Commons Sitting of 6 December 1949

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o' Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr SPEAKER in the Chair]
SHOREHAM HARBOUR BILL
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

SUPREME COURT (PRIZE, ETC., DEPOSIT ACCOUNT)
Account ordered,
"of the Receipts and Payments of the Accounting Officer of the Vote for the Supreme Court on behalf of the Admiralty Division in Prize for the period from 3rd September, 1939, to 31st March, 1949, with a copy of a Letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon."—[Mr. Glenvil Hall.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  NATIONAL INSURANCE

    Students (Insurance Cards)
    Mr. Awberyasked the Minister of National Insurance if he is aware that some students entering colleges have been insured for several years and that, while in training, they are obliged to stamp their cards or lose all benefits for which they have paid, and that this is a great hardship on young men without any income; and if he will take steps to exempt these students for their training period.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Steele): No, Sir; students are neither compelled to pay contributions while attending college nor are they deprived of any title to benefit earned by contributions previously paid. I am sending my hon. Friend a leaflet on this subject, which I am sure he will find useful.
    Mr. Awbery: While thanking my hon. Friend for that answer, may I ask him if he is aware that I received my information from a student who suffered this hardship?
    Mr. Lipson: Does the answer of the hon. Gentleman mean that during the time they are in these colleges students have the same rights and privileges as if they were working and paying their contributions?
    Mr. Steele: I would refer the hon. Member to the report of the National Insurance Advisory Committee, which sets out in detail the position of students.
    Squadron-Leader Fleming: Is it not necessary for these students to have their cards stamped?
    Mr. Steele: Many concessions have been made to students. They are not compelled to pay their contributions, but for three or four years after they have left college they are given time to enable them to make good their contributions if they so desire. If they wish to retain themselves in benefit it is necessary for them to pay a non-employed contribution.
    Mr. Awberyasked the Minister of National Insurance if he is aware that students undergoing one year emergency training for teachers have their insurance cards franked so that no loss of benefit is suffered by reason of their training, and that there is no such scheme for those students taking a longer period of training; and if he will provide for the franking of the cards of the long-term students on similar lines to the short-term.
    Mr. Steele: The question of giving credits to students attending training courses has been considered on several occasions and my right hon. Friend is not prepared to extend the concessions already made. The emergency training scheme to which my hon. Friend refers is a temporary measure, and as it had received special treatment under the old Acts this was continued for the remainder of the period during which it will operate.
    Mr. Awbery: Why is there this difference between a one-year student, who does not have to pay any contribution, and a two-year student, who is asked to pay contributions while in college or make up his payments subsequently?
    Mr. Steele: The comparison is not between the one-year student and the two-year student: it is between the student who is in an emergency teacher training college and one who is not. Under the old Act the former got credits, and we thought it would be unfair to students

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    who started their course after 5th July not to give them the concession as well.
    Mr. Awbery: Would my hon. Friend consider franking the cards of students who are at college for two or three years, on the lines which are followed in the cases of those who are there for one year?

    Workmen's Compensation
    Mr. Peter Freemanasked the Minister of National Insurance what compensation is payable under his regulations to a workman who has lost his right thumb during the course of his employment.
    Mr. Steele: The amount of benefit payable in respect of the loss of a thumb may vary with the place of amputation, the condition of the stump and whether the man can qualify for a special hardship allowance. I regret, therefore, that I cannot answer the Question without knowledge of all the facts.
    Mr. Freeman: Is my hon. Friend aware that a man who accepts another job temporarily loses all his compensation? Is he further aware that a man in my constituency is suffering because of this, and that although he has been out of work for a considerable time he cannot get a job? If he had been directed into the Army he would have received a pension for the rest of his life, amounting to 13s.6d. instead of 18s. in the case of a private, 25s. if he was a warrant officer?
    Mr. Steele: Perhaps my hon. Friend would send me particulars of that case.

  EMPLOYMENT

    Appointments Office (Advertisements)
    Mr. Austinasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that his Appointments Office issues advertisements relating to quasi-Governmental positions, in which age limits from 28 to 45 years are stipulated; and whether, in view of the need for conserving the nation's resources in the effective use of manpower, he will issue an instruction forbidding the issue of restricted advertisements of this nature other than in the most exceptional circumstances.
    The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I have reviewed all advertisements prepared by my Appointments Department
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    in the last three months on behalf of the bodies which my hon. Friend no doubt has in mind, and in no case was an age limit mentioned. Advertisements issued directly by these bodies are not my responsibility.
    Mr. Austin: While these advertisements are not the direct responsibility of the Minister, is he aware that he can set a good example to industry in this matter by refusing to issue restrictive advertisements; and does he realise that the prospects of good, decent. honest citizens are prejudiced because they are over 45 years of age?
    Mr. Isaacs: The only material point to be answered in that question is that the Government are not issuing restrictive advertisements.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Has the right hon. Gentleman discussed this matter with his right hon. Friends controlling the nationalised industries?
    Mr. Isaacs: No, Sir, not recently, but some time back we did so, and in cases where a limit of that sort had been placed, it has been removed. The Appointments Department of the Ministry endeavour to induce employers to take people over the age of that stated in the employers' advertisements, and they have been successful in so doing.
    Mr. Osborne: Is the Minister aware that one Socialist Minister was sacked under this principle during the period of this Government?
    Mr. Isaacs: I should like notice of that question.

    Woollen Industry (Workers)
    Dr. Broughtonasked the Minister of Labour what is the number of workers employed on the manufacture of machine-made woollen textiles; by what number is the industry undermanned; and what steps he is taking to encourage workers to enter the industry.
    Mr. Isaacs: The total number of workers employed in Great Britain in the woollen and worsted industry at the end of October was about 219,000. At the same date, there were 9,900 outstanding vacancies in the industry recorded at Employment Exchanges. Steps taken to increase the number of workers include the accordance of first priority to the filling of vacancies, publicity campaigns,

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    the recruitment of foreign workers, the encouragement of improvements in working conditions, and special arrangements such as day nurseries to enable married women with children to continue or take work in industry.
    Dr. Broughton: Is the Minister aware that it is the case that our famous woollen cloth, the oldest manufactured export, is bringing useful dollars to the country, and that output could be further increased by the employment of more people in this important industry? Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the matter of hostel accommodation to enable workers to enter our woollen textile towns has really been fully investigated and carefully considered?
    Mr. Isaacs: With reference to the second part of the supplementary, the question of hostel accommodation has been carefully reviewed, and at the moment there is no doubt of our ability to provide accommodation for all concerned. As to the first part of the supplementary, it is clear that this very important industry must be encouraged to develop as much as possible, but other matters as well as man-power enter into the question.

    Iron and Steel Foundries (Accident Rate)
    Mr. Malcolm MacPhersonasked the Minister of Labour what correlation there is between the accident rate and working conditions in iron and steel foundries.
    Mr. Isaacs: Although it is reasonable to suppose that, in iron and steel foundries as elsewhere, the accident rate is affected by working conditions, I know of no data on which a precise correlation could be based.
    Mr. MacPherson: Has my right hon. Friend considered the advisability of asking his factory inspectors to investigate this for the purpose of finding out whether such data is available?
    Mr. Isaacs: My hon. Friend will get a copy of the factory inspectors' report which will shortly be issued, and he will see that they have done a tremendous amount of work in this field in the last few months.
    Mr. Henderson Stewart: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean by that answer that the employers in those factories are,
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    in fact, making a substantial effort to improve conditions?
    Mr. Isaacs: Most decidedly.

    Catering Industry
    Sir Ian Fraserasked the Minister of Labour what was the number of seasonal workers unemployed on the latest convenient date in the hotel and boarding house industry; and what the figure was in Morecambe and Heysham.
    Mr. Isaacs: The number of seasonal workers in the catering industry who are unemployed is not known, but the total number unemployed in that industry in Great Britain at 10th October was 28,255. The total figure for November is not yet available, but at the Morecambe Employment Exchange (which includes Heysham) the number registered as unemployed at 14th November was 110.
    Sir I. Fraser: What percentage is the 28,000 of the total employed?
    Mr. Isaacs: I really could not say without notice.
    Sir I. Fraserasked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a statement about the operation of the Catering Wages Act in view of the number of hotels which are to close this Christmas, and in view of uncertainty in the industry about next year's holiday season.
    Mr. Isaacs: I hope to be in a position to give a full reply to a similar Question for answer on Thursday next.
    Sir I. Fraser: Is the inquiry which is likely to be announced one which the Minister is satisfied will really give both sides in this industry an opportunity to improve its prospects?
    Mr. Isaacs: I should not agree to an inquiry if I was not satisfied that it was going to cover the whole ground.

    Foreign Agricultural Workers
    Mr. JohnMcKay asked the Minister of Labour how many foreign agricultural labourers are unemployed and living in hostels waiting to be transferred where they may be required in future; and if this prevents the introduction of any other foreign agricultural workers into this country.
    Mr. Isaacs: There are 600 unemployed European Volunteer Workers in the only holding hostel still maintained. I have not a separate figure for agricultural workers. No further recruitment of male European Volunteer Workers is taking place.

  SCOTLAND

    Prescriptions (Chemists' Accounts)
    Lieut-Colonel Sir Thomas Mooreasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when the last full payment was made to chemists in Ayrshire in respect of completed National Health Service prescriptions.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn): Payment as ascertained by complete pricing of all prescriptions has been made for April, 1949. For other months of this year, advances have been made to each chemist at a rate per form of 90 per cent. of the average rate for his April prescriptions. Some of these advances may in fact represent full payment.
    Sir T. Moore: Would the right hon. Gentleman be surprised to hear that I have information in my possession which shows that the last full payment to the chemists was made in September of last year, and unless a payment has been made since my Question has been put down, I reckon that my information is correct? Does he not think that that is very unfair?
    Mr. Woodburn: I think the chances are that it is not correct, but if the hon. and gallant Gentleman will transfer his information to my possession I will have it looked into.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Why has a full payment not been made as in the ordinary course of business? Are the Government broke?
    Mr. Woodburn: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has on occasions shown a concern for public money, and the Government must do the same and check these things accurately before making full payment.

