HC Deb 25 October 1946 vol 428 cc164-85

Order for Second Reading read.

11.32 a.m.

The Solicitor-General (Major Sir Frank Soskice)

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

The Bill comes from another place, and as its Title would import, will be more particularly of interest to those Members of the House who are in the legal profession in one capacity or another. The objective of the Bill is limited. It is designed to effect certain Amendments in the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act 1925, to pave the way for a scheme whereby the staff of assize courts would be reorganised on a central system under the control of the Lord Chief Justice. As Members may or may not know, the principal officers in assize court administration are the clerk of assize, the circuit associate, the clerk of indictments, and then there is the circuit bailiff. The clerk of assize is a barrister. As the law stands he does not necessarily have to be a barrister, but he is one in practice, and for the proper performance of his duties it is, in fact, necessary that he should so be. He is employed only part of his time on circuit, he has no pension rights, and the circumstance of his being only part-time employed is reflected in his salary. The circuit associate and the clerk of indictments are likewise only employed part-time. They again have no pension rights, and their salaries are substantially lower than that of the clerk of assize.

The first objective of the Bill is to improve the conditions of service of these officers. Under the new system pension rights would be conferred upon the clerks of assize, and they would be put in a position similar to that of the King's Bench masters, although their salaries would be lower than theirs. With regard to the other officers I have mentioned, they would become part of a new department of the central office of the Supreme Court, and they would be integrated with the higher grade clerks of that new department. That, therefore, is the first objective—to improve the conditions of service of those officers.

There is a second purpose to be achieved by the Bill. At the moment the system under which the associates work is rather anomalous. There are circuit associates of whom I have spoken. As members of the legal profession very well know, when judges are sitting in civil cases in London there are London associates who assist them. The London associates have important duties in the conduct of the business of the court. They have to prepare the certificate upon which the final form of the judgment is based. As things work at the moment, when judges are on circuit the London associates do not go with them, and, therefore, they are, in a sense, out of work while the judges are not in London. Conversely, when the judges are sitting in London, the circuit associates do not come to London, and there is sometimes difficulty in finding the necessary London associates to man the civil courts in London.

When the new system is introduced the circuit associates will, as I have said, be part of the new department of the Central Office, and they will be available, both the London associates and the circuit associates, to work as required, either in London or on circuit. That would obviously bring about a much more efficient system of their work. It is proposed that the clerks of the assize should, when they are not on assize, take a hand in the training of the associates, who would form part of this new central department. These are the objects of the Bill.

If hon. Members will turn to the Clauses they will see how these objects are brought about. Clause I(I) effects a change in the manner of the appointment of clerks of assize. At the moment they are appointed by the circuit judge on circuit. With a view to the centralisation system it would be better, it is thought, if their appointment lay in the hands of the Lord Chief Justice. The judges are agreeable to relinquishing their privilege of appointing the clerks of assize. That would be done, under the new system, by the Lord Chief Justice, and that is effected by Clause I (I). The clerks of assize would, under the Bill, have to be barristers; hitherto they could have been solicitors. They also had another qualification, which would be adequate under the law as it stands.

As I said earlier, it has in practice been found necessary for the clerk of the assize to be a barrister. He must be a Member of the circuit mess. For the proper discharge of his duties he must be in a position to keep closely in touch with members of the Bar on circuit. In practice, it is also the case that clerks of assize for a long time—so far as I know, always—have been members of the Bar and not solicitors. Therefore, under this Clause they would have to be barristers, and the qualification of solicitor would be abandoned. The next Subsection applies to them the statutory provisions which embody the pension rights which will now be conferred upon them—pension rights, rights in relation to retirement, appointment, salaries, etc. They are to be found in the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act, 1925, and that Act would be extended to include clerks of assize.

Clause 2 deals with circuit officers other than clerks of assize. The Clause abolishes their offices, and provides that, in future, their duties shall be carried out by members of the new department of the Central Office of the Supreme Court. That is to bring into effect the second objective which I indicated, to integrate the circuit associates and London associates, and generally make possible a centralised system. The result of that would be that their emoluments and pension rights would be integrated with those of the clerks of the higher grades in the central office of the Supreme Court. Subsection (2) deals with the circuit bailiffs. There will be no change in their conditions, but for various technical reasons it is necessary to introduce them into the Bill, and that is done here. Subsection (3) deals with the appointed day.

