HC Deb 13 September 1893 vol 17 cc1102-13

6. Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £25,506, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894. for the Salaries of the Law Officers; the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Solicitor for the Affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury, Queen's Proctor, and Director of Public Prosecutions; the Costs of Prosecutions, of other Legal Proceedings, and of Parliamentary Agency.

MR. GRAHAM MURRAY moved the reduction of the Vote by £500, in order to call attention to the inadequacy of the salaries of the Scottish Law Officers. About 15 or 16 years ago a Committee was appointed to inquire into the whole matter of the remuneration of the Law Officers of the Three Kingdoms. Their recommendations were embodied in a Report which they presented, and they came to the conclusion that the salaries were to be fixed at a certain figure. The Treasury not only did not print the Report which dealt with the Scottish Law Officers, but so effectually suppressed and buried it that at this moment there was only one copy in existence, which be had been fortunate enough at one time to see. From that day to this nothing had been done to carry forward the recommendations regarding the Scottish Law Officers. Of course, they did not for a moment suppose that the salaries of the Scottish Law Officers ought to be fixed at the same scale as those of the English Law Officers; but the inadequacy of the Scottish Law Officers' salaries was too well known to need any comment whatsoever. The Solicitor General for England received a salary of £5,000, whilst the Solicitor General for Scotland received only £955. Whether judged by the value of their services or the question of the quality of the sacrifice, in neither case could they possibly justify the two salaries on the same principle. Therefore, he hoped that they would at least have from the Government some satisfactory promise that they would really give this matter some consideration, and put into some practical shape the recommendations of the Committee come to so long ago.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A, Salaries, be reduced by £500, in respect of the salary of the Attorney General."—(Mr. Graham Murray.)

MR. POWELL WILLIAMS (Birmingham, S.)

could not allow this Vote to pass without a protest, and in making that protest he desired to dissociate himself from any charge of desiring, either directly or indirectly, or by implication, to reflect in any way upon the two distinguished gentlemen who held the offices of Her Majesty's Law Advisers. No one who knew their career and eminent abilities would desire in any way to make any attack upon them. The Attorney General, if he might say so, had rendered an additional service to the country by the extreme ability with which he had conducted a delicate and important case abroad. But that did not prevent him, and ought not to prevent anyone who held the idea that the Law Officers received excessive payments for the services they rendered to the State, from challenging the Vote, as he did on this occasion. In taking this course he was glad to know be was sustained by the very strong opinion expressed in this House some years ago by his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. II. Fowler), who in the year 1888 said he thought that £12,000 a year would command the services of the very ablest and most eminent man at the English Bar, and the same view was taken by the hon. Member for Poplar, who went, so far as to say that if the Law Officers took private practice they must necessarily, to some extent, neglect their public duties. The Attorney General received £7,000 and the Solicitor General £6,000, and additional payments in respect of contentious business. Formerly the fees for such contentious business were calculated on a very much lower scale than the fees payable by an ordinary client to a Queen's Counsel of eminence. But now, under the terms of the Treasury Minute, the Law Officers agreed to give up their private practice except in cases before the Privy Council and the House of Lords, but the payments to be made to them in respect of contentions business had been greatly increased. He agreed with the hon. Member for Poplar and with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton in thinking that £12,000 a year was a sufficient payment for these services, and he hoped the Treasury would adopt the opinion of those eminent Members of the Government.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,) Derby