    Maternity Beds, East Fife
    Mr. Henderson Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is
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    aware that the maternity beds in St. Andrews Cottage Hospital are to be closed down on the direction of the East Fife Hospital Board; that this decision is opposed by almost every public and private interest in St. Andrews and district; that it is contrary to the terms of the National Health (Scotland) Act, 1947, Section 6 (4); and, in view of the unanimous wish of the community for the maintenance of these beds, what action he proposes to take.
    Mr. Woodburn: I understand that the Board of Management have proposed to use these beds for other purposes in view of the substantial maternity provision now available at Craigtoun Hospital three miles from the town. The Regional Hospital Board are, however, in consultation with the various interested parties, and I am bringing the hon. Member's representations to their notice.
    Mr. Stewart: In view of the widespread, unanimous and deeply felt objections to this in the community, would not the right hon. Gentleman give me an assurance that, in fact, no change will be made until the fullest consultations have taken place?
    Mr. Woodburn: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman may not be aware of it, but an equivalent number of beds are available to the general practitioners in the other arrangements.
    Mr. Stewart: While I am aware that that alternative provision is available, is it not regarded by the local people of any class and of any section, including the doctors, as not at all equal to that which they are about to lose?
    Mr. Woodburn: I am bringing the hon. Gentleman's recommendations to their notice.

    Housing, Coatbridge
    Mrs. Jean Mannasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what requests were made by the deputation from Coatbridge Town Council, whom he received in October; and what was the outcome.
    Mr. Woodburn: The deputation's request for permission to make an earlier start with the houses already authorised was agreed to. They also asked for a larger allocation of houses and were told that this would be sympathetically considered when further progress was made with houses already in hand.
    Mrs. Mannasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how far housing progress in Coatbridge has been impeded for lack of timber during the present year and 1948; and to what extent schemes under construction at present will be held back for lack of timber.
    Mr. Woodburn: Lack of timber has not impeded housing progress in Coatbridge in 1948 or 1949. So far as I can judge at present, delays are unlikely to arise from this cause in the near future.

    Glasgow Hospitals (Maintenance Cost)
    Mr. Carmichaelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the average weekly maintenance cost, per patient, in the Glasgow infirmaries, Royal, Western and Victoria, and in the hospitals, Stabhill, Eastern and Southern General, during the years 1947 and 1949; and if he will make a statement on those cases where there have been increases.
    Mr. Woodburn: With permission, I shall circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the approximate figures for 1947 and figures for 1949 which show an increase. I should make it clear that the figures are not on a comparable basis. For example, the 1949 figures include the gross cost of nurses' salaries and board and lodging, whereas in 1947 the figures available only include the net cost. There has also been a very substantial increase attributable mainly to increases in wages and in the salaries of nurses and other staff and including superannuation charges—which amount to nearly two-thirds of hospital expenditure—and to increased costs for fuel and light, drugs and food.
    Mr. Carmichael: While it is not possible to ask a full supplementary question in view of the fact that only part of the answer is given, can my right hon. Friend give some indication by way of comparison with certain things which were left out in 1947? Could he attempt to examine that and let us know why a very serious increase has taken place and whether all these factors were taken into account?
    Mr. Woodburn: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, there were voluntary hospitals and corporation hospitals and the methods of accounting were different. For the first time we are having these things put on a uniform basis. It is this
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    difference which makes comparisons rather more difficult, but if the hon. Gentleman has any particular thing he would like looked into, I shall be glad to do it.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is it not a fact that the cost of maintaining a patient in hospital is about three times the amount allowed to an old age pensioner for maintenance, and would it not be desirable for old age pensioners to go into hospital?
    Mr. Woodburn: Old age pensioners do not necessarily want nurses.
    Following are the figures:

    Hospital

    Average Weekly Maintenance

    Cost per Patient

    1947

    1949

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    Western Infirmary, Glasgow

    10

    0

    1

    13

    1

    11

    Royal Infirmary, Glasgow

    7

    17

    6

    12

    12

    7

    Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow

    9

    13

    1

    11

    0

    6

    Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow

    4

    16

    10

    7

    0

    7

    Eastern District Hospital, Glasgow

    4

    19

    9

    8

    8

    0

    Southern General Hospital, Glasgow

    4

    6

    4

    5

    16

    8

    NOTES:
    1. The figures for 1947 are approximate figures calculated from the accounts of three voluntary hospitals and Glasgow Corporation simply by relating total cost to the number of patient days. The figures for 1949 are for the first six months of the present financial year (1st April to 30th September), and are calculated by a formula which, to facilitate comparisons, seeks to eliminate the effect of variations in the proportion of unoccupied beds.
    2. The figures for 1949 include not only the cost of board and lodging provided for resident staff, but also the gross salaries of nurses, out of which cash payments in respect of board and lodging are subsequently received. The 1947 figures include only the net cost of salaries and board and lodging. The 1949 figures of cost are thus inflated by amounts which may be as much as £1 per week.

    Highlands and Islands Advisory Panel
    Mr. M. MacPhersonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will re-appoint the members of the Highlands and Islands Advisory Panel for a further term on completion of their present term.
    Mr. Woodburn: I have arranged to meet the panel on 16th December, and I

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    should prefer not to make any statement in the meantime.
    Mr. Henderson Stewart: May the House be informed what this body has done, before any suggestion is made as to its re-appointment?
    Mr. Woodburn: From time to time the hon. Gentleman will see what this Government have done for the Highlands. It has been described by a Highland paper as greater than anything done by any Government in history. That result is partly due to advice from the Highland Panel.
    Mr. Stewart: Would it not be fair for the right hon. Gentleman to tell the House in a White Paper or by some other means what precisely this body, which is no doubt important, has done?
    Mr. Woodburn: It advises the Secretary of State, and he takes its advice where possible.

    Hospital Nurses (Food)
    Lieut-Colonel Sir Thomas Mooreasked the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what complaints he has received with regard to the food served to the nurses of Robroyston Hospital; and if he is satisfied with the quality of this food;
    (2) if he is aware of the feeding conditions endured by the nursing staff in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary; and if he is satisfied with these conditions.
    Mr. Woodburn: I cannot find that in either case any complaints have been made to the board of management concerned, who would be the appropriate authority to deal with them.
    Sir T. Moore: Oh, that is not good enough. May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware—and if he is not, he should be, and therefore will he take steps to find out for himself—of the conditions and feeding arrangements of these hospitals, which are reported to me by nurses who have served in them to be most unsatisfactory? Surely that is not the way to encourage volunteers for nursing.
    Mr. Woodburn: The nursing staff have as much responsibility for seeing that conditions are good as anybody else has under this service. Their first duty is to raise the complaint with their board of
    1692
    management. I should not think that the simplest way to get to the board of management was through a Member of Parliament.
    Mrs. Cullen: May I ask whether any complaint about conditions in Robroyston Hospital was made either to the superintendent or to the board of management, of which I am a member? I think it is presumptuous on the part of the hon. and gallant Member to interfere in this hospital.
    Mr. Carmichael: May I ask why the hon. and gallant Member is raising questions relating to conditions in North Lanarkshire?
    Sir T. Moore: I will explain. The nurses in question come from Ayr.
    Mr. Carmichael: I want to know, because I was associated with that hospital for many years.
    Mr. Woodburn: Perhaps the fact that the question has been asked will bring it to the attention of the hospital that complaint is being made. I would respectfully say that these institutions are doing a great job, and I think it is a little unfair to make public attacks upon them unless they themselves have had an opportunity of looking at the matters in question.
    Sir T. Moore: On a point of Order. May I have your protection, Mr. Speaker, against this charge? Am I not to fulfil my duties as a Member of Parliament by bringing to the notice of this House the complaints of my constituents?
    Lieut-Colonel Elliot: In any case, Mr. Speaker, is this not an example of the difficulties which arise when these things are nationalised? It is not the only example.
    Sir Waldron Smithers: May I ask the Secretary of State whether the conditions complained of are the same as in England, because I have had cases brought to my notice in which nurses are afraid of victimisation under nationalisation?
    Mr. Speaker: That seems like an announcement and not a question.

  BRITISH ARMY

    Barrack Accountants
    Lieut-Commander Clark Hutchisonasked the Secretary of State for War why,

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    in the latest War Office circular letter dealing with redundancy in the grades of barrack store accountants and barrack inventory accountants, the proviso safeguarding the position of unestablished employees with the requisite qualifications for appointment as laid down in Regulations for Supply, Transport and Barrack Services, 930, paragraph 71, has been omitted.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Shinwell): The latest instructions regarding the redundancy of barrack accountants are those contained in a War Office memorandum issued in December, 1945. Under this memorandum the position of unestablished employees with the requisite qualifications for appointment, as laid down in Regulations for Supply, Transport and Barrack Service, 1930, paragraph 71, is adequately safeguarded. In considering whether these instructions require amendment I shall, of course, keep in mind the point made by the hon. and gallant Member.
    Lieut.-Commander Hutchisonasked the Secretary of State for War what purpose is served in maintaining a long waiting list of Service pensioner applicants for posts as barrack store accountants and barrack inventory accountants; and whether he will end this practice, in view of the false idea which these ex-Service men may thereby receive of their prospects of employment.
    Mr. Shinwell: There is little prospect of employment as barrack store and inventory accountants for the majority of candidates on the waiting list. Nevertheless, the maintenance of this list of ex-regular soldiers, with not less than 12 years' Colour Service, enables candidates to be considered for employment in their turn. The men are aware that registration on the list affords no guarantee of employment, and I do not consider that any harm is done by the continued maintenance of the list.
    Lieut-Commander Hutchison: Does the Minister appreciate that no Service pensioners were taken on for either of those positions between February and November of this year, and that at the present time there are 455 on the waiting list? Is not that rather a hopeless prospect?
    Mr. Shinwell: I agree that prospects are not too good but, nevertheless, there
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    is an advantage on both sides in continuing the list.

