Temple, and is currently Vice-Chair of its Education and Training Committee. She has made a huge contribution to the criminal justice system in a practical capacity, in addition to her work in academia, where her research focuses on sentencing and parole.

Professor Maurice Sunkin

Professor of Public Law and Socio Legal Studies at the University of Essex, an Associate Member of Landmark Chambers, London, and General Editor of the journal Public Law. He has pioneered an empirical approach to the law and undertaken a number of leading studies of the use, operation and effects of judicial review in England and Wales. He has acted as Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution and is currently chair of the United Kingdom Administrative Justice Institute, a national research body based at the University of Essex, and Co Director of an ESRC funded project on the human rights implications of big data and new technologies, also based at Essex.

This follows the announcement in October 2017 that all customer telephone lines would be free to call by the end of the year.

Work and Pensions Secretary of State David Gauke said:

People can access support online and our Jobcentre Plus work coaches can also provide help accessing our benefits and services. But we also understand that at times people may need to speak to someone on the telephone.

We want this process to be as accessible as possible and that’s why we have made all DWP customer telephone lines Freephone numbers.

The introduction of Freephone numbers started with Universal Credit helplines on 29 November 2017 and was completed when the final set of numbers were introduced on 21 December 2017.

Follow DWP on:

• Twitter – www.twitter.com/dwppressoffice
• Facebook – www.facebook.com/dwp
• LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/company/dwp
• YouTube – www.youtube.com/dwp

The charity watchdog has today published a report of its statutory inquiry into Deen Team – this sets out the regulatory action it has taken including that it has disqualified an individual from being a trustee for 4 years.

The Commission opened an inquiry into Deen Team in June 2016. The charity had previously been identified for a proactive visit, in 2014, as it was a newly registered charity operating in Syria, a high-risk area. Following that visit the Commission had a number of concerns about the charity regarding poor governance and financial controls and issued the trustees with regulatory advice and guidance. The Commission attempted to re-engage with the trustees in 2015, but following poor cooperation from the trustees it subsequently opened an inquiry to investigate these further.

Throughout the inquiry the Commission attempted to obtain evidence from the trustees to show how the charity’s funds had been applied. The trustees were unable to provide complete records and therefore failed to meet their legal duty to account for how they had used all the charity’s funds.

The inquiry also found that:

• the individual disqualified by the Commission had paid themselves £2,000 from the charity’s funds and was unable to provide records to support their claim that this was to cover charity fundraising and administration costs
• all decision-making was deferred to the disqualified individual; two other individuals who became trustees after the Commission initially engaged with the charity were unaware of their legal duties
• a former trustee of the charity continued to use a property that the charity rented at a nominal rate of £1 for their own purposes without the consent of the charity’s trustees. The charity’s existing trustees did not appreciate and acknowledge the asset’s value to the charity and failed to protect it from the conduct of the former trustee

Throughout the inquiry, the disqualified individual failed to comply and cooperate with the Commission or to respond to a number of legal directions and orders made by the Commission.

As a result of the misconduct and/or mismanagement identified in the inquiry, the Commission has used its power under section 181A of the Charities Act 2011 to disqualify the individual from being a charity trustee or holding a senior management position within a charity for four years. Further details can be found in the report.

The Commission has removed the charity from the register as based on information provided by the trustees and obtained during the inquiry it considers that the charity has ceased to operate.

Michelle Russell, Director of Investigations, Monitoring and Enforcement at the Charity Commission said:

Trustees are collectively responsible for how their charity is run and all trustees should be aware of their basic duties and take them seriously. Trustees can delegate certain responsibilities to staff members or individual trustees but they must always retain sufficient oversight and not allow one person to effectively take over control of the charity. Having multiple trustees is essential so that trustees can challenge each other and hold each other to account where necessary, ensuring that decisions are made only in the best interests of the charity.

Charity trustees must keep detailed accounting records to allow them to show exactly how they have used their charity’s money, and how what they have spent it on furthers the charity’s purposes. This is essential to charities being accountable and transparent to donors, the public and the regulator. In this case, the trustees of Deen Team were not able to do this and we have therefore exercised our regulatory powers.

The Commission’s full report of its inquiry into Deen Team is available on GOV.UK.

Ends

PR 82/17

Notes to editors

1. The Charity Commission is the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales. To find out more about our work, see the about us page on GOV.UK.
2. Search for charities on our check charity tool.
3. The new discretionary disqualification power in section 181A of the Charities Act 2011 brought in by the Charites Act 2016 allows the regulator to disqualify a person it considers unfit from being a trustee, for a maximum period of 15 years.