As hon. Members will readily realise, in order to bring into operation a scheme of this sort a good deal of administrative work will be necessary. The rules will have to be made in order to bring into being the new department of the Central office. It is for this reason that the scheme under the Bill, if the House gives the Bill a Second Reading, is only to be brought into operation as from an appointed day. Clause 3 is the formal Clause which always appears in a Bill. It contains the short title, commencement, repeal and extent. The Bill is designed to obtain a limited end. It will effect a considerable improvement in the present system of the staffing of assize courts, and it will also improve the conditions of service of those who are employed in staffing the courts. I ask the House to say that it is a useful Measure, that there can be no objection to it, in principle at any rate, and I therefore ask the House to give it a Second Reading.

11.42 a.m.

Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (Liverpool, West Derby)

Although lawyers often trespass on the good nature of the House, I hope that they do not too frequently do so on their own professional affairs. Therefore, I shall ask the House to forgive me, as I am a circuit lawyer by origin and affection, for a brief moment to pay tribute to those whose positions we are considering today. The clerks of assize do a great deal more than merely sit under the "red judge." Almost all of His Majesty's judges owe a great debt, which they freely admit, to the wise counsel which they have received from the clerks of assize. This extends not only to intricacies of procedure but also to advice tactfully and silently given with regard to sentences. In effect, it produces a steady standard of sentence, geographically, which in my view is of great advantage to the administration of justice.

From the point of view of the Bar they are equally important. To young members of the Bar their advice is just as valuable, and many a distinguished leader has learned from their lips in forthright terms the first quality of an advocate, namely, not to ask questions to which he does not know the answers. Their success is essentially an intimate one, but their work continues and makes a recurring contribution to the great and flowing stream of the law. I therefore feel that any step which does, on the long view, improve their status and position is one which the House, as one of the guardians of the administrations of justice, should welcome. I am glad to hear from the learned Solicitor-General that he agrees with the sentiment expressed elsewhere, and with which I myself agree entirely, namely, that it is found essential in practice, if the clerk of assize is to do his work properly, that he should be a member of the circuit and, indeed, a member of the circuit Bar mess where he can be in close touch with barristers actually practising on that circuit. I am fully prepared to accept the other alteration, that he should be appointed by the Lord Chief Justice. To us circuiteers there was always an un- certainty under the old methods as to whether the relevant judge of assize to whom by chance the appointment came, might be as familiar with the conditions on the circuit and the problems of the circuit as was necessary to make the appointment satisfactory and successful.

I now come to the second part of the Bill, dealing with other officers. I should be very grateful if the learned Solicitor-General would at some time give us some further information about Clause 2. The associate, as he has told us, sits with the judge who takes the civil business at assize. He is usually, but not necessarily, a barrister and, as it works at present under what I may call the system of devolution, he has a peculiar knowledge of the workings of the civil list at assize—the making up of the lists, the arrangement of business, which of itself is of great help not only to practitioners but to litigants. Many hon. Members are aware that the conditions of assize are that people are assembled for a day's work from wide areas. It is important that the business should be arranged to suit their convenience and not to prejudice them by increasing the difficulties of travel. It is essential, therefore, that the associate should be eminently approachable by members of the Bar, solicitors, jurors and all those who have come to take part in the administration of justice. That has been the case, by and large, in the present method of working.

Now the office of associate on the circuit is to be abolished, and the objective of the Bill, as I understand it, is that the procedure is to be that officers of the Central Office, who will be clerks in the higher grade of the Central Office of the Supreme Court, will in time take their place. Whether this will function well depends on the training that is given and the trouble that is taken to make those officers who are going to deal with the circuit business really knowledgeable about the problems with which they will have to deal and the circumstances of the circuit on which they have to go. I was a member of the Northern circuit and, therefore, most familiar with conditions in Lancashire, but I have had the honour to go on the Welsh circuit and I appreciate the conditions there. There are very special conditions. From a look at the cause list one can see where the parties are likely to come from, how many of them will require that a case should be heard in or interpreted into Welsh and numerous other special problems of that kind. It is essential if we are to centralise, that the officers of the centralised system should he trained and practised in the special circumstances of the circuit with which they will have to deal I should like to hear from the learned Solicitor-General what procedure has been foreshadowed in regard to this Bill to see that the training is effective. Devolution has worked and has been a convenience, but there is a burden on those who suggest centralisation to see that it will fit the circumstances of the case and the people who will be affected.