    Printing Department (Staff)
    Sir John Mellorasked the Secretary of State for War what changes have recently been made in the staff of his printing department; and why they were necessary.
    Mr. Shinwell: Disciplinary action, not involving changes in the staff, has recently been taken against certain members of the staff of a subsection of my department which carries out photo-printing work, arising out of the irregular performance of some work not on the public service.
    Sir J. Mellor: Can the right hon. Gentleman say for whom this work was done, and its value?
    Mr. Shinwell: The work was done for a private enterprise firm outside the War Office, and the value of the work is estimated at about £115. The cost of the paper was £25.
    Sir J. Mellor: Is it not a very serious matter? Why, in the circumstances, was not more drastic action taken?
    Mr. Shinwell: It was a very irregular practice indeed, and action is being taken.

    Twins (Posting)
    Mr. Albuasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will issue instructions that identical twins are, as far as possible, to be allowed to serve together during their period of National Service.
    Mr. Shinwell: Instructions are already in existence that twins who wish to serve together as National Service men should be initially allotted to the same corps, join the same unit on the same date and, subject to the exigencies of the Service, undergo their whole-time Army service together. Unavoidable exceptions arise when twins are of different medical categories and cannot be initially allotted to the same corps, or when the call-up of one is deferred. In such cases every endeavour is made, when the twins wish to serve together, to post them to the same unit as early as possible during their whole-time service.
    Mr. Albu: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his answer, may I ask whether he will draw the attention of

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    commanding officers to the particular psychological and emotional difficulties of twins of this nature?
    Sir I. Fraser: Can the Minister give an assurance that twins will be promoted to corporal and sergeant at the same time?
    Mr. Keeling: Can the Secretary of State say whether his answer applies, as would appear, to all twins, or only to identical twins?
    Mr. Shinwell: I understand that identical twins provide the largest number of twins born in this country.
    Hon. Members: No.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will similar regulations be made applying to triplets?
    Mr. Shinwell: If the hon. Member can make any provision for such cases, I will consider it.
    Mr. Albu: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that the case of identical twins is of a quite separate nature from that of twins who are not identical?

    Forces, Hong Kong
    Mr. Hollisasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of hardship caused by shortage of married quarters in Hong Kong; and whether he can make a statement on the prospects of remedying this shortage.
    Mr. Shinwell: Every possible measure is being taken to make more married quarters available in Hong Kong both by construction and by leasing. The provision of troops accommodation up to an adequate standard must, however, be given priority for some months to come.
    Mr. Hollis: Can the Minister say how many married quarters have actually been built there since the war?
    Mr. Shinwell: Off-hand I cannot give the actual figures. If the hon. Gentleman will put the question down, I will assist him as best I can.
    Sir Patrick Hannonasked the Secretary of State for War if he has considered the anxiety entertained by several families in Birmingham and South Staffordshire, on the extension of the tour of duty of British troops reinforcing the Hong Kong frontier, which include the 1st Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment; and if he will make a statement
    1696
    on the health and welfare of the troops now at Hong Kong.
    Mr. Fairhurstasked the Secretary of State for War how much beyond the period required by the Military Service Act does he propose to retain National Service men serving in the Hong Kong area.
    Mr. Shinwell: There is no proposal to depart from the present rules governing the length of an overseas tour in the case of soldiers serving in Hong Kong. For Regular soldiers the tour is about three years. National Service men will be returned to the United Kingdom for their release in the normal way. Although there are invariably a number of minor ailments, such as skin troubles, among the troops in Hong Kong, their general health is good and there has recently been an appreciable fall in the sick rates. Normal welfare arrangements exist including mobile cinemas, forces broadcasts, Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes canteens in all camps on the mainland and additional canteens and hostels run by voluntary organisations both in Hong Kong and Kowloon.
    Sir P. Hannon: Would the Secretary of State indicate to the House when he thinks the tour of duty of the 1st Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment will terminate because that is giving grave anxiety to people in that part of the world?
    Mr. Shinwell: I am afraid that that is another question.

    Leave, Germany
    Mr. Symondsasked the Secretary of State for War what period of leave is given to National Service men serving in the Army in Germany.
    Mr. Shinwell: The period of leave granted to National Service men in Germany varies according to the date of entry into the Service. Those called-up before 1st April, 1948, are eligible for the same scale of leave as Regular soldiers and receive 42 days' leave a year in the United Kingdom and 10 days' local leave. National Service men who entered the Army in the period 1st April, 1948, to 31st December, 1948, are eligible, while serving in Germany, for one period of 21 days' leave in the United Kingdom, provided they have served for eight

    1697
    months in Germany and will have a minimum of six weeks to serve on return from leave; otherwise they may take their leave locally. They are also eligible, in either case, for seven days' local leave. National Service men called-up on or after 1st January, 1949, may be granted 14 days' leave during service in Germany, which, provided they fulfil the same conditions, they may take in the United Kingdom. Otherwise they may take their 14 days as local leave.
    Mr. Symonds: With regard to the latter group, am I right in assuming that there have been no modifications of these arrangements in recent weeks, and, if so, that a leave promised in November but withheld can be regarded as postponed rather than cancelled, provided, of course, that no disciplinary question is involved?
    Mr. Shinwell: I know of no modifications which have taken place in recent weeks, but I will make inquiries and let my hon. Friend know.

    Suez Canal Zone (Accommodation)
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for War how many of the 30,000 United Kingdom troops of all services in the Suez Canal Zone are at present living under canvas.
    Mr. A. R. W. Lowasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will make a statement on the existing accommodation for officers and men and their families in the Suez Canal Zone; and what proposals he has for improvement.
    Mr. Shinwell: Approximately three-quarters of the officers and men of the British Army in the Suez Canal Zone are living in camps with tented sleeping quarters and hutted messes and ancillary buildings. The remaining single officers and men are living either in fully hutted camps or in pre-war barracks. Work is in hand to improve the tented camps but it will necessarily take a considerable time to bring them all up to an adequate standard. War Department accommodation exists for approximately 800 families. The provision of new married quarters is under consideration.
    Mr. Low: When the right hon. Gentleman was out in that part of the world he was reported as having said that he had no idea that the accommodation was as bad as it turned out to be. Does he
    1698
    not bear in mind the many occasions on which hon. Friends of his, as well as hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House, have told him about this; and is it not now long overdue for something to be done for these men serving in a most important part of the world?
    Mr. Shinwell: I was well aware from the information I received from the War Office and elsewhere that barrack conditions and general housing accommodation were unsatisfactory, but I did not realise that conditions were so bad regarding certain categories of accommodation. Obviously this is a very serious problem which must receive very close attention.
    Lieut-Commander Gurney Braith-waite: Are the improvements centred on Fayid or do they include other parts of the Canal Zone?
    Mr. Shinwell: That is another matter which is under consideration.
    Mr. Gallacher: Can the Minister tell me why it is that he is responsible for keeping these lads under such conditions in view of the fact that for so many years he held the opinion that all these lads should be at home fighting for possession of their own country?
    Mr. Speaker: That is another question.
    Mr. Shinwell: The second part of the supplementary question is quite irrelevant. With regard to the conditions, I want to make it clear that it must not be assumed that the conditions are altogether unsatisfactory. Some of the conditions are most unsatisfactory, but some men are living in quarters which are quite good.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: The right hon. Gentleman said that there is accommodation for 800 families. Can he assure the House that there are not more than 800 families in that area?
    Mr. Shinwell: I referred to War Department accommodation.
    Mr. Low: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how his hon. Friend has discovered that there are exactly 30,000 United Kingdom troops in this area when it has been the policy of his right hon. Friends and himself to decline to tell us in this House how many people there were in a particular zone? Ought he not to deny the figure? Is there not some security interest there?
    Mr. Shinwell: I am neither denying nor affirming the figure.
    Mr. Swingler: Did not my right hon. Friend read the "Daily Express" while he was out East? It has the best possible information about the number of troops.
    Mr. Shinwell: I am not prepared to take any instructions about my literary fare.

    Spectacles (Service Type)
    Mr. Lowasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that soldiers and officers requiring spectacles are only able to get service type spectacles whereas civilians living with them are able to get tortoiseshell spectacles with curved lenses; and whether he will arrange that soldiers and officers are treated equally with the civilian population.
    Mr. Shinwell: Officers and men serving in the Army are at present issued with Service type spectacles. The additional issue of a pair of National Health Service type spectacles is under consideration.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Gilt-edged Securities (Policy)
    Mr. Osborneasked the Prime Minister if the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made at Bristol on Sunday, 27th November, that the Government had to step in at the right moment to stop the fall in gilt-edged securities, represents the Government's policy to maintain Government securities on a 3 per cent. basis.
    The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I have been asked to reply. The statement made by my right hon. and learned Friend was a statement of fact from which the hon. Member is at liberty to draw his own conclusions.
    Mr. Osborne: Do I take it from that answer that the Prime Minister agrees with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the sharp fall in gilt-edged securities was because the majority of the Press set out to mislead and confuse the people of this country?
    Mr. Morrison: I am a little bit apprehensive as to how far I had better get
    1700
    into questions involving the Press in this House.
    Mr. John Lewis: Has not a Government broker operated in the market during the whole period that the Stock Exchange has been in existence?
    Captain Crookshank: Is it not very odd that the Lord President should reply on behalf of the Prime Minister about a question relating to the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Chancellor himself might have replied instead?
    Mr. Morrison: That is a little odd, too, in view of the fact that the Question was put down for the Prime Minister. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes to correct his hon. Friend and tell him that he should address the Question to another Minister, he might do it privately and not in public.
    Captain Crookshank: No, Sir. The Prime Minister could decide who should reply for him in his absence. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer is here, he himself might have answered.
    Mr. Morrison: Again the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is wrong. It is quite customary for me to answer in the absence of the Prime Minister.
    Captain Crookshank: Now we know.
    Sir W. Smithers: May I ask the Lord President of the Council if, in view of the fact that when the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was Prime Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."]—was Chancellor of the Exchequer he, by very questionable methods, tried to get the gilt-edged market on a 1½ per cent. basis, we may take it that the Prime Minister is in favour of the policy of trying to get the gilt-edged market on to a 3 per cent. basis? When will the Government realise that if they break the law of supply and demand it will break them?
    Mr. Osborne: On a point of Order. May I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker? The Lord President of the Council was instructing my right hon. and gallant Friend that my Question ought to have been addressed to another Minister. I was instructed by the Table that such a Question could only be put down to the Prime Minister. Is that correct, and is not the Lord President of the Council in the wrong?

