HC Deb 10 July 1919 vol 117 cc2141-2

Section one of the Solicitors (Articled Clerks) Act, 1918, which provides for the reckoning of certain periods of service in connection with the present war, and of periods of detention or internment (hereinafter referred to as "war service"), as service as an articled clerk, shall apply to any parson who becomes an articled clerk at any time during the continuance of the present war or before the expiration of one year after the termination thereof, as it applies to an articled clerk:

Provided that—

  1. (a) in the application of this Section to the case of a person whose term of service is regulated by Section two of the Solicitors Act, 1860, or any enactment amending that Section, three years shall be substituted for one year; and
  2. (b) where a person has become an articled clerk after the termination of his war service, his war service shall, for the purposes of the said Section one as amended by this Section, be reckoned only to such extent as will leave a period of two years to be actually served by him pursuant to his articles, and where a person has become an articled clerk during the course of his war service the whole of that part of his war service which takes place after he was articled shall be reckoned for the said purposes, but that part of his war service which took place before he was articled shall be reckoned only to such extent as aforesaid.

Sir G. HEWART

I beg to move, at the end of paragraph (a), to insert the words (b) Where the Law Society is satisfied in any particular case that a person has been retained in war service after the termination of the present war, this Section shall have effect with respect to such person as if the termination of his war service had coincided with the termination of the War. The sole object of this Amendment is the better to give effect to the main object of the Bill. There are some cases in which those gentlemen whom the Bill is designed to help may be or will be retained in the service after the termination of the War, and the proviso which I desire to add is to give them the benefit in respect of that period they would have had if the termination of the period of their service had coincided, as it might have done, with the termination of the War.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 (Short Title, Citation and Extent) ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported; as amended, considered.

Motion made, and Question proposed. That the Bill be now read the third time."— [Mr. Pratt.]

Sir H. NIELD

Does this Bill also provide that the benefit shall apply to examinations?

Sir G. HEWART

It does not affect examinations at all.

Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed, with an Amendment.