A minor point arises in regard to clerks of indictment which the learned Solicitor-General will appreciate. He has to deal with the taxation of the bill of costs in criminal cases. One knows, when one has been there, what happens. We get a very busy representative of the prosecuting local authority, who comes over for the day and who has to get his bill through or come back and make another journey, interrupting his other functions as a local authority officer. It is most important that we should have somebody there who is completely familiar with the special problems that arise on the taxation of bills in criminal cases at assizes, and, again, I ask the learned Solicitor-General whether it has been considered how the officers of the central office are going to be trained in this special work, because, as far as I know, the taxation of criminal bills is not a matter which does occur in a building in the Strand.

That is a point on which I myself and some of my hon. and learned Friends have felt a little apprehension. We are all for the improvement in the status of these officers, because we know very well what admirable services they have given to the community under the conditions which the learned Solicitor-General explained, which were often difficult for them, but we do want to ensure that the community—and, after all, the law is only one of the essential services to the community which the State must provide—we want to ensure that provincial communities who are affected by the circuits will not receive any less good and less efficient services because of this change.

It is important that we should have some indication that this training will be given and that this adaptation of these officers for this special work will be well and efficiently done. If that is the case, we raise no objection to the Bill. We welcome fully the provisions for a better status, but we should like to receive some assurance, and, if that is given to us, we shall be happy to cooperate in letting the Bill go through.

11.54 a.m.

Mr. Turner-Samuels (Gloucester)

In speaking from this side of the House, I desire, first of all, to say that I do not take the view that we, as lawyers, must regard this Bill as if we were doing something to our own advantage. Anything that contributes to an improvement in the administration of justice is desirable. It is not only desirable but laudable; it is not only desirable from the point of view of practising lawyers, who, no doubt, under the present system, are in exactly the same position, but desirable because of the value which will undoubtedly accrue to the public itself.

I would like to endorse what the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite said about the services of the legal functionaries on the circuits. It is the recognition of their full-time status, and of the fact that they are entitled to the consideration which is usually given to the permanent functionaries, that will, I am sure, be most welcome and acceptable to every lawyer on this side. It is an absolutely indefensible position that we should take a man like the clerk of assize, who performs the most important and very helpful functions on the occasion of his work, and leave him in a part-time position, and a precarious position, in which he can do practically no other work. I think that, as the law stood, he was unable to take any work on the circuit on which he was engaged as clerk of assize. In view of what a clerk on the circuit has to do, he was unable to do anything else, because his probable position is that he is only known there. His position also necessitated periods of being out of town, so that he would not possibly make contacts and do any other work. The net result to him was that the only means of subsistence and employment which he had were those he received from the duties he performed as clerk of assize. This is, of course, absolutely indefensible, and an almost reprehensible position. This Bill means that his position will be put right. The learned Solicitor-General indicated that the status of a clerk of assize would now correspond to that of a master of the King's Bench, but he also indicated that the salary would not be quite the same. As far as I can gather—and perhaps the learned Solicitor—General will clarify the point—it is proposed that the pension is to be the same, but not the salary. I am not quite sure if that is the intention, and would like a further indication on the subject. I hope that this matter will be considered very seriously. It may very well be that a man who performs the office of clerk of assize is under larger private expenses than a master of the King's Bench, and it certainly is essential, if we are to put any one in the very responsible and influential position of clerk of the assize, that, at least, his mind should be eased with regard to his subsistence. We shall never get the maximum full exercise of judgment unless the person whose judgment is to be used is free from the apprehensions that come from inadequate emoluments. Therefore, I ask the learned Solicitor-General to clarify this position by saying that these officers will be given the same status as a master of the King's Bench.

Another point that concerns us very much is the position with regard to associates. I have had some experience on the circuits, though not, perhaps, as much as the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, because my practice in the last decade has been mainly in town, but it is perfectly clear that the position of an associate is a very important one, and I can see no reason why, if he is appointed in the way which is now suggested, so that he is convertible for use either in London or on circuit, his legal position should be prejudiced. I quite agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it must not be prejudiced, because the main function of an associate i not the work he will do in London but the work which he will do on assize. If there were any competition or rivalry between his work at the assize and in London, we would naturally have to come down in favour of the assize, because that would be his primary function.