    Government Departments (Annual Accounts)
    Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer which Departments have not furnished their accounts this year to the Auditor General on or before 30th November as required by the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act, 1921.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps): The following Departments had not furnished their Appropriation Accounts for 1948–49 to the Comptroller and Auditor General by 30th November, 1949:

    Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (2 Votes).

    Imperial War Graves Commission.

    Ministry of Health—National Health Service Vote.

    Department of Health for Scotland—National Health Service (Scotland) Vote.

    In addition, the following Trading Accounts were outstanding on 30th November:

    Forestry Commission.

    Ministry of Supply: Raw Materials.

    Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries: County Agricultural Executive Committees.

    Department of Agriculture for Scotland: Agricultural Trading Services.

    Ministry of Transport: Shipping Operations.

    Royal Mint.

    The last four are the first Trading Accounts to be rendered for these services and the first year presented special difficulties.
    Sir W. Smithers: In view of this disgraceful revelation, what disciplinary action does the Chancellor propose to take against the Ministries concerned, and when will he realise that under Socialist State control, administration breaks down which brings ruin, and is one of the main reasons for the economic crisis? Why does he not answer?

    Remittances Abroad
    Mr. Hardyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what treatment, consequent upon the alteration in the exchange, value of sterling, is to be accorded to remittances by missionary and charitable societies to enable them to carry on their work in hard currency countries.
    Sir S. Cripps: Missionary and charitable societies already working in the hard
    1702
    currency countries, namely, Canada, American account countries, the Belgian Monetary Area, and Switzerland will be allowed to increase their sterling remittances so as to provide themselves with approximately the same amounts of foreign currency as they would have received but for the recent alteration in the relevant rates of exchange.
    Mr. Pickthorn: May I ask whether for this purpose "charitable societies" includes trusts sending scholars and fellows to American and Canadian Universities?
    Sir S. Cripps: I would like notice of that Question. I should think very likely it does.

    Emigrants (Supplementary Sterling Transfers)
    Mr. Hardyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement about supplementary transfers by emigrants consequent on the alteration in the exchange value of sterling.
    Sir S. Cripps: Yes, Sir. Since 9th April, 1948, emigrants to countries outside the Scheduled Territories have been allowed on application to transfer to their new country of residence £1,000 from their own assets in four annual instalments of £250. I have decided to allow those emigrants whose applications for this rate of allowance were either approved or were in the hands of their bankers before 19th September, 1949, to make supplementary sterling transfers from their own resources, in respect of instalments converted into foreign currency after that date. In this way, emigrants who have sufficient funds of their own will be able to receive the same amount of foreign currency, calculated at the present rates of exchange, as they would have received at the rates ruling when application for emigration treatment was made. This special concession will not apply to persons applying for emigration treatment on or after 19th September, 1949, or to those who had the benefit of the more generous allowance granted before 9th April, 1948.

    Political Propaganda (Expenditure)
    Mr. Palmerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what principles he applies to the assessment for Income Tax

    1703
    purposes of moneys used by industrial and other companies for political campaigns; and if he will state the extent to which the cost of such campaigns rank as a business expense.
    Mr. Carmichaelasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his regulations permit the sums at present being spent by the industrial life offices, sugar-refining and cement companies on anti-nationalisation propaganda to be allocated to expenses or make them liable to assessment for taxation.
    Sir S. Cripps: As I explained in reply to a Question put by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Symonds) on 21st June last, expenditure by traders for political purposes is not permitted to be deducted in computing profits for the purposes of Income Tax or Profits Tax, and any claim to deduct the costs to which my hon. Friends refer would certainly be contested by the Inland Revenue.
    Mr. H. D. Hughes: Yes, but in view of the increasing reliance of the Conservative Party on this type of contribution from vested interests, is my right hon. and learned Friend quite sure that the resources at the disposal of his Department for checking up on this are adequate?
    Sir S. Cripps: Yes, I am quite satisfied.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: In view of the complete dependence of the Labour Party on the Co-operatives and trades unions, can I ask the Chancellor whether the so-called education fund of the Cooperative Societies comes under this heading for tax purposes?
    Sir S. Cripps: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will put that question on the Paper.
    Mr. Carmichael: May I ask the Chancellor whether inquiries are being made now, particularly with regard to the industrial assurance offices and the spending they are engaged in at the moment, to see if they are complying with the regulations as laid down in the answer?
    Sir S. Cripps: Wherever Income Tax returns are made this matter is examined in the ordinary course of business.
    Mr. Pickthorn: In view of the particular competence of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, might he not explain
    1704
    to the House and to his hon. Friend behind him exactly what "vested interests" means?
    Mr. Hughes: I will tell the hon. Gentleman afterwards.

    Post-war Credits
    Mr. McAdamasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total sums involved in recent prosecutions of persons obtaining payments of post-war credits by illegal means.
    Sir S. Cripps: Since the beginning of 1948 proceedings have been taken against 41 persons involving total sums of £2,200.
    Mr. McAdamasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer in how many cases claimants for the payment of post-war credits have been called upon to produce their birth certificates since the proposal to prevent fraud by such means was first suggested in the Public Accounts Committee.
    Sir S. Cripps: I regret that this information is not available.

    Government Departments (Staff Reductions)
    Mr. Geoffrey Cooperasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the Government's decision to reduce Government staff to a minimum to curtail expenditure, he will set up a new working party so that advice from an independent source on appropriate methods can be obtained.
    Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir. Advice from independent sources is already sought in appropriate cases.
    Mr. Cooper: Can the Chancellor say if the Organisation and Methods Division come into this matter and if so, could he give consideration to the advisory panel of outside people being augmented for this purpose in respect of such organisations as have a special interest in organisational problems, such as the British Institute of Management and the Institute of Public Administration?
    Sir S. Cripps: I think we are satisfied that a large and efficient enough panel exists at present.
    Mr. Henry Strauss: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider that working parties are useful in curtailing expenditure and, if so, will he set up one to consider the groundnut scheme?

    Electoral Register (Revision)
    Mr. Keelingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has any further statement to make about the saving on the Government revenue account from revising the register of electors once instead of twice a year.
    Sir S. Cripps: It is now estimated that the total expenditure falling on the Exchequer, including expenditure on printing, will be reduced by about £650,000 in a full year. A similar saving will accrue to local funds.
    Mr. Keeling: Does that answer mean that both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister in their statements to the House in October seriously over-estimated the saving to the Exchequer from this change, and, if so, would the Chancellor say whether any further cut is proposed to fill the gap?
    Sir S. Cripps: No, this was not an overestimate. It was an under-estimate of the total savings because there was an equal amount saved to the local authorities.
    Mr. Keeling: But is not the Chancellor aware that in this House on the Second Reading of the Bill the Under-Secretary said that the saving would be £400,000, and not £800,000 as had been stated by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister?
    Sir S. Cripps: That was unfortunately an error. There was confusion about the figure and the correct figure is the one I have now given.

    Aviation Spirit (Flying Clubs)
    Mr. Lennox-Boydasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is now in a position to announce a reduction in the duty on aviation spirit for flying clubs which provide flying tuition.
    Sir S. Cripps: No; Sir.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether, in view of the fact that it is now being said that the future of the flying clubs lies largely in their own hands, this is not a practical way in which the Government can show a proper appreciation of what they are trying to do?
    Sir S. Cripps: That is a matter of opinion.

    Freight Charges (Increases)
    Sir I. Fraserasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has
    1706
    made of the effect on the cost of living of an increase of 16f per cent. in railway and canal freight charges.
    Sir S. Cripps: No useful estimate could be made of the effect of general increases in freight charges on the cost of items in the cost-of-living index until the effect on the retail price of the various individual items can be seen. The general implications of such increases have been taken into consideration by the Government, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport said in the House on 28th November.
    Sir I. Fraser: Had the Chancellor in mind an increase of this magnitude when he made his broadcast?
    Sir S. Cripps: This was obviously one of the matters that might influence the trend of prices. I had not this particular one in mind.

    Sterling (Exchange Rate)
    Mr. Skinnardasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the travel agency of Thomas Cook and Son, in New York, are selling sterling at the rate of 2.70 dollars; and what action he proposes to take to compel the firm to observe the official exchange rate.
    Sir S. Cripps: I am having this matter investigated, but it would be helpful if my hon. Friend would let me have full details.
    Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: Was this firm nationalised under the Transport Act, and does this Question refer to a subsidiary in New York, which is in a world of reality?
    Sir S. Cripps: I understand that Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son are owned by the Railways—
    Lieut-Commander Braithwaite: British Transport?
    Sir S. Cripps: Yes, British Transport—and, therefore, to that extent they come under the control of the British Transport Commission. I am now making inquiries.
    Sir J. Mellor: Then is not this a day-to-day matter for the Transport Commission?
    Sir S. Cripps: I am making inquiries whether it happened.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the continued fall during the last week of the pound sterling in markets where the pound is freely convertible, he can state what additional action is contemplated by His Majesty's Government to ensure that transferable and convertible sterling released by His Majesty's Government is only dealt with at official parity rates.
    Sir S. Cripps: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer which I gave to his question on this subject on 29th November. There has been no significant change in the situation during the past week.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Is not the Chancellor aware that in Zurich, Milan and Paris sterling has now reached a new low level? Surely, unless urgent action is taken by the Government, the Chancellor will find himself in exactly the same position as he did before devaluation, having to repudiate 14 statements which he had made that he would not devalue.
    Sir S. Cripps: If people in this country do not go out of their way to decry the stability of sterling it will be all right.

