§ 45. Mr. MILLSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount of salary and fees paid to the Solicitor-General and Attorney-General from 1915 to 1921?
Mr. YOUNGThe salary of the Attorney-General is £7,000 and of the Solicitor-General £6,000. But these amounts were at their own wish reduced in each case during the period of actual hostilities by £1,000 per annum, apart from the further reduction due to the Ministerial pool. Fees are paid to the Law Officers of the Crown in litigious cases only, and the period referred to was one of heavy and increasing litigation, which, however, has recently diminished. For example, in the Department of the Treasury Solicitor alone the number of new cases rose from 3,730 in 1914 to 7,747 in 1920–21, exclusive of prize cases. During the six financial years covered by the question the aggregate amount of fees paid to the Attorney-General was £77,887 10s. 9d., and to the Solicitor-General £51,863 8s. 4d. These amounts were of course greatly diminished by Income Tax and Super-tax. I should like to add that a considerable part of the Law Officers' fees does not fall on public funds. In cases where the Crown succeeds with costs, the costs are recovered from the unsuccessful party, and during the period in question a large number of the cases were cases in the Prize Courts, where the claimants were almost invariably foreigners.