In a swearing-in speech published by the Attorney General's Office, Ellie Reeves used the ceremony to set out a working brief for her time as Attorney General. The speech placed three themes in the foreground: protection of judicial independence, stronger delivery for victims, and a renewed effort to improve public confidence in the justice system. Although ceremonial in form, the remarks read as a policy statement. Reeves described the office as a department expected to deliver, and she presented the role not only as the government's senior legal adviser but also as a post expected to turn legal policy into practical results.
A clear constitutional message ran through the speech. Addressing the Lady Chief Justice and the court, Reeves said the judiciary carries out its duties with independence and integrity and said she would work to protect that independence. For policy readers, that matters because the Attorney General sits at a sensitive point between law and politics. Public defence of judicial independence from a Law Officer is more than formal language; it signals how the government intends to approach legal scrutiny, disagreement with court decisions and the wider rule of law.
Reeves also used the speech to mark the institutional team around her. She paid tribute to her predecessor, Richard Hermer, welcomed Andy Slaughter as Solicitor General, and indicated that close working with the Lord Chancellor will be central to the next phase of justice delivery. That matters in practice. The Law Officers, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office will need to work in step if the government is serious about improving outcomes for victims while maintaining legal discipline across departments and the courts.
One of the more substantive parts of the speech was Reeves' account of her route into the profession. She said she had not grown up knowing lawyers, attended a comprehensive school in south-east London, studied law at Oxford, and was called to the Bar in 2004 before building a career in employment rights work. According to the speech, that background still shapes her view of what law is for. Her account linked legal rules to pay, safety, dignity and everyday working life, and it helps explain why she framed her new office in practical terms rather than as a purely constitutional post.
That practical emphasis was most visible in the section on violence against women and girls. Reeves said that, as Solicitor General, she made this her leading priority, helped design and publish the government's strategy, secured £5 million for the Crown Prosecution Service to improve support for domestic abuse victims in the Crown Court, and backed the early Victims' Right to Review scheme. She added that, as Attorney General, she had already announced national rollout of the Victim Transformation Programme, including dedicated victim liaison officers for victims of domestic abuse. If carried through as described, the direction is towards earlier contact, clearer communication and more consistent support for victims as cases move through the criminal justice process.
Reeves did not attempt to hide the scale of the problem. She said public confidence in the criminal justice system is low and accepted that more remains to be done for victims. That acknowledgement is important because it moves the speech away from celebration and towards delivery. For practitioners and campaign groups, the test will now be whether those commitments produce visible changes in case handling, victim contact and court experience. Speeches of this kind can set direction, but confidence is usually rebuilt through performance rather than rhetoric.
Another notable section concerned the government's Legal Risk Guidance. Reeves said she changed the guidance a few weeks earlier so that government lawyers would be better placed to develop innovative options, support ministers to take legally sound decisions and help the government deliver for ordinary people. The speech did not set out the revised wording, but the signal is clear. The Attorney General wants legal advice inside government to be both robust and focused on delivery. That will be watched closely across Whitehall, because changes to legal risk culture can shape how departments assess challenge, frame submissions to ministers and decide whether to proceed with contentious proposals.
The closing sections of the speech returned to access to the profession and the public purpose of law. Reeves argued that legal careers should be open regardless of background and said she wants to widen opportunity and remove barriers to entry. Taken together, the speech sets a measurable set of priorities for the office: defend judicial independence, improve support for victims, raise confidence in the justice system and widen access to the profession. The next question for officials, legal practitioners and victims' groups is not what the Attorney General wants to do, but how quickly those commitments are translated into published policy, guidance and outcomes.