HC Deb 09 May 1922 vol 153 cc2077-84

Order for Second Reading read.

The ATTORNEY - GENERAL (Sir Ernest Pollock)

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

I desire, in a very few words to point out what the Bill is intended to do. It may be remembered that some few months ago the Master in Lunacy, who was a Member of this House, unhappily died. That caused a vacancy among the Masters. The opportunity is now being taken to effect the reform of reducing the number of Masters in Lunacy from two to one. For that purpose such a Bill as this is necessary. Incidentally, inasmuch as we are going to allow one Master only, it is necessary to provide that there shall be, in the case of illness or the absence of the single Master in Lunacy, an Assistant Master, or somebody else clothed with these functions to carry on the business in the absence of the one Master. That is really all this first Clause does. It affects an economy, and I hope the House will agree to its being adopted.

Advantage has been taken of Clause 2 to effect one or two very technical and also very useful reforms in the Lunacy Acts. These are matters which ought to be discussed in Committee. They are really matters which are appropriate and suitable for such discussion. Let me mention two of them to show their character. One is embodied in a provision in Clause 2, Sub-section (2), that a number of Sections, some ten, of the Lunacy Act of 1890 shall be made applicable to criminal lunatics. At the present moment, by virtue of the definition Clause in the Lunacy Act, 1890, it is impossible to make use of the little series of Clauses which enable vesting and other Orders to be made and due and proper control of criminal lunatics to be effected. There are those who feel that at present a cumbrous procedure is involved, and it has been thought wise that the House should accept the matter, and apply these nine or ten Sections to the vesting of the property of lunatics in appropriate persons and so on.

Let me take one other matter which is rather technical. Where there has been a sale of copyhold or customary lands the proceeds are paid into court to the credit of the lunatic, and it is provided that on the death of the lunatic the proceeds can be dealt with without actual reference to the customary heir, or other persons, of course, subject to the safeguards provided in the whole scheme of the Lunacy Acts. These are really small incidental changes which are deemed to be improvements. They are subjects for Committee, and the Bill has already been read and comes down to us from another place. In view of this, I hope the House will consent to a Second Reading in order that the detailed provisions may be examined and the consent of the House given to the passage of the Bill, the primary purpose of which is to secure economy in the administration of the Lunacy Acts.

Sir D. MACLEAN

In legislation of this kind affecting the Lunacy Laws it is particularly desirable that full and adequate statements should be made of any change, however slight it may be, for the reason that public attention has of late been directed to the law in relation to those persons who are entirely deprived of the light of reason. The right hon. Gentleman the Attorney-General has discharged that duty quite fully. It is apparently quite clear that this Measure in no way affects the general law of lunacy.

Sir E. POLLOCK

Hear, hear!

Sir D. MACLEAN

I therefore only just make one point on the first Clause. It is one of appreciation of the fact that here we have an economy, and to express the fervent hope that it is one of many others which will follow during this Session of Parliament, since we are going to have lots of time before us. I hope the Attorney-General, in the discharge of the duties of his high office, will apply his mind to searching for quite a number of instances, not dissimilar to this. There are, in the law, as in other departments of the State, many offices which can be overhauled when opportunity arises, and there are unnecessary public servants or offices which have been demonstrated to be unnecessary. Bills of this kind should be brought in, and every opportunity taken to save the public money, wherever it is at present unnecessarily spent in the duplication of useless offices.

Sir F. BANBURY

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is pleased with any steps in the direction of economy. I was going to raise the very same subject myself, but I am not sure that there is going to be any economy. I can quite see how this Bill may be worked so that there will not be any economy at all. The first Clause says: Instead of two Masters in Lunacy there shall be a single Master in Lunacy— So far so good, but then it goes on to say who shall be assisted by one of his officers, and who shall be termed the Assistant Master in Lunacy. I want to make sure that we are not abolishing one Master in Lunacy in order to put another in his place. We have not been told what the salary of the Assistant Master is going to be, or whether he will have a permanent salary. The fact that he is going to discharge the duties previously performed by a master in lunacy may be given as a reason for entitling him to the same salary as was paid previously. It is a very common method of presuming to perform an economy by displacing a certain official and then giving another official assistance to help him to do the work, and very often the result is that there is no economy effected. Clause 1 says: who shall be assisted by one of his officers. That will create a vacancy, and I want to know if there is going to be another officer appointed. I wish to know what is actually going to take place. Before we assent to this Measure I think we should be quite clear on these points.