I quite agree it is essential that there should be no derogation from his usefulness and effectiveness in that capacity, but I do not really see that there should be any difficulty. It is true that when he is not occupied with the work of the assize circuit, he will probably come to London and do his work there, but if there is great care and selection in the appointment of the person, so that he has the local attributes, knowledge and cameraderie necessary for the effective discharge of his functions, I do not think there would be any loss in his doing that; indeed, I think there would be an advantage. I am sure my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General agrees with me in this. I think the practice and experience which the associate will gain in London, and the constant contact he will have with judges will contribute to his usefulness and rather enhance than diminish his value.

I look upon this Bill as one which ought to be accepted; it is useful, and it will undoubtedly be an improvement in the administration of justice. Finally, it is clear that the proposal to bring the whole of these appointments and the direction of this administration under the Lord Chief Justice must be right. The idea of desultory appointments by the senior judge going on the winter assizes cannot be supported. This Bill will give fixity, concentration and continuity to the appointments, and the Lord Chief Justice will undoubtedly be guided by local considerations and such assistance as he can get with regard to the appointments. On all those grounds, I heartily welcome this Measure.

12.3 p.m.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd (Wirral)

I welcome anything that will improve the conditions of service of the circuit officers. For a long time their pay has been niggardly and they have had no pension. In many cases they have done very hard work for very little reward, and many of them have been unable to afford to retire, which has not always led to efficiency. Welcoming as I do anything that will improve their conditions, I am sorry to strike a discordant note. I am wholly opposed to the abolition of the offices of associate and clerk of indictments, at all events as far as the Northern circuit is concerned. I do not attempt to speak with regard to conditions on the smaller circuits, where these officials are only part time officials, and where there may be a case for rationalisation and centralisation. On the Northern circuit—that is to say, the courts which handle High Court litigation in Lancashire, Cumberland, Westmorland, and to a considerable extent from Cheshire—the courts sit almost permanently. As soon as one assize finishes at Manchester, the next commences up North, and we have the High Court in almost continuous session up there. This means that on the Northern circuit the associate and the clerk of indictments have almost a fulltime job.

I feel that I need not, as a member of the Bar, apologise for speaking on this subject, because this will not really affect members of the Bar, but it will affect, in my submission, the smooth and orderly administration of justice, which, after all, is the concern of litigants, witnesses, and solicitors as well as of members of the Bar. The present position is that on the Northern circuit there are the clerk of assize, the associate and the clerk of indictments, all of whom are members of the Bar, who work as a team, and are well known locally, and two of them live locally. I submit that this system has worked extremely well. The duties of the associates are, first of all, to issue certificates or orders recording the decisions of the court. That is not always done immediately after a case has been disposed of, and if these are to be issued by clerks found from a central pool in London, it may be found that some point about the order or the certificate with regard to damages will not be raised until the assize is over. It may be that the clerk concerned may be in Truro, or in some remote part of the country, on another assize when the solicitor in Manchester, or wherever it may be, wishes to clear up some point about the certificate or decision of the court. It seems to me that unless there is the continuity which at present exists with the same official sitting on the same circuit continuously, considerable inconvenience will be imposed upon litigants. It will mean that all the correspondence will have to go through London, which I think will be a great burden, whereas now it is simply a question of fixing an appointment with the associate, and the matter is cleared up straight away.

The second duty of the associate is to fix the lists. There can be no greater inconvenience to a litigant that to have an inefficient compilation of a list. It does not affect members of the Bar particularly, because they are probably there in any event, but if there are ten cases in a list, and only one of them can be taken, it means that all the witnesses in the other nine cases have to spend the day hanging about. There is no doubt that the compiling of the lists is a matter which needs very nice judgment, and everything that has been said about the clerk of assize being a member of the circuit applies to the associate in relation to his task of the fixing of the list. It is of very great advantage if the associate has opportunities of getting in touch with the individual members of the Bar in order to gather the necessary information for fixing the lists. I repeat that everything that was said in another place with regard to the reasons for the clerk of the assize being a member of the Bar applies also to the associate. There is also the fact that, on the Northern circuit, the associate very frequently sits as an additional clerk of assize. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) said, in criminal matters there is a very great responsibility on the clerk of the court, and there are very great advantages in the associate having a knowledge of criminal practice and being a member of the Bar.