trusted the Committee would not think it necessary for him to go into the whole subject, seeing that it had already been discussed at very great length on the Supplementary Estimates, when the hon. Member had expressed his views on the matter. The new system was a very simple one. In old days the Law Officers took private practice. The Government made the change by which they were not to take private practice, and offered them an indemnity, which was that, instead of the limited amount under the old system, they were to receive the same amount as any barrister of similar position in the profession would receive for the like work. That was really all that was given for the purpose of obtaining the whole time of the Law Officers of the Crown. In regard to the question raised by the late Solicitor General for Scotland, that the fees of the Law Officers for Scotland were on too low a scale, he only wished the hon. and learned Member had taken advantage of the distinguished position he occupied in the former Administration to give effect to the recommendation of the Commission which reported 16 years ago, since which time there had been two Conservative Governments in power, with the opportunity of doing this particular justice to Scotland. Personally, he could not say he regretted it was not done. Scotland in this matter was rather in the position of the man in the parable, who came in at the eleventh hour, and who claimed that he should get as much as those who had borne the heat and burden of the day. The adhesion of Scotland to the Union came at a more recent period than the establishment of the office of Attorney General for England. The first comer was first served. However, he did not wish to pronounce any decided opinion on the question of the remuneration of the Law Officers for Scotland. He thought that might be a proper matter for consideration with reference to the larger question which had been raised. He hoped the Committee would consider that it had already been sufficiently discussed in the present Session.

MR. HANBURY (Preston)

said, they did not want to discuss this matter over again, but he thought they should be quite clear what the principle was. He did not think it was quite correct to say the Law Officers of the Crown were to give them practically the whole of their time, or to renounce private business, because there was one reservation, to the effect that they were to retain their right to certain retainers which they had when they took Office. He was told that, under that reservation, if the Attorney General and Solicitor General were retained for a particular Railway Company, they would have the right not only to argue the particular case for that Railway Company on which they had been engaged or retained when they took Office, but they would also be able to argue all subsequent cases of such Railway Companies during all the time of their tenure of Office. If that construction applied to private clients also it was a very large reservation indeed. He might be wrong, but he was told that what he had stated was the case, and therefore to say that the Law Officers were giving up their private business and giving their whole time to the country was hardly a fair statement of the case. The President of the Local Government Board had expressed the opinion that for £12,000 a year they ought to be able to get the best lawyer in the country, without any private practice at all. He understood the salaries, without fees, were £7,000 and £6,000 for the Attorney General and Solicitor General respectively, and he was told that in one particular suit—which the country lost, and in which large additional costs had to be paid besides fees—the fees actually paid to the Solicitor General amounted to something like £1,700. The Solicitor General had £6,000 a year, and if he were to have four cases like this in a year that would amount to another £6,000, thus bringing his salary up to £12,000 in addition to private practice. It seemed to him that £1,700 was an enormous price to pay for one suit. One of the chief complaints he (Mr. Hanbury) and others made was that the scale of fees upon which the Law Officers were to be remunerated was much higher than anything that had been adopted before. He believed that previously their fees were based on the scale that counsel would receive from ordinary clients, but the new scale was one to which the most eminent counsel at the Bar would be entitled. He should like to know on what scale the Law Officers were being remunerated now in these contentious suits, and what proportion it bore to the scale paid under the old system?

MR. GRAHAM MURRAY

said, he was afraid they would never get justice on the point he had raised as to the remuneration of the Law Officers of Scotland until hon. Members made themselves a little unpleasant in regard to it. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he was spared for another year, would do something for his long-suffering supporters behind him. He would not press the Amendment.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

MR. HAYES-FISHER (Fulham)

called attention to the fact that they had no information at the present moment as to what the fees for contentious business amounted to. He could not see why the Estimates could not be framed so as to give them the amount of fees which the Attorney General and Solicitor General received.

SIR W. HARCOURT

We cannot estimate these fees beforehand.

MR. HAYES FISHER

said, the amount of the fees for 1892–3 might be stated so as to give them some idea as to the probable amount in each year, and he considered they were entitled to some information on this subject. The Law Officers were the only officers whose salaries with fees were not placed on the Estimates of the House of Commons. He was not in the least complaining of the salary they had, and he was certainly not prepared to vote for a reduction until he knew how the new plan would work. He agreed that there was a great disparity between the amounts paid to the Law Officers of England and Ireland and those of Scotland. He wondered the question had not before been raised by the Members for Scotland. Whenever it was raised, he for his part would join them in protesting against the very unfair treatment of Scotland in this matter.