Mr. HAYWARD

According to Subsection (3) of Clause 1, it is provided that No person shall be qualified to be appointed Assistant Master unless he is either already an officer of the Master or is a barrister or solicitor of not less than five years' standing. The point I wish to have made clear is whether the word "already" applies only to the first appointment, and whether it applies to the time of the passing of this Bill into law or to future appointments also. I want to know whether if future vacancies arise after the first then an unqualified person, if he be an officer of the Master, whether such persons would be qualified to hold the office of Assistant Master in Lunacy.

Mr. D. HERBERT

I want to know who is going to appoint the Assistant Master in Lunacy. It is not clear to me whether the appointment is in the hands of the Master in Lunacy or not. In the past the office of the Master in Lunacy has sometimes been held by a gentleman who has been regarded in the profession rather as holding an office in the nature of a pension when he perhaps had passed the years of capacity for really doing his work. Needless to say, I do not refer to a late Member of this House, whose decease we all deplore, or the present occupant of the office. The Attorney-General will probably understand what I mean when I say that there has been in the past cases where it would be felt that the appointment of such an officer as the Assistant. Master in Lunacy should be in the hands of the Lord Chancellor, or in the hands of somebody other than the Master in Lunacy himself. Apart from that, I only want to congratulate the Government upon this small measure of economy, which I think will be a real economy. We have heard the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London on this point. I have had some experience——

Sir F. BANBURY

The hon. Member has already said that this was equivalent to appointing another master, and that is why I am afraid there will be no economy.

Mr. HERBERT

The assistant master will be the equivalent to a master and he will have the same powers, and it is no reflection upon the present master to say that his principal assistant at the present time is a man of immense energy, capacity and experience in this particular work, and as far as I can judge by the way things have been worked in the past, he will not really have any more work to do than he has done in the past. It is merely a case where he will continue to do a very great amount of work, but in the future he will be able to sign orders and make orders himself without the necessity of going to the master in some cases, because there are many cases in which this could be done. I want to know what is meant by the qualification of "being already an officer of the master." If that is merely intended to cover a technical difficulty there can be no objection to it, but otherwise it should be discussed in Committee as to whether it would be right to appoint a man whose only experience was that of being a clerk in the Lunacy Office, without being qualified in either of the specified branches of the legal profession.

Mr. CAUTLEY

I wish to ask a question in regard to the Title, which refers only to Chancery lunatics. Does that include lunatics other than criminal lunatics? I was always under the impression that lunatics in the country were steadily increasing, and if that be so I would like to know how it is that the right hon. Gentleman is able to effect an economy of this mature, if it really is going to be an economy. I know the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London has very grave doubts about this point, and he thinks that this will be merely a change in name and that no economy is intended.

Mr. RENDALL

I wish to know whether it is intended that the Assistant Master in Lunacy can only exercise these powers in the absence of the Master?

Mr. D. HERBERT

I was not under that impression, but that contingency is one of the very important reasons which make it necessary to have an Assistant Master in Lunacy.

Mr. RENDALL

The Assistant Master in Lunacy will have all the powers of the Master in Lunacy. They will be given by the Master in Lunacy, and he will be able to exercise them. The present Assistant Master has been a very valuable officer, and it would be difficult to raise any objection to his being made the Assistant Master in Lunacy. Nevertheless, I demur to a provision like that contained in Subsection (3) of Clause I, which is going to make permanent the power of appointing as. Assistant Master in Lunacy a man who has not been trained either as a barrister or a solicitor, I think we ought to protest against the possibility that this provision may be used in general practice to appoint an ordinary officer in a Department to such an important post as this. This officer is going to deal with the lives and property of persons who cannot protect themselves, and the law of the land ought to be that such a person should be a trained lawyer.