With regard to the clerk of indictments, his task is to draw indictments, to tax costs, and to sit occasionally as a deputy for the clerk of assize or associate. In the drawing of indictments there is great advantage in having continuity and in having a local person. If the indictments are wanted for a series of cases coming on in the near future, and the clerk of indictments is away in some other part of the country, it makes the whole business very much more difficult. In fact, it means that far more indictments would have to be settled by counsel than is at present the case. Therefore I am speaking against the interest of my own profession when I say that it would be much better to continue the present system of a permanent clerk of indictments who is a local person, who is well known, and in whose office there is continuity. As has already been mentioned, the taxation of costs should be performed by persons with knowledge of local matters. It is a small matter, but it affects the pockets of many people. If they do not get proper allowances for their expenses, or if their costs are not properly dealt with, there is a feeling of resentment against the administration of justice. Therefore, this work should be done by people with a substantial degree of local knowledge. My last point on clerks of indictments is that on a large circuit a clerk of indictments may sit as a deputy clerk of assize or a deputy associate, for very often there happen to be three courts.

In the case of the Northern circuit, there are weighty reasons for continuing the present system. The whole demand with regard to the administration of justice has been to get more decentralisation. That has been felt very strongly in Lancashire for a long time. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General will, I think, agree that there are three criteria for a system of justice: first, that justice should be impartial; second, that it should be cheap—though I do not think we can pretend that this Measure has anything to do with those two matters—and, third, that it should be local. This Bill does affect that. I submit that instead of transferring this work to a centralised pool in London, it should be performed by local people who would do it much more efficiently. I would like to know whether there cannot be provided some loophole whereby the Northern circuit could "contract out" of this arrangement; in other words, that the present state of affairs which has worked well should be permitted to continue. I conclude by repeating that I wholeheartedly welcome the provisions to improve the conditions of employ-ment of these circuit officers

12.12 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton (Brixton)

Most hon. Members, whether they are members of the legal profession or not, will welcome this useful, if minor, reform in the administration of justice. I take it as a happy and agreeable indication that the Law Officers of the Crown occasionally get to the head of the long ministerial queue for Parliamentary time and are thereby enabled to introduce reforms of this character. I hope it is the precursor of more important legal reforms which I trust the learned Solicitor-General will have the opportunity of introducing in the not too distant future, such as the implementation of the Rushcliffe Committee's report on legal aid, and other matters. The change which is the subject of discussion now is, in my view, long overdue. I do not share to quite the same extent as preceding speakers the eulogies which have been pronounced upon the work carried out by clerks of assize. In my view, their somewhat dilatory methods have on some occasions tended to impede the course of justice rather than to assist it. I can think of cases where, for example, an applicant for a Service divorce has had his case held up for weeks simply because a communication addressed to a clerk of assize has not been answered.

Mr. Turner-Samuels

If my hon. and gallant Friend would permit me, it is only fair to clerks of assize to say that divorce practice on circuit is in. the hands of the divorce registry in London. It is perfectly true that it is done locally, but some one is always sent down specially from the London Registry to deal with it. Therefore, to attribute any fault, if any, to the clerk of assize in that respect is not placing the fault where it lies.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton

If my hon. and learned Friend had waited one moment I would have clarified that point. It is not solely in respect of divorce practice that I am making this complaint. It arises from some such circumstances as these: A Service applicant under the Army legal aid scheme desires to institute divorce proceedings. In connection with those proceedings, it is necessary for him or his advisers to obtain a certificate of conviction relating, perhaps, to an offence of bigamy committed by another party to the proceedings. In such circumstances I know there has been considerable delay in obtaining a reply from the clerk of assize in which the particular conviction was made.

I welcome, too, the fact that higher qualifications are to be expected from clerks of assize. They will now be required to be barristers of not less than five years' standing. Hitherto, it has been possible for a gentleman to occupy this important position if he has been either a barrister of not less than three years' standing, or a solicitor in actual practice of three years' standing, or some one who was neither a solicitor nor a barrister. I would be lacking in candour were I not to welcome this further extension of the "closed shop" principle, which I am pleased to see has the support of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe). In that respect I think a considerable improvement has been made. The other point I wish to make is in connection with the age of retirement. If this Bill goes through as it stands, it means that clerks of assize will retire at the age of 72, but may carry on to the age of 75 if the Lord Chancellor considers it desirable, with Treasury approval, to continue that appointment. It seems to me that the continuance in office of this category of civil servants, which they are now to become, to the age of 72 is, perhaps, not in accordance with modern ideas on the subject, and I would suggest that the Government might reconsider whether the provisions of Section 127, Subsection (I) of the Act of 1925 should be applied in this instance.

Mr. Speaker

I am not sure that this is in Order. Are we not discussing some other matter now?

