HC Deb 28 October 1919 vol 120 cc621-5

A person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, including that of sitting and voting in the House of Lords, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post, or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation, or for admission to any incorporated society (whether incorporated by Royal Charter or otherwise), and a person shall not be exempted by sex or marriage from the liability to serve as a juror: Provided that— (b) any judge, chairman of quarter sessions, recorder or other person before whom the case is heard may, in his discretion. on an application made by or on behalf of the parties (including in criminal cases the prosecution and the accused) or any of them, or at, his own instance, make an Order that having regard to the nature of the case, and the evidence to be given, the jury shall be composed of men only or of women only as the case may require, or may on an application made by a woman to be exempted from service on a jury in respect of any case by reason of the nature of the evidence to be given or of the issues to be tried, grant such exemption. Any Order in Council made under this Section shall be laid before each House of Parliament forthwith, and if an Address is presented to His Majesty by either House of Parliament within the next subsequent twenty-one clays on which that House has sat next after the Order is laid before it praying that the Order or any part thereof may be annulled, His Majesty in Council may annul the Order or that part thereof and it shall thenceforth be void, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder.

Sir E. POLLOCK

I beg to move, in paragraph (b), to leave out the words "the case is heard," and insert instead thereof the words "a case is or may be heard."

In the Committee stage I was invited to consider whether the words to which attention was called were words of limitation. After carefully considering the matter I have come to the conclusion that two Amendments must be made. The first is to insert words making it clear that an application in reference to a case may be made not merely at the time the case is heard but at another time.

Amendment agreed to.

Sir E. POLLOCK

I beg to move, in paragraph (b) to leave out the words "having regard to the nature of the case."

The hon. and learned Member for the Bassetlaw Division (Sir E. Hume-Williams) drew attention to the words "having regard to the nature of the case and the evidence to be given" as limiting words. I think the probability is that those words would be construed as words of limitation. The sense of the, Committee was to leave the Clause as wide as possible, therefore I move to leave out the words in question.

Amendment agreed to.

Sir E. POLLOCK

I beg to move at the end of the Clause to insert the words Rules of court may be made as to the procedure to be adopted on any application under this Section relating to service on juries, and the Rules may require or authorise the application or any Order thereon to be made in interlocutory proceedings. The purpose of this Amendment is in order to embody a suggestion made from more than one quarter in Committee that it should be possible to make application in various cases at what is called the interlocutory stage, that is, before the actual case comes into Court. It was pointed out that if the application was only made when the case was absolutely heard, a very heavy burden might he laid upon the jurors, because a larger number would have to be summoned in order to meet the possible eventuality of some being discarded under the discretionary power of the Section. For that purpose it is necessary that rules of Court should be made and I propose to add the words in the Amendment, which give the usual power to make rules of Court.

Amendment agreed to.

Sir E. POLLOCK

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the third time."

I desire to take this opportunity of removing a small misunderstanding that may have arisen upon some of the observations I made during the passage of the Bill through Committee last night. At that time I was dealing with the question of the proviso to Clause 1, and the question whether or not an Amendment which was moved by the hon. Member for Chelsea to insert a different proviso, or whether the one that I proposed should be inserted. Ultimately the Committee adopted the proposal that I made. In my speech I referred to certain passages in the Gladstone Report; the Report of the Committee presided over by Lord Gladstone which passed its Report in April this year. I referred to various passages for the purpose, as my words show, of indicating that at the time the question of the employment of women was in a fluid state, I said: At the present time it is fair to say that the whole question of the employment of women is in a fluid state. I then quoted three or four passages from the Gladstone Report, and went on to say, summarising all these passages:— The upshot of that is that the employment of women is undergoing developments and that at the present there is no adequate experience upon which to base the conclusion that it would be safe to open the door, without any conditions at all, to men and women alike."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th October, cols. 369–370.] I do not think that anybody who either heard these words, or who is good enough to read them, can fail to see that I was using the passages I did, not the conclusions of the Report, as supporting the view I was presenting to the House that the employment of women was in a fluid or experimental stage.

It has been suggested to me that any reference to the Gladstone Report might be taken as indicating that the Gladstone Report was something which stood as the embodiment of the intentions of the Government. I do not think that anything I said could possibly give colour to that view. I do not see that, looking at the words I used without considering how they were used—it was a mere reference to the passages of the Report—could pos- sibly give rise to that interpretation. I desire to say that I had no intention of indicating that the Gladstone Report was to he put into operation or that it was to be taken as a final report on which the proposals or intentions of the Government were to be based. I used it simply for the purposes which are indicated in my speech. I have made inquiries, and I am quite clear that at the present time the Gladstone Report has not been adopted, and does not represent the final word on the matter. I have been asked to say that, in order to remove a possible misconstruction. I do it gladly. I only hope that those who heard me and read my speech will see that the purpose for which I used the Gladstone Report was entirely limited. I have taken this opportunity of making this explanation. I do not think I need say more in asking the House to give a Third Reading to this Bill, a Bill which I hope has removed, as far as possible, all the bars which previously existed and which it is desired to remove, and which has now freed women from the disqualifications on account of sex to the fullest extent it was the intention of the Committee to do. I have been very glad indeed to lend such service as I could to that end.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.