MR. POWELL WILLIAMS

said, he would like to be told the amount of fees already paid to the Law Officers. This matter was not discussed at any great length on the former occasion, because they were told that the proper time to raise the discussion would be upon the Estimates. He had now made his protest, and would there leave the matter.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir C. RUSSELL,) Hackney, S.

said, it was due to the hon. Member for Preston that he should answer one or two questions, which that hon. Member had put to him. He had requested to know whether the Law Officers of the Crown considered themselves free to act on a general retainer, or whether they considered themselves confined to the definite cases in which they were retained before their acceptance of Office in the Government. He answered this question in a previous discussion, and stated that although they might, according to the letter of the arrangement, act on general retainer, he thought it would not be in accordance with the spirit of the arrangement that they should do so, and for himself he confessed he had no intention of doing so. He had no doubt the Solicitor General took the same view. The hon. Member also asked a question about the Hansard Union prosecution—for that was the case to which he alluded—and the Solicitor General's fees. He did not know whether the figure stated by the hon. Member was correct, but it must be remembered that that case extended over a great number of weeks, and he would undertake to say that whatever fees were received by the Solicitor General they would turn out to be very much less than the fees of the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Sir E. Clarke), or the other leading counsel representing the several defendants. The last question put by the hon. Member was whether the new arrangement which had been made would not lead to a large increase in the fees paid to the Law Officers? No doubt it would increase such fees, but at present experience did not enable one to say to what extent. The new arrangement only provided that the Law Officers should receive, in respect of contentious business, such fees as counsel of life-standing received from private clients. He thought it would be derogatory to the position of the Law Officers that (if they were to be paid for contentious business) they should receive less.

MR. TOMLINSON

said, the Attorney General's argument was rather surprising. He now said that he approved of the new arrangement; but on the previous occasion when the subject was discussed he said he preferred the old system. But that was the system which he now said it was beneath the dignity of the Law Officers to accept. He did not see how the two views could be reconciled. He also wished to ask whether the new clerks on the permanent staff—he presumed of the Civil Service—were subject to the ordinary Rules of the Service as to retirement and other conditions;

VISCOUNT WOLMER

asked whether the Secretary to the Treasury could give the amount of the Law Officers' fees up to date?

SIR J. T. HIBBERT

said, he could not do that; but he saw no objection to a note being inserted in the Estimates for any year showing the amount of the fees in the previous year. With regard to the question of the hon. Member for Preston, the clerks of the permanent staff were subject to the Rules and Regulations of the Civil Service. He saw no reason why they should be treated in any other way.

MR. HAYES-FISHER

said, there was a different arrangement in Ireland.

MR. HANBURY

said, before the Question was put he wished to call attention to a statement by Mr. Justice Day, when on circuit at Bodmin and Exeter, as to the immense amount of perjury in the Law Courts. His Lordship said that perjury was rank in the Courts. He (Mr. Hanbury) thought the Public Prosecutor ought to have taken some notice of those observations and to have taken steps to bring perjurers to justice. The comments of the Judge were sufficiently startling to demand something should be done; and perhaps the Attorney General could tell them whether any steps were to be taken in the matter, with the object of having the offenders made amenable. There should certainly be some means of punishing perjury where it existed. Again, he wished to refer to a very important case, which, to a large extent, affected the working classes, and that was the prosecution of the Directors of the Portsea Building Society. In that case the jury could not come to a decision, but Mr. Justice Hawkins expressed a very strong opinion that there ought to be another prosecution. It certainly seemed strange that no further action had been taken. The Solicitor to the Treasury drew an extra £500 a year for acting as Director of Public Prosecutions, his total salary being £3,000. Remarkable changes had taken place in his office during the last year. One was a large increase in the pay of the upper clerks, and a decrease in that of the lower clerks. In his opinion, there should be fewer of the Upper Division and more of the Lower Division clerks, as a rule. Then there was an allowance made to the Solicitor for a personal staff of eight clerks. Last year that allowance was £1,200; this year it was £2,200. Thus, the Solicitor was allowed a fixed lump sum for clerks, who were nominated by himself, and were not Civil servants. To that system the Public Accounts Committee had objected. There was no Department that required so thoroughly to be inquired into as this legal Department. These officials did not even come within the purview of the Royal Commission which inquired into the Civil Establishments. There was no Department opened up so wide a field for inquiry as the Law Department—an inquiry which he believed would result in great economy to the Public Service.