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton

Lastly, I would like to support the suggestion which was made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) in the hope that some information may be given to the House as to what is intended shall be the salaries of full-time clerks of assize who are to be appointed, together with some indication of what they have been receiving in the past, so that the House and the public generally may have some idea of the importance which is attached by the Law Officers of the Crown to this kind of work.

12.20 p.m.

Mr. David Renton (Huntingdon)

My claim to the attention of the House for a few minutes is based on the fact that for a year before the war, I was the junior of the South Eastern circuit, an exalted and unremunerative appointment which the hon. Member for Kingston (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) also held. I should explain to lay Members of the House that the circuit junior is not merely the secretary to that fluid oligarchy, the wine committee, but he has to represent the circuit in its dealings with the Bar—

Mr. Rees-Williams (Croydon, South)

Would the hon. Member say that he could be described as the shop steward of the closed shop?

Mr. Renton

I am afraid I am one of those who agree that the modern conception of the closed shop can be applied in any profession in which years of study and training and the obtaining of qualifications are prerequisites. That is my reply to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Cobb (Elland)

It is still a closed shop.

Mr. Renton

With regard to Clause I of this Bill, I should like to add my humble support to what has been said. I have, however, one comment to make about the provision that a clerk of assize should be a barrister of not less than five years' standing. It is a most significant fact that, although clerks of assize have been, in law, part time officers, once they have taken up the appointment they have generally made it a life career, and have reached positions of distinction in the legal profession. Perhaps, there is no more notable example in recent times than that of the appointment of the clerk of assize of the South Eastern circuit, Sir Arthur Denman. It seems almost incredible to some of us at the Bar that a barrister of the age of, perhaps, 27, with only five years' experience, which is not so very long in our profession, should be able to achieve the distinguished position of clerk of assize in so short a time. I am not going to move an Amendment, but I would ask the learned Solicitor-General to consider whether it might not be better to make the period 10 years. After all, as has been pointed out by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, judges are greatly obliged to the clerks of assize, and it would not be fair to the judges to allow anybody who is junior or inexperienced to be given that office.

That is my only comment on Clause but I share the misgivings of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) with regard to Clause 2. From my experience of the working of the circuit, circuit officers have to work as a team. They have to deputise for each other; they sometimes have to help each other, if one is overloaded with work and one is available to help. It would be a very great pity to split up the team. I do not wish to repeat the arguments which have already been so ably moved in support of that proposition, but I merely register my dissent.

There is a special consideration, however, with regard to the South Eastern circuit, which is, I believe, the largest in the country, and which will suffer, I am afraid, under the proposed system, by the fact that the head offices of the Supreme Court lie within the territory of the circuit. The South Eastern circuit surrounds London, and I feel that there will be a very grave temptation to try to run the circuit from London. If that were so, I feel that the solicitors, shall we say, on the more distant parts of the circuit like Norwich, Bury St. Edmunds, Cambridge, and Lewes, will not have that close liaison with those who are responsible for the smooth administration of justice on the circuit that has prevailed up to the present. I must say that I have not consulted the wine committee of the circuit—it is an executive committee, by the way—as to whether or not they would wish to contract out, and I have no power to ask that they should; but I do feel that my colleagues on the circuit—and I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) would agree with me—would wish me to point out the possible danger, at any rate, that under this new system there may be grave temptation to try to run the circuit from London.

12.25 p.m

Mr. Rees-Williams (Croydon, South)

It so happens that all the previous speakers in this Debate have been members of that distinguished branch of the profession, the Bar.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton

The higher branch.

Mr. Rees-Williams

Well, that is a matter of opinion. I am a member of the solicitors' profession, and although my connection with it nowadays is rather tenuous—in fact, I am honorary vice-president of my local Law Society branch, and that is the only connection I have with it—I have yet a mild interest in the law, and a matter of this kind arouses that interest. Now the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) said that this Bill arouses a little apprehension in his mind. Well, it arouses a good deal more in mine, because, while it all seems very innocuous and it all seems very desirable, and we hear that it is merely for the benefit of those officers who serve the public on circuit, I do see in it, in Clause I (I), an attempt, and a very successful attempt, as it seems, by the Bar to establish themselves in a position that they have not legally had before. In Clause I (I), as has already been noted, no one can be appointed a clerk of assize unless he is a barrister of not less than five years' standing. This is a change, and it is only right that the House should realise that this is a change in the legal position. Previously, and at this moment, there is no actual legal requirement for a clerk of assize.

