Leading lawyers and academics have called on the Government to end the commercial bar’s dominance of top judicial posts, warning that failure to tackle the issue will cause major difficulties for the new Supreme Court.

Speaking this month at a Legal Week/Maitland Chambers roundtable debate, held to discuss the Government’s proposals for a radical overhaul of the UK legal system, former Bar Council chairman Lord Brennan said that the current bench of Law Lords was too commercially focused.