    Sterling Balances (Counterclaims)
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for what reason His Majesty's Government have departed from the policy of rendering counterclaims to countries holding sterling balances, as declared to this House by the Prime Minister on 12th May, 1947.
    Sir S. Cripps: There is nothing in' the statement to which the hon. and gallant Member refers which commits His Majesty's Government to render counterclaims of the sort he has in mind against countries holding sterling balances. His Majesty's Government are as anxious as ever to secure a satisfactory settlement of the problem of sterling balances but, as I informed the hon. and gallant Member on 29th November, I do not think that the presentation of such counterclaims is the right way to set about securing it.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that in the statement of his predecessor, to which this Question refers, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster referred to
    1708
    the crushing load of these debts and to the peculiar wartime accountancy which incurred them, and said that sooner or later this mass must be very substantially scaled down and that, as far as he was concerned, he would like them scaled down? May I ask the Chancellor, therefore, whether in view of that declaration he does not think that the Government have made a completely different declaration today?
    Sir S. Cripps: No, I do not think so at all.
    Mr. Oliver Stanley: Are we to understand that if these most important discussions were to take place the origin of these debts and the reasons for which we incurred them, will be pressed very strongly as a reason for having these debts scaled down?
    Sir S. Cripps: At the moment we are discussing the matter with our American and Canadian friends. Of course, the other parties to these debts are not in the discussion.
    Mr. Stanley: Even so, when it comes to discussing them, will the origin of these debts be borne in mind by the Government and be pressed as a reason for lowering them?
    Sir S. Cripps: I shall obviously bear them in mind as, I am sure, will everybody else who deals with this special matter.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: How can the Chancellor say that when, according to Mr. Nehru, India has received assurances already from the British Government that as far as Indian debts are concerned, they will not be scaled down?
    Sir S. Cripps: I have not seen any such assurances, but, quite obviously, we could not scale down any debts without the agreement of the other parties.

    Customs Officers, Ireland
    Professor Savoryasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the number of land preventive men and waterguard officers employed wholly, or partly, on Customs duties on the Irish land boundary on 31st August, 1949; the total annual cost of these officials, including salaries, overtime, and travelling and subsistence allowances; the corresponding figures for the year ended 31st August,

    1709
    1945; and the reasons for variations in personnel and cost of administration.
    Sir S. Cripps: On 31st August, 1949, 63 land preventive men and 20 water-guard officers were employed on Customs duties of the Irish Land Boundary. The corresponding figures on 31st August, 1945, were 42 and 2, respectively. The annual cost of their salaries was approximately £30,000 in 1949 and £11,300 in 1945. Details of the other items mentioned are not separately recorded for these staffs.
    The number of staff has been increased to cope with increased work and to improve the facilities for the clearance of road and rail traffic, including extended hours of attendance at road posts. Apart from the increase in numbers employed, some increase in cost is due to the improvement of salary scales and to the extended hours worked.
    Professor Savory: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman satisfied that adequate steps have now been taken to prevent this plague of smuggling by Republicans?
    Sir S. Cripps: I am sure that there are adequate officers to attend to the duties which they have to perform.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: Have they ever been known to catch anybody?
    Mr. Gallacher: Remove Partition, and you will stop the smuggling.

    Income Tax
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury why in a case, particulars of which have been sent to him, the Inland Revenue made demands for six separate sums totalling £9 3s. in all, in respect of income tax alleged not to have been deducted from Service pay during six different years; and what was the cost to public funds of the researches and other action required to make this demand.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): The liability to which the hon. Member refers was found during the general examination of Service liabilities made in all cases to determine whether tax had been underpaid or overpaid. I regret I cannot segregate the cost of dealing with this particular case.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the right hon. Gentleman segregate the cost of the
    1710
    large amount of correspondence involved in this sedulous pursuit of small change, due eight years ago?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: The hon. Gentleman, as is so often the case, is quite wrong with his facts. This is a balance which is due as a result of several years during which in some years there was an overpayment and in some years an underpayment.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is it not a fact that separate under-payments of approximately £1 were alleged in each of six separate years; and is not the right hon. Gentleman, whose own officials made a demand in those terms, in a position to state how much administrative cost was incurred in pursuing these demands?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: The hon. Gentleman again is quite wrong in his facts.

    War Damage Claims
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what indication is given by the War Damage Commission to persons to whom the form of statutory declaration relating to late claims is handed that this form must be completed immediately and not subsequent to the work concerned being done.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: The procedure of requiring a statutory declaration in support of a late notification ceased over three years ago. It was the practice to issue with the declaration form a letter requiring the applicant to complete and return it within 30 days of issue.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If the right hon. Gentleman would apply his mind to the facts of the Question he would observe that it asks what warning is given where the form "is handed" and not accompanied by a letter, and would the right hon. Gentleman answer the Question?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: As this Question has been taken off the Order Paper at least five times, I have had ample opportunity to study it and I can assure the hon. Member that if he will read my answer carefully he will find that what I have said is quite right.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Would the right hon. Gentleman say the extent to which his answer deals with the case where the form, as the Question states, "is handed "?

    HORTICULTURAL INDUSTRY (SOFT WOOD SUPPLIES)
    Mr. Douglas Marshallasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what allocation he proposes to make to the horticultural industry from the soft wood imports from Finland.
    The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Thomas Williams): I have been asked to reply. Soft wood supplies are allocated as a whole. There is no separate allocation of imports from Finland as such.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Tobacco (Blending)
    Mr. M. Philips Priceasked the President of the Board of Trade what percentage of tobacco from sterling sources and from the Mediterranean area is now being blended in the tobacco sold to the public.
    The Secretary for Overseas Trade (Mr. Bottomley): The percentage of different kinds of tobacco used in different brands of cigarettes and pipe tobacco varies from brand to brand, and I cannot say what percentage of tobacco from any source is used in any particular brand. Of the total amount of tobacco smoked in this country, approximately 30 per cent. at present comes from sterling sources and approximately 5 per cent. from the Mediterranean area.
    Mr. Philips Price: Is it not possible to save dollars to a quite appreciable extent by extending the purchases from these non-dollar sources for blending with American tobacco?
    Mr. Bottomley: That is precisely what we are doing.

    Yarn Prices
    Mr. Austinasked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent prices of textiles for home consumption and exports have been affected by the price minimum regulations enforced by the Yarn Spinners Association; if it is his intention to take action other than reference to the Monopolies Commission to end this restrictive practice; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Bottomley: I cannot at present add to the statement made by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary on 4th November when replying to the Debate on the cotton industry on the Motion for the Adjournment.
    Mr. Austin: Yes, Sir, but this monopoly on the part of the Yarn Spinners Association is affecting the price of cotton, and would not the best thing be to reimpose the price controls which were lifted in April of this year?
    Mr. Osborne: Would the Secretary for Overseas Trade state that it is true that the textiles now coming through are largely made from yarns purchased before devaluation, that there has been no rise in prices and that practically all textile manufacturers have refrained, as requested by the President of the Board of Trade, from increasing prices?

    Export Industries (Labour and Materials)
    Mr. Austinasked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent it is the policy of His Majesty's Government to seek to withhold labour and raw materials from firms in dollar-earning industries, who refuse to respond to the Government's appeal in this connection.
    Mr. Bottomley: It is the Government's policy to discriminate in favour of firms which are engaged in dollar export trade and to make available to them adequate supplies of scarce materials. The first preference system of filling labour vacancies is exercised in favour of exporters to dollar areas.
    Mr. Osborne: Again on this point, would not the Minister agree that all textile manufactures have done their best in answer to the request of the Chancellor to export to dollar countries, and would not the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Austin) be better employed playing tiddlywinks?
    Mr. Austin: Where my right hon. Friend finds that there is a hard core of industrialists and traders who will not co-operate with the Government, will he take steps to apply economic sanctions to affect the profits, which is the only thing they understand?

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  JUSTICES OF THE PEACE [MONEY]
  Resolution reported:
  "That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session (hereinafter called "the Justices Act") to amend the law relating to justices of the peace (including stipendiary magistrates), justices' clerks and the administrative and financial arrangements for magistrates' courts, to provide for paying travelling and lodging allowances to members of probation committees and case committees and for enabling probation committees to hold land, to authorise the appointment of interim clerks of the peace in Scotland and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise the making of payments as follows:—
  To be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament

  1. Any expenses of the Lord Chancellor or the Secretary of State under the Justices Act.

  2. Any increase resulting from the provisions of the Justices Act in the sums which under Part I or Part II of the Local Government Act, 1948, or under section seventy-seven of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, fall to be paid out of moneys so provided.

  To be paid out of the Consolidated Fund

  1. Any increase resulting from the provisions of the Justices Act in any superannuation allowance payable under the Police Magistrates (Superannuation) Acts, 1915 and 1929.

  2. Any contributions towards the pension under the Justices Act of a stipendiary magistrate which are payable in respect of service as a metropolitan police magistrate.

  To be paid into the Exchequer

  1. All sums paid to the Secretary of State by virtue of any provision of the Justices Act relating to the application of fines imposed by courts of summary jurisdiction and of other moneys which are applicable in the same way or are received by justices' clerks.

  2. Any contributions payable under the Justices Act by local authorities towards the pension of a metropolitan police magistrate."

  Resolution agreed to.

  JUSTICES OF THE PEACE BILL [Lords]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Mr. BOWLES in the Chair]

  JUSTICES OF THE PEACE BILL [Lords]

    Clause 1. —(RESIDENCE QUALIFICATION OF JUSTICES.)
    3.31 p.m.
    Mr. Osbert Peake: I beg to move, in page 1, line 11, at the end, to insert:
    "or carries on business or is gainfully employed in that area."
    1714
    This Amendment is designed to provide that the 15 miles radius within which a justice of the peace has to be resident in order to remain qualified to act as a justice shall be measured not only from the area concerned to the residence, but also in relation to the place of business or employment. Many people nowadays, under the present shortage of housing, have to travel some distance to their work and it seems to us reasonable that the man residing, say, 18 miles outside a borough, who travels into that borough frequently in order to conduct his business, or for the sake of his employment, should be also qualified to act as a justice in respect of that area.
    The Attorney-General (Sir Hartley Shawcross): We have of course carefully considered this proposal which was, indeed, twice discussed in another place and eventually withdrawn. As hon. Members will appreciate, the reason for the residence qualification is to ensure that justices should be normally available in the areas of the commissions of the peace on which their names have been placed, not only for the purpose of attending at court on the days for which they are on the rota, but also for all those innumerable other purposes for which the services of justices are required, the most common of which, I am told, is that of signing and witnessing documents. If the justice is in fact resident in the area of his commission, he will be normally at home and available in the evening, when one or other of the local lieges wants to consult him and obtain assistance in the signing of a document, or whatever it may be, and that is one of the great advantages of this local administration of justice.
    If, on the other hand, the justice does not reside in the area of the commission, but is merely carrying on business there—possibly I suppose an absentee director might come under the provisions of this Amendment, although I am not quite sure—in some firm or undertaking which may have its headquarters in the area, but may require that he should travel outside the area of the commission more than in it. It is not then likely that he will be available in the area in the evenings, or even in the daytime. If people wanted to make contact with him as likely as not he may be away on business, or too busy to give them personal attention.