Mr. Renton

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that, although it is a change, it is a change which implements what has been the practice for a great many years?

Mr. Rees-Williams

If the hon. Member will allow me to make my speech, I shall come to that point in due course. This is, of course, as has been said, an example of the closed shop. In fact, the door in this shop is not merely closed; it is bolted, barred and padlocked, and, as will be seen in a moment, all members of the profession, on both sides of the House—those at any rate, who have spoken—have agreed that this is a proper course of action. Last week we had passionate speeches, and irrelevant speeches, from learned Members on the other side on the Motion for the Fair Wages Clause. They all took up this question of the closed shop, but not one voice has been raised by those Members this morning on this point, where we have, as I say, a shop with a door padlocked and not merely closed. Looking across at the other side, and at the expressive face of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), I expected to see him rise and to hear him exclaim in indignant passion on this point.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

As I do not follow the hon. Member's practice of speaking in every Debate in this House, I was not proposing to intervene; but to reassure him, may I say that I entirely agree with him that Subsection (I) of Clause I of this Bill, with its imposition of the closed shop provisions, is, to my mind, quite improper, and I, personally, am against it.

Mr. Rees-Williams

I never thought I should find myself of one mind with the hon. Member, but I am very glad I have one ally in the closed shop profession. I would say that the only argument that has been put up in favour of this proposal is, that it is much better to have the person who is going to carry out the duties of clerk of assize, a member of the circuit mess. Really, this brings down the administration of justice to a canteen level, and if hon. Members who are members of the Bar had any experience of—they usually have none, and have no interest in—any other system of justice, they would know it is not found necessary in other countries. It is not found necessary in the Dominions, it is not found necessary in the United States of America, and it is not found necessary in the Colonies to have a wine committee to run the administration of justice. Nor is it necessary for officials who are concerned with the administration of justice to be members of a mess as is the practice at the Bar.

I say it is an objectionable provision in the Bill for certain reasons. The first reason is that the solicitor is, by training and by practice, an administrative officer. The barrister, as a rule, chooses his profession, or is put into it by his parents because they think he has, to use a colloquialism, the gift of the gab. They think he is a talker, and they are usually right. He goes into the Bar because he has a certain fluency of diction combined with quickness of wit and nimbleness of mind, as we see so well exemplified by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston. They have, however, no experience and, as a general rule, barristers have no capacity, for administrative work, for the detailed work of every day.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Does the hon. Gentleman claim to include in that pithy summing-up the qualities of the learned Solicitor-General?

Mr. Rees-Williams

I have no idea what would be the aptitude of the learned Solicitor-General as a clerk of assize. He probably would not be a very good one.

Mr. Renton

Is the hon. Member doubting the administrative capacity of the President of the Board of Trade?

Mr. Rees-Williams

I am talking about an administrative capacity as a clerk of assize, not as a Minister of the Crown. A Minister of the Crown has to take great policy decisions, as we know. The clerk of assize has to deal with the petty matters of daily routine in an office. That is the point, and very often the type of man who makes an excellent Minister of the Crown would make a very poor clerk of assize, and I am pretty well convinced that most of the clerks of assize I know would make very poor Ministers of the Crown.

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite (Holderness)

Better than most of them.

Mr. Rees-Williams

I say that barristers are unfitted for this duty by their training. A clerk of assize performs the same duties for the judge of the High Court as the magistrates' clerk does for the magistrates, and many duties of a similar nature, such as those of masters and registrars in Chancery, are performed by solicitors in the High Court. My second objection is that this is a retrograde step. Our aim in this country should be to fuse the two professions and not separate them. The country cannot go on much longer supporting two expensive legal professions, both divided. It is the only country in the world where the two professions are divided in this way, that is horizontally instead of perpendicularly, and in fact in most countries there is only one legal profession.

I see I am beginning to stray from the bounds of Order, so I come back to my third objection, and I think it is an important one, that normally one would only get a mediocre barrister applying for this post, whereas one would get a good solicitor. I have known many clerks of assize, and I quite agree with my hon. Friend that not all of them deserve the bouquets they have had this morning by any means. I do not think—and I ask hon. Members who know this subject to search their consciences—that the normal barrister who is a good man would be content to serve as a clerk of assize. He is looking for something better. It is a dead end, and it is the mediocre man who would go in for it. It is, however, a type of practice, or office which would attract a very good solicitor, and I think the Solicitor-General is making a great mistake in not leaving a loophole so that the Lord Chief Justice could appoint a solicitor if he so desired.