SIR C. RUSSELL

said, with regard to the statement that a great deal of perjury was committed in the Courts, he feared it was true, and the remark would particularly apply to the Divorce Court, and yet the circumstances were exceedingly rare where they afforded any reasonable expectation of a successful prosecution. The offence of perjury stood on a different footing from other offences, as it required the evidence of two witnesses, who must support one another on material points. Further, any Judge who had before him a case in which he had come to the conclusion that perjury had been committed had in his power, then and there, the initiation of a prosecution; and he had also another course— he might send the papers to the Public Prosecutor and require him to examine into them. He was not aware of any case where that course had been taken in which the Public Prosecutor had not done his duty. With regard to the prosecution of the Directors and officers of the Portsea Building Society, one person had been found guilty and was suffering imprisonment. Although the results of their misdeeds undoubtedly caused to a poor and deserving class a great deal of mischief, yet it also appeared to be the case that none of the Directors or officials had corruptly put the money into their pockets. In these circumstances the jury disagreed. It became his duty to consider what should be done, and, after consulting with his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dumfries, who was senior counsel in the prosecution, he came to the conclusion that in the circumstances the case was not one in which there should be a re-trial.

SIR J. T. HIBBERT

said, with regard to the other matter alluded to by the hon. Member, the question of the upper and lower clerks was gone into by the Committee which sat in 1887. A Treasury Minute was issued in December, 1888, based on their recommendations. Those recommendations were generally in accordance with the views stated by the hon. Member, and were being gradually carried out. A reduction had already been made, but a more considerable one would be effected. When the whole scheme was carried out there would be a considerable decrease in the staff, and a consequent economy.

MR. HANBURY

If that is so, how does it come that we have an increase in the sum for providing clerks? It was only £1,200 last year, and this year it is £2,200.

SIR J. T. HIBBERT

said, that the effect of the scheme as a whole would be to decrease the staff and secure economy.

SIR J. GORST (Cambridge University)

said, he would like to refer to another question. The Director of Public Prosecutions was under a statutory obligation to attend, either him- self or by his counsel, every Election Petition trial. He was to attend in the interests of public morality, and to prosecute all persons found to have been guilty of corrupt practices. A great deal of expense, therefore, was connected with that duty; and the money he thought was wholly wasted, as the Public Prosecutor never brought to justice persons charged with bribery, and there was no result whatever. Perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer would tell them what his view of the matter was.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,) Derby

said, no doubt the duty was imposed on the Public Prosecutor, but the facts were made known at the trial, and, where a prosecution was necessary, the requisite steps could be taken. He would be glad to consider favourably the suggestion that the Public Prosecutor should not be required to attend, either himself or by counsel, as this did not seem to be necessary. The facts being on record, as he said, his presence should not be essential. In that way, perhaps, public money might be saved.

MR. JACKSON (Leeds, N.)

said, he would point out, in reference to a question put by the Member for Preston (Mr. Han-bury) that the sum on the Paper for providing clerks was not a fixed sum. It was only the maximum sum that might be required.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)

said, there was an item of £25 on the Paper in respect of Admiralty Agents at Lisbon and Madrid. He did not think such Agents were necessary.

SIR W. HARCOURT

said, he hoped the Committee would now allow the Vote to pass.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £23,282, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894, for certain Miscellaneous Legal Expenses.

It being half-past Five of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee also report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.