    1715
    When the Amendment was put down first, I think it was withdrawn in order that further thought could be given to it and put down again, and it was given the most careful consideration. It was finally withdrawn in another place by way of a compromise, I think, when we extended the radius of the qualification to 15 miles. We thought that as far as we ought to go in this matter, in view of the very strong recommendation of the Royal Commission. In those circumstances I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see fit to withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. Peake: In view of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 2. —(THE MAYOR AS A JUSTICE.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. Royle: On a point of Order, Mr. Bowles, I wonder if I might have your guidance? Later on the Order Paper there is a new Clause in my name and in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Hackney (Mr. H. Hynd) dealing with the question of mayors as ex officio magistrates. I wonder if that Clause will still be in Order, if Clause 2 is carried?
    The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member is on a good point, and if he is to make a speech he should make it now, because his Clause will not be called, if Clause 2 is ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Royle: The Committee will realise that two or three new Clauses have been put down in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Hackney and myself raising the whole question of ex officio representation on benches of magistrates. The case I have in mind relative to Clause 2 concerns the fact that mayors can be made magistrates for 12 months during the course of their mayoralty and for a further 12 months when that mayoralty ceases. I submit that that is a very undesirable thing. During the Debates in another place the
    1716
    question of mayors being ex officio magistrates was not discussed, but matters relating to chairmen of county councils and chairmen of district councils were discussed by the other place, and, ultimately, Amendments put down were withdrawn, but only after a great deal of consideration.
    I submit that we have now reached the stage in the appointment of magistrates in which there should be no ex officio appointments of any kind. I should not like to say anything derogatory of the very estimable citizens of many of our towns and counties who attain the office of mayor, or chairman of the county council or district council, or of their suitability for the job concerned. It is altogether wrong that, having been selected for one purpose, a man should automatically be selected for another and entirely different purpose.
    In my submission there is not the slightest relationship between the duties of a mayor and the duties of a magistrate. While I do not wish to occupy the time of the Committee for long in view of the anxiety of my right hon. Friends that this Bill shall become law, I wish to submit as seriously as I possibly can that after the discussion there has been on this matter for many years it will be most disappointing if no step forward is taken on this important question. I ask my right hon. Friend to give serious consideration to it between now and the Report stage with a view to including in the Bill conditions which will prevent anyone from taking office as a magistrate in an ex officio capacity. I do not think that any useful purpose is to be served by going into the matter any more deeply except to say that in these days we are particularly desirous that people who are chosen as magistrates shall be selected on the basis of their qualifications for those duties.
    Mayors and chairmen of county and district councils attain that office in the main largely because of long public and political service, and that must in no circumstances be a test for the appointment of magistrates. There is only one test for the appointment of a magistrate, namely, the suitability of the candidate whose name is being considered. In view of the fact that the new Clause to which I have referred will not be called, I must make

    1717
    my speech now, and I appeal to my right hon. Friends to alter the terms of the Bill so as to bring about what I now suggest.
    Mr. H. Hynd: All of us are anxious not to put forward obstructions to this Bill because we want to see it on the Statute Book this Session. My hon. Friend has raised a most important point, however, and I appeal to the Minister to consider it. I wish to put another aspect on the matter. The question arises why the mayor or the chairman of an urban council is made a J.P. for his period of office. I have never been able to elicit a satisfactory answer to that question. The only possible answer seems to be that the right to put the letters J.P. after his name is regarded as being some sort of honour.
    For many years it has been a misconception that an appointment to the bench of magistrates is an honour or reward for public services. As my hon. Friend says, that is an entire misconception, and if we could remove this practice—and it is only a practice—of making mayors and these other chairmen ex officio justices of the peace, we should be going a long way towards removing from the mind of the public the idea that to be a J.P. is a reward for faithful service or is some kind of public honour. We want it to be understood and appreciated that a J.P. is selected to do an important job of work and that the office is something that should be entrusted only to people who are there to do that very important public service.
    It seems a pity that when we have gone to the trouble of producing a Bill of this comprehensive kind dealing with justices of the peace the Government have not taken the opportunity to do away with this anachronism of making these appointments by way of an honour rather than by way of appointment to an important public post.
    3.45 p.m.
    Mr. Pannell: I hope the suggestion of my two hon. Friends will not be accepted. Quite enough harm has been done to local government in the last few years without the kind of wounding references which we have heard today. Let us put this matter in its historical setting. I have always understood the position of a mayor within his own borough to be that "he takes precedence
    1718
    over all others," that he is constitutionally the person who is the direct representative of the King there. That has been the position for many hundreds of years. If the suggestion which we have just heard were to be adopted it would be construed by local government circles as another back-hander on the part of people who have no particular care for local government.
    As the qualifications of a mayor to sit on a bench of magistrates have been questioned, I would say that when someone has attained the status of mayor in most boroughs or that of chairman of the local council, he usually brings greater qualifications to the bench, at least in the initial period, than people appointed justices of the peace on the recommendation of advisory committees. When we consider why some people are put on the bench of magistrates and compare them with the mayors of some of our cities and towns, it is positively insulting to suggest that the mayor does not come to the office of justice of the peace with vastly more qualifications.
    I know of a district where everyone who has sat on a hospital committee run by the Primrose League has always been made a J.P. We all know, in each district, in what way magistrates are appointed, and whom to get at. The mayor is only one who comes to the office completely free from any question of being selected by that procedure. He comes to office because he is the first citizen of the borough. If, as is often the case, he has presided over important committees of the local authority and is in office in a representative capacity in the town, he brings to the bench and to the office of justice of the peace a prestige which no other newcomer brings.
    We shall have to consider in the next Parliament the position of local government in the light of present day circumstances, but at this stage I think that the position in this respect might well be allowed to rest where it is. I do not think we shall get very much further if we went into the question of why magistrates were appointed and the composition of advisory committees.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): There was a time when I should have had to declare an interest in this matter because I have

    1719
    been a mayor, the chairman of an urban council and the chairman of a county council, so perhaps I speak with some little bias on the matter and I wish to make that quite clear. We have decided to retain these officers as magistrates because we think that the office they hold is worthy of recognition. I share to some extent the feelings of my hon. Friend the Member for West Leeds (Mr. Pannell) about the qualifications of most of these ladies and gentlemen when they come to the bench for the first time. There are, however, exceptions to the rule. As one who has also been a member of an advisory committee, I know that there is no bigger gamble than appointing anyone to be a magistrate, because some people from whom one has expected most, turn out to be the worst and some of those whose appointment to the bench one has viewed with some degree of hesitation have proved to possess just those qualities which a magistrate requires.
    My hon. Friend the Member for West Leeds said that there have been certain alterations made in local government in recent years and that it is desirable that we should preserve, so far as we possibly can, the status of local government in the eyes of the community. I believe that this is one of the best ways of doing it. But we have made certain alterations, particularly with regard to mayors. The mayor in future will not be the chairman of the bench and I think that that is a desirable reform. It is not desirable that a newly-appointed magistrate should step immediately into the chair.
    Secondly, we have deprived the ex-mayor of the 12 months period as a magistrate that followed his mayoralty. I understand that there has always been some doubt as to exactly what position he occupied during that period. Where there was no borough bench it was unusual for him to sit as a magistrate during a second year, but he could still sign papers and carry on administrative work as a justice.
    I think it is desirable that these public officers should find their office carrying this distinction, but it must be borne in mind that if an unsuitable mayor or chairman is elected the Lord Chancellor has the power, which he has exercised in quite recent years, to prevent him from
    1720
    sitting on the bench. With the reforms we have in this Measure regarding the position of the mayor, and having regard to the power of the Lord Chancellor in the matter, I think we can safely leave these few people on the bench. They bring to the deliberations of the justices a knowledge of the district which is useful. I hope that the Committee will feel that we have removed the worst anomalies in connection with this matter and that what remains, in view of the general size of a bench, does not amount to so much that we need regard the arrangements we are now making with anything other than favour.
    Mr. Logan: May I suggest to the Home Secretary with regard to Clause 4, paragraph (a), that Clause 5 would certainly cover it—
    The Deputy-Chairman: We are discussing whether Clause 2 should stand part of the Bill. I have said nothing yet about Clause 4. It may come later.
    Mr. Logan: With all due respect, Mr. Deputy-Chairman, the Minister was speaking about exceptions being made, and I thought that I could intervene.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 3. —(DISQUALIFICATION IN CERTAIN CASES OF JUSTICES WHO ARE MEMBERS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES.)
    Motion made, Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mrs. Braddock: I notice that the Clause states:
    "A justice of the peace who is a member of a local authority … shall not act as a member of a court of quarter sessions or of a magistrates' court. … "
    etc. In subsection (4) it states:
    "Nothing in this section shall prevent a justice acting in any proceedings for an offence by reason only of their being brought by a police officer."
    I should like some explanation on the point, and would put forward a specific case. Would a magistrate who is a member of a local authority be precluded from dealing with a case in a juvenile court where children were accused of breaking into property belonging to a local authority? Imagine, for instance, a pavilion in a park, where some form of

