Part 2 defines new criteria for appointment as a judge, generally reducing the length of experience required with the aim of increasing diversity in the judiciary.

Part 3 creates a new system of taking control of goods in order to enforce judgments and abolishes ancient common law writs and remedies such as fieri facias, replevin and distress for rent.

Part 5 makes some changes to insolvency practice in order to provide low-cost protection for people who have previously been excluded owing to their small debts and lack of assets.

Part 6 provides protection from seizure for foreign antiquities and artefacts on display in the UK and whose provenance is alleged to be broken by misappropriation.

They concluded that the qualifications required to serve as a judge were a barrier to a broader judiciary and recommended that they be varied, in particular by shortening the period of legal practice demanded before seeking office.

[14][15] The Act creates a judicial-appointment eligibility condition that a person (s.50(2)-(3)):[15] Relevant qualification is as a barrister or solicitor (s. 50) though the Lord Chancellor can extend this to members of the Institute of Legal Executives or other bodies (s. 51).

Further, general concern about unlawful, violent and threatening behaviour by bailiffs led to a Department for Constitutional Affairs White Paper proposing modernisation and regulation.

This situation was perceived as offering opportunities for the debtor to dispose of valuable property while making modest instalments in the short term.

[16][19] Section 91 and Schedule 15 amend the Attachment of Earnings Act 1971 to allow deductions to be made on the basis of a fixed rate, similar to the scheme already used for Council Tax arrears.

Section 92 amends the 1971 Act to give the court the power to seek information on the details of a debtor's current employer from HM Revenue and Customs.

Section 94 gives the Lord Chancellor the power to make regulations setting minimum limits on the value of debts where these provisions can be used to prevent their being invoked unfairly or vexatiously.

[3][4][5][6][7] Consultation by the Department for Constitutional Affairs suggested that some people, especially those with small debts and few assets, were excluded from the existing schemes for insolvency protection.

[20][21][22] The act makes changes to the schemes for AOs and EROs so that they are available to a broader class of people in financial difficulties (ss.

[6] The possibility that antiquities and cultural artifacts, sometimes allegedly misappropriated by their current custodians, would be seized by court order while on display in the UK, led to an increasing reluctance of foreign states and private individuals to allow loans for exhibitions.

[24] Such uncertainties caused diplomatic tensions over a proposed loan of art works from Russia for an exhibition at the Royal Academy in December 2007.

[25] In particular, there was speculation that there might be attempts to seize Henri Matisse's The Dance which had been appropriated by the Bolshevik government from Sergei Shchukin during the Russian Revolution.

[26] The new provisions of this section of the Act came into force on 31 December[4] and the Russian government gave permission for the paintings to travel to the UK and for the exhibition to go ahead on 9 January 2008.

[27] Section 135 defines the articles to be protected as those normally kept and owned outside the UK, lawfully imported for display or exhibition at an approved museum or gallery.