The only answer we have had is that it has not been the practice in the past. This Government are not confining themselves to the past. We are looking to the future, and we think that because a thing has not been done in the past is no reason why it should not be done in the future. I am not asking the learned Solicitor-General to say that solicitors shall be appointed in every case, I am merely asking him to provide that solicitors may be appointed, if the Lord Chief Justice so desires. I think the House will agree that that is a perfectly reasonable suggestion. If the learned Solicitor-General does not agree, I shall put down an Amendment in Committee. I suggest to him that the old phrase used in relation to people who petition his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, "Let right be done," should be applied in small things as well as in large.

12.36 p.m.

The Solicitor-General

If I may have the leave of the House to speak again in this Debate, I should like to deal briefly with some of the arguments that have been adduced. When I say "briefly", I mean briefly, and that is not out of any disrespect to the speeches made by hon. Members, but because I think, if I may use an Irishism, that my best way of replying to their speeches is to listen to them. I mean by that that they have made very useful suggestions. All hon. Members who have spoken on this subject have spoken as experts, and have given their views from personal experience and knowledge of these matters. Therefore I think that my best and most useful course is to listen very carefully to their suggestions and bear them in mind, reminding the House that the object of this Bill is to provide the legislative machinery for the introduction and formulation of the scheme. For these reasons I do not propose to deal in detail with the arguments. I would however like to say a little about some of them. My hon. Friend who spoke last thought that the qualification should still apply in the case of solicitors. An hon. Member opposite took a very opposite view and thought that the period should be not five years but ten years. It is difficult to please everybody—

Mr. Rees-Williams

May I interrupt? That has got nothing whatever to do with it. I want members of a different profession to be allowed. The hon. Member opposite had a perfectly good point about the period during which a member of a profession had served in his profession, but the two things are quite different and should not be confused.

Mr. Renton

I would say that if solicitors were to be allowed, my case for a longer period would be even stronger, but I am not in favour of solicitors being allowed.

The Solicitor-General

I would remind the House, that it has been possible for years for solicitors to be clerks of assize under the terms of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1925, and I think I can say without fear of challenge, that no solicitor has been. I presume they never wanted to be; they have not been in fact. My hon. Friend said that barristers are not suitable for this appointment. But they have already held the appointment in large numbers for years and years, and there have been very few complaints, so far as I am aware. In that connection, I would take this opportunity of associating myself with the tribute paid to the officers of assize courts by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe). I speak only from my own personal experience, but so far as it goes, it shows that they have enormously contributed to the smooth working of the business of assize, both from the point of view of those members of the legal profession engaged in the assize and also from the point of view of the litigant. It would have been very difficult to carry on the work of assize without the constant and unfailing help and cooperation of circuit assize officers. I was very sorry to hear what fell from the lips of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton). I can only say that his experience has been different from mine, and I gather it has also been different from that of most hon. Members who have spoken in this Debate.

I want to say a word with regard to the argument based on the necessity for continuity and careful training and selection. I entirely accept the view that continuity is important, and that careful selection and training are important. I will not, within the confines of this Debate, seek to expose the whole system which will be adopted for the purpose of seeing that associates are properly trained. I would however remind the House that I said that clerks of assizes will themselves take a hand in training associates. The House may well think, and I ask Members to accept the view, that it is an advantage for associates not merely to be able to work at assizes, but also to know the London end—he can combine the two, and his enriched knowledge will contribute towards efficiency in his work. It will, so far as it is possible, be arranged that a particular associate should be confined to a particular circuit. I think that that will, in some measure, go to meet the argument based upon the desirability of a particular associate knowing the conditions of a particular circuit, knowing the people there, the type of litigation conducted there, and so on. He will be directed—I do not say that it will always be possible—to one circuit, and one circuit only, to get to know it well, and to become thoroughly acquainted with all those things in the circuit with which he should be familiar. I should like to leave the Bill at this stage with this brief remark. Hon. Members may wish to discuss Clause I (I) at a later stage, but so far as the Second Reading is concerned, I believe that the House is in possession of the arguments for and against the Bill. In these circumstances, I ask the House to agree to the Second Reading of this Bill which, in principle, is extremely useful.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House, for Monday next.—[Captain Snow.]