    1721
    stealing had taken place, and where the local authorities do not prosecute but the child is arrested by the police and the action is brought by a police officer. In those circumstances will a magistrate be debarred from dealing with the case because of the wording of subsection (4) of this Clause?
    If that is the position it will be particularly difficult in an area where there is a juvenile court on a rota basis, where members of a juvenile court take a rota of perhaps of one morning a week through two months, or one morning a week throughout a month, and are compelled to deal with all the cases that come before them on that particular morning. If members of a local authority are unable to deal with cases in those circumstances it means that the case of a child arrested the day before will have to be held over until a day when a member of the local authority is not a member of the juvenile court. It may sound a bit complicated, but if the matter is looked into it will be discovered that it is very difficult to have a bench of juvenile magistrates, none of whom are members of the local authority always sitting when there are children to be brought up in connection with misdemeanours relating to property belonging to a local authority.
    I would also like to know the position where an education committee brings to a juvenile court a child who has been playing truant from school. It will be a very complicated matter for the juvenile bench to sort out the different justices who are members of the local authority and the cases which have to be dealt with on a particular day. If that is the situation it will require further consideration to see whether small matters of that sort can be dealt with by the ordinary magistrates on the juvenile bench who appear on the ordinary rota. This matter has been raised with me, because throughout the country there are magistrates on juvenile panels who are also members of local authorities. The rotas are fixed at the beginning of the period and continue right through the three years that a person sits as a member of a juvenile bench. It would mean the complete reorganisation of the rota and in many instances a child would be unable to be brought before the bench immediately.
    Mr. Charles Williams: I wish to support what the hon. Member
    1722
    for the Exchange Division of Liverpool (Mrs. Braddock) has said. As she knows so well, I never open my mouth in this place unless I say something sensible. I should like the Home Secretary to look into this, because it does seem to be a loop-hole in the Bill and something might be done to put the matter right before it goes any further. I wish to thank the hon. Lady for what she has done as well as thanking her for her kindness to me not very long ago in my constituency.
    Mr. Janner: I wish to ask the hon. Member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool (Mrs. Braddock) to reconsider the points she has raised. It is a matter which does raise a very important issue which is an interesting one to advocates in various courts. As matters stand at present, if someone happens to be sitting on the bench who is interested by virtue of the fact that he happens to be a member of a local authority, it is difficult for an advocate to ask that person to retire, because it immediately creates prejudice on the part of the other people who are sitting on the bench.
    At the same time, in order to give real satisfaction to his client an advocate feels that a demand should be made for that person to retire. I am certain that those who have had experience in these matters will agree that that often has to be taken into consideration before an application is actually made. Whilst I appreciate the point that difficulties must arise, particularly in juvenile courts, I think that the advantages of not having a magistrate who is concerned with the actual offence in respect of which a prosecution takes place outweigh the disadvantages which might accrue from having to exclude that type of magistrate.
    4.0 p.m.
    The Attorney-General: I do not think that we shall be able to consider any amendment of this Clause. This is a most important Clause which meets some of the difficulties which have hitherto arisen—such as those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester (Mr. Janner)—where it has been awkward to suggest to a certain justice that he ought to retire because of a possible interest or bias in connection with a case. In the two cases mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for the

    1723
    Exchange Division of Liverpool (Mrs. Braddock), the answer to the first is that there would not be disqualification—
    Mrs. Braddock: Where the local authority is not involved at all in the prosecution, but where the police bring the prosecution?
    The Attorney-General: That is exactly what I was dealing with. I was saying—that in that case the member of the local authority could sit and would not be disqualified by this Clause. The case the hon. Lady put was that of a child who had committed some offence—perhaps a larceny or a burglary—on premises belonging to the local authority. There would be no disqualification. In the instance she quoted where the prosecution was a police prosecution and not the result of any decision taken by the local authority or any of its committees, there would be no disqualification under this Bill.
    I ought to add that, of course, this Clause does not take the place of the ordinary common law rules relating to bias. I do not know whether those rules would affect the case which the hon. Lady had in mind. It depends entirely on the circumstances. Obviously, if a magistrate's own house had been burgled, he would act with gross impropriety if he sat as magistrate to try the person who had burgled it. It is a question of degree. There might be cases where, although not disqualified under the Act, a member of a local authority ought to refrain from sitting on a bench.
    The second case is a different one and to that the answer is that the member of the local authority would be disqualified under the Clause. That was the case where as a result of some decision of the Education Committee, proceedings were taken against a parent in respect of some offence over which that committee has jurisdiction. There we think that it would be wrong and contrary to the spirit of the Clause for a member of the local authority to sit. After all, the decision as a result of which the proceedings before the court are taken is a decision by a committee of the authority of which the justice is a member.
    I do not know whether the decisions of these committees are confirmed by
    1724
    the council as a whole before the prosecution takes place, but if they are then they are decisions of the very body of which the justice is a member and in regard to which he has been entitled at least to express a view one way or the other.
    Mr. Leslie Hale: And to hear statements.
    The Attorney-General: And to hear statements as to the reason why the prosecution ought to be brought. If one permitted a justice who was a member of an education committee to sit, I cannot see why one should not extend a similar right to a member of a local authority in regard to any other matter in respect of which proceedings were taken—not on the suggestion of the education committee but on the suggestion of some other committee—in matters affecting the local authority. I feel, therefore, that the hon. Lady on reflection will appreciate that it is better to have a hard and fast rule applying to all committees and providing that justices who are also members of those committees and members of their local authorities should not sit in courts which are dealing with cases as a result of decisions taken by those committees and those authorities.
    Mrs. Braddock: I merely asked for guidance in this matter. I did not make any comment. I am interested in the point that where a children's committee is part of a local authority and an action is taken by that committee, the member of the local authority could not sit; but where the children's committee is not part of a local authority but is an ad hoc committee, then the juvenile magistrate could sit. There is a difficult situation. This matter bristles with difficulties.
    The Attorney-General: I understand the position to be that those committees are legally committees of the local authority. They are part of the local authority and the disqualification would apply.
    Mr. Scholefield Allen: I should like information about the position of a co-opted member of an education committee. Is that person a member of a local authority?
    Mrs. Braddock: No.
    The Attorney-General: I should say that he certainly comes within this disqualification.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 4. —(SUPPLEMENTAL LIST.)
    General Sir George Jeffreys: I beg to move, in page 4, line 4, to leave out from the beginning, to "who," in line 7.
    The effect of this Amendment is to delete the provision for the entering in the supplemental list of the names of persons who are 75 years old or over and who neither hold nor have held high judicial office. That provision is unnecessary. I am not here as an advocate of those old people who are senile or who have not got possession of all their faculties—for instance, those who are deaf, which is the worst defect of all from this point of view. However, I suggest there are not a few justices of the age of 75 or over who have all their faculties and who are very able justices. It would be a great mistake to place them automatically on the supplemental list.
    In many instances those old magistrates have one possession which young magistrates, as a rule, have not got. I refer to their considerable experience. I suggest that the position of those who are senile or who have lost the use of their faculties is adequately dealt with under subsection (4, b). There it is laid down:
    "… the Lord Chancellor may direct that the name of any person appointed a justice of the peace … shall be entered in the supplemental list … if the Lord Chancellor is satisfied either—
    (i) that by reason of that person's age or infirmity or other like cause … "
    That seems to be very wide indeed. It might be that a person was suffering from senility before he attained the age of 75. I suggest that those words cover every kind of case which may arise. If a man, whether he be 75 or not, is incapable of properly performing his duties because of age or infirmity, the Lord Chancellor may direct that his name shall be entered in the supplemental list.
    On the other hand, merely to introduce an arbitrary limit, such as the age of 75, and place everybody who reaches that age on the supplemental list automatically would be a mistake, particularly as there
    1726
    is adequate provision in that part of the subsection which I have just quoted. Further, if the Amendment is approved, it would be possible to delete subsection (6) which provides that:
    "Until the expiration of five years from the coming into force of this section, the said rules may also provide for exceptions from the provisions relating to justices of the age of seventy-five years or over in any area where it appears. to the Lord Chancellor necessary in order to have enough experienced justices."
    If we do not make the rule which is. outlined in subsection (4, a), then we do not need subsection (6) at all. I hope this matter will be reconsidered, because I do not think that the Amendment interferes in any way with the spirit of the Bill, but that it may have the effect of retaining on the bench certain. justices who are very useful and very experienced. I therefore hope that the Government will favourably consider my suggestion
    Mr. H. Hynd: I must disagree with the hon. and gallant Member for Peters-field (Sir G. Jeffrey) in what he has said about this Clause, though I do so in no spirit of disrespect for age and experience. I would say, from my discussions with people who are interested in this Bill, that the only doubt seems to be whether 75 is too high an age. The hon. and gallant Gentleman pointed out that in another part of the Bill the Lord Chancellor has the right, and indeed the duty, of removing justices for certain reasons, and I am sure that he will agree that it is putting too much on the Lord Chancellor to expect him to write to somebody and say, "In my opinion, you are now senile and should go on the supplemental list." That is what the suggestion boils down to, and it would be embarrassing for the Lord Chancellor and even more embarrassing for the recipient of such a letter.
    I feel that, by and large, the Bill has provided a solution which will be acceptable to everyone, including the people most concerned, because those who are serving at present, and serving with distinction, above the age of 75 or just approaching it, will have this saving Clause. I am the first to recognise the truth of what the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said about the brilliant exceptions, because I am fortunate enough to be serving on a bench of which the present

    1727
    chairman is over the age of 75 and is a brilliant exception to the rule.
    Nevertheless, a line must be drawn somewhere, and I feel that I must give all the support I can to the proposals in the Bill to draw that line at 75 and to give these five years of grace for those who are serving at the present time. That is the only way in which we can achieve the object which surely every one of us must have in view, which is to get rid of the old idea which has done the bench no good—the idea that the people on the magistrates' benches are people who are going "ga-ga" and are beyond the age at which they are still in possession of their full faculties. We want less of the great-grandfather attitude on the bench, and a little more of the fatherly attitude, in dealing with the unfortunate people who come before our courts. Therefore I support the Clause as it stands.
    Lieut-Colonel Boles: I am neither 75 nor a justice, and I can therefore claim to be quite disinterested in this matter, but I do feel that this is a very arbitrary line to draw. The hon. Member for Central Hackney (Mr. H. Hynd) has said that he knows of a very active-minded man over 75 who is doing his job perfectly well. Therefore, I see no reason to draw this hard and fast line. The hon. Member said that the line had to be drawn somewhere, but surely it is better to draw it on the efficiency of an individual rather than on a certain datum line of age?
    Mr. H. Hynd: May I say that I thoroughly agree with the hon. and gallant Gentleman, provided that some way can be found as to who is to be the judge of efficiency?
    4.15 p.m.
    Lieut-Colonel Boles: That definition was drawn by my right hon. and gallant Friend who proposed the Amendment, when he pointed out that those people who did not possess the qualifications could be dispensed with.
    There is this further point about the matter. Magistrates are very hard people to find, and we are not going to find all the younger men who will be willing to take on the job. I had some experience in trying to appoint magistrates, and they are not at all easy to find. Unless it is necessary to do away
    1728
    with those now serving, I do not think it would be right to do it. Of course, if there is any suggestion of senile decay, let us have them out by all means and let anybody be the authority to do it who is in a position to judge. The Home Secretary must know of many cases of people who are perfectly able-minded beyond the age of 75, and who have acquired a large amount of tolerance and wisdom which is invaluable to them in sitting on the bench. I therefore support the Amendment.
    Mr. Logan: I do not think I am suffering from senile decay, and I am over the prescribed age, but I feel a great pleasure in carrying out this job on the bench to the best of my ability. Looking round on many individuals sitting on that bench, I think that, if there was a medical examination, it would not be a case of senile decay, because many of them are mentally deranged. I think the prestige of the men on the bench has to be considered.
    I do not know how these selections are made. They are inclined to be the result of a sort of secret council on these appointments, and, when a list comes forward, we find that all and sundry are coming forward to sit on the bench. To be quite honest, many of those whom I see appointed to sit on the bench have been people whom I never regarded as being fit and proper for that job. I must say that because I have found many people chosen from the ordinary walks of life who have not been fit to occupy that high position.
    When it comes to the question of removing some of these people, I think the Lord Chancellor would be the person on whom that duty would fall and who would find some method of removing them if the facts of the case were reported to him. I think that a little old age and some common sense would be more valuable than the decisions of some hasty, young J.P. who did not value what maturity means. Whether they are old or young people sitting on a bench, or whether we take the case of other people in ordinary public life, if they are not fit and proper persons for those duties, they should not be there at all, because I think they are very exalted positions. If we have people who are sane and hearty, who know what they are doing, who know the people with whom they have to

    1729
    deal and can weigh up judicially the cases that come before them, they are the people whom we ought to have on the bench, and we should get rid of all those who do not know what they are doing.
    Mr. Marlowe: I want to support my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys) in his plea to retain justices of the peace over the age of 75. It seems to me that this is a matter in which we cannot draw a hard and fast line at any age at which people ought to be called upon to retire. There are many people under 75 who are quite incapable of discharging their duties, just as there are others over 75 who are quite capable. It is essentially a matter which ought to be decided on the merits of each case.
    It is not as if the Bill lacks power to deal with individual cases. An hon. Gentleman opposite spoke of the functions of the Lord Chancellor under the latter part of this Clause, and he said that it would be embarrassing for the Lord Chancellor to have to discharge the function of removing a man of 75 or over. Whether it is embarrassing or not, it is exactly the function which the Lord Chancellor will have to discharge under the later part of this Clause. I should have thought that it would be far more embarrassing to the Lord Chancellor to have to call upon a man of 35 or 40 to retire, because under the provisions of the Bill he is considered incompetent to discharge his duties. To my mind the argument that it may be embarrassing to the Lord Chancellor is totally irrelevant.
    The only issue here is whether it is wiser to try to deal with these matters by rigid rules, or to consider each case on its merits. I support the latter view, and I hope that the Government will think again and leave those who have the experience the opportunity to use that experience in voluntary public service, bearing in mind that under present economic conditions it is becoming more and more difficult to find people to undertake these voluntary tasks. The social conditions of this country nowadays are making it increasingly difficult to find the right people who have the necessary time to give to this function. Very often a septuagenarian—always assuming that he
    1730
    is competent—is the person who can give the time to this function. Therefore, I hope he will be retained on the bench.
    The Attorney-General: The hon. and learned Gentleman the junior Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) alluded to the fact that the Lord Chancellor will have power under the Clause to transfer to the supplemental list magistrates who are under 75, and said that if the Lord Chancellor could do that in the case of magistrates under 75, he ought to be able to do it also in the case of those over that age. I venture to think that the Committee will agree that in the case of magistrates who, for one reason or another, demonstrate their unfitness under 75, it is usually much easier for the Lord Chancellor to act, and much less invidious for him to do so, than in the case of those whose only fault is that in their declining years they may not have the mental fitness and capacity which they previously possessed.
    It is said that there are some magistrates under the age of 75 who are far more incompetent than those over that age, which I can well believe. Some magistrates are too old when appointed, and the answer is that they ought never to have been appointed at all. We are trying to ensure that in future they will not be appointed. By the measures being taken—some in this Bill—we are trying to improve the composition of the advisory committees and to ensure that magistrates are recruited from a wider area, but the remedy concerning magistrates under 75 who perhaps demonstrate their unfitness quite soon after being appointed is to take greater care in appointing them.
    Mr. Marlowe: The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that steps were being taken in this Bill to make alterations in the composition of the advisory committees, but unless I misunderstood the position, I think he is wrong about that. I do not think that the Bill provides for any reform of the advisory committees.
    The Attorney-General: The hon. and learned Member is mistaken. I said that steps were being taken to improve the position of the advisory committees, some of them in this Bill, and that in this sense that we are abolishing the small commissions of the peace because of the

    1731
    great difficulty that arose in constituting proper and satisfactory advisory committees in those cases. That is one of the reasons—I think I may say one of the major reasons—for the difficulties which have arisen in connection with the small commissions of the peace, and one of the arguments put forward both before the committees dealing with this matter and in this House for the abolition of the small commissions.
    When it does happen that a mistake is made, and that in the course of his service after appointment a justice of the peace, perhaps comparatively young, shows some manifest incapacity, there is generally some pretty obvious reason—some gross incompetence, some misconduct, or something of that kind—which enables the Lord Chancellor to step in without any doubt about it and ask him to retire or to transfer him. The position—and I am coming back to this—in the case of a man against whom no specific act of incompetence can be alleged and who has certainly been guilty of no kind of misconduct, but because of advancing years is unable to handle cases as they ought to be handled, is one of much greater difficulty and embarrassment to the Lord Chancellor if each case has to be treated on its own merits.
    I will come back to the real substance of the matter which was put so clearly by the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys). I am bound to say that I feel perfectly clear about this matter at this time that there should be a retiring age, and 'I am equally sure that if and when I reach the age of 75 I shall be equally clear that it is a great mistake to have a compulsory retiring age of 75. I am afraid it is very rarely given to anybody when he reaches the age of 75 to realise that perhaps it is better to retire then—at the peak of his powers it may be—than to risk staying on and gradually drifting into a pathetic condition of senility. Of course, that sometimes happens, but I am sure it would never happen to me to realise that position at the age of 75.
    Sir G. Jeffreys: Is it not laid down in this very Clause that those who hold high judicial office are exceptions to the general rule, and is it not very probable that at the age of 75 the right hon. and
    1732
    learned Gentleman may be holding high legal office?'
    The Attorney-General: The hon. and gallant Gentleman holds out terrors for me which, I must confess, I had not hitherto contemplated. I am quite sure that whatever my position may be at that time, and in the unlikely event of my reaching that distinguished age, I shall be quite convinced that I am indispensable, that my great experience entitles me to lay down the law on anything although I have no experience of that particular thing, that I understand the problems of youth much better than anybody else, and that, in fact, I am a much better and fitter person than I was when a callow youth of 47, and I daresay I shall be perfectly right.
    The difficulty about this matter is that at 75, as experience shows, mental powers do decrease although there are a great many exceptions to the rule. I fully believe that my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) is nowhere near 75, and I know that the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield has a long way to go before he reaches that age. In any event, as I have said, there are many exceptions to the rule as experience shows, but the fact is that at 75 a substantial proportion of people are reaching a stage where their mental activities are beginning to slow down and where—and I think this is very important—not all of them, but the great majority of them, are beginning to get a little out of touch with the way in which the mass of the people are living, particularly the young people, and sometimes, perhaps, a little out of sympathy with the way in which the greater section of the community are carrying on their lives. We think that these people really ought not to be sitting in these courts dealing with the every day problems of the great mass of the people.
    An hon. Member—I think on this side of the House—pointed out that there is an exception in the Bill dealing with those who have held high judicial office. Those people are, of course, ex officio, in most cases at all events, justices of the peace. As a rule they are not dealing with the problems of every day life in the courts; they are dealing in the rarified atmosphere of another place with abstruse problems of law, and everybody knows that the pursuit of law does promote

    1733
    mental activity until a very advanced age, but these are exceptional cases. We feel that in the ordinary run of cases the man over 75 is, to a certain degree at all events, out of touch with the current affairs of life and ought not to sit in court.
    4.30 p.m.
    This Amendment would leave the law as it is at present. It would enable the Lord Chancellor to transfer particular individuals to the supplementary list as and when they reached that age. As one of my hon. Friends pointed out, it is really a most difficult and invidious burden to place upon the Lord Chancellor. It is very hard to say to one magistrate, "Although you are 75, your mind is as young as it ever was"—it is perhaps a doubtful compliment to pay in any case—and then say to the next one, "You are 75 and you have for a long time been too senile to sit on the bench." That gives rise to all sorts of difficulties and embarrassments, and the risk of local influence, canvassing and heartburning, and all the rest of it.
    It is much better to have a clear-cut line, although wherever it is drawn it must be, in a sense, arbitrary and there must be marginal cases on each side of it. If