Sir E. POLLOCK

I will answer two or three of the questions that have been put to me, so far as I can. I think most of them are really Committee points except the one raised by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), who seems to be a little doubtful whether this is an economy at all. I only wish that in these matters many of us had the same ingenuity as the right hon. Baronet, and could work an Act with the same subtlety, because then we might be able to get round a great many difficulties. I have already explained that the purpose of this Act is to effect an economy and not to have two Masters in Lunacy appointed who must be barristers of ten years' standing, but to make use of the one Master and then to have assistance which can be rendered by an Assistant Master, who need not have the high qualifications of the Master of being a barrister of not less than ten years' standing, appointed by the Lord Chancellor.

Sir F. BANBURY

Will the Attorney-General say what amount of money is likely to be saved by this Bill?

Sir E. POLLOCK

I cannot answer that, but I will endeavour, by the time the Committee stage is reached, to give the figure. It would depend upon what arrangements the Treasury may make as to the salary of the Assistant Master, but I think it is fair to say that the intention is that instead of two Masters, we should have one Master and one assistant. I do not know whether it is intended to give him any increase in salary. Perhaps the-happiest way of putting it is that suggested by the hon. Member for Watford, namely, that in the end there will one and a half Masters instead of two. The whole purpose of the Bill is to carry out the recommendations of the Committee and to effect economy, and as to that, I can give no better authority than that of the Lord Chancellor, who has introduced the Bill for this purpose. That is the purpose of the Bill, and it is with that object that I am now moving its Second Reading. The hon. and learned Member for East Grinstead (Mr. Cautley) asked what were Chancery lunatics. He is correct in suggesting that they are all the lunatics who are under the jurisdic- tion of the Lord Chancellor, and in respect of whom the Lords Justices, who are made Judges in Lunacy for the purpose of the Act, have jurisdiction. The expression is a very old and somewhat archaic one, and is used in the title of this Bill because it has been used in almost all the Acts dealing with the lunacy laws.

With regard to Sub-section (3) of Clause 1, its terms are general. It would be a matter for consideration in Committee whether that ought to be so or not, but, as I understand it, the intention at the present time is to clothe one of the officers at present engaged in the Department with authority to act as Assistant Master in the absence, during vacation or by reason of ill-health, of the Master. Sub-section (3) says that, instead of requiring the same qualification as is required under Section 111 of the Lunacy Act, 1890—that is to say, that the person appointed should be a barrister of 10 years' standing—you may take either a barrister or solicitor of not less than 5 years' standing, or you may take some person already in the office who is qualified by experience and by intimate knowledge of the work that has been passing through his hands. Those are the two alternatives. In some cases it may be very hard to exclude the man who has had experience and bring in someone else who is new, but, on the other hand, it might be necessary to do so if he has not the necessary qualifications to enable him to fulfil the important duties entrusted to him.

Lord R. CECIL

May I ask whether the Government have any special person in view, or whether it is general?

Sir E. POLLOCK

There is no special person at all in view. It is merely a matter of the reorganisation of the office at large, and for the purpose, as I said when the Noble Lord was not in his place, of carrying out an economy which has been recommended over a very considerable period of time.

Sir F. BANBURY

Does it reduce the qualifications? At present, as I understand, a second Master, if appointed, would have to be a barrister of 10 years' standing, but under this proposal you can have one of five years' standing.

Mr. RENDALL

Of no standing.

Sir E. POLLOK

Perhaps the right hon. Baronet will do me the honour of reading the Bill. May I read the first three lines of it with him? Instead of two Master in Lunacy there shall be a single Master in Lunacy who shall be assisted by one of his officers and who shall be termed the Assistant Master in Lunacy. Therefore, it is possible to put in some person who does not hold the high qualification of being a barrister of not less than 10 years' standing, and to clothe one of the existing officers with the nominal title of Assistant Master in order to carry out the duties. That is the scheme of the Bill, and that is the scheme under which it is hoped that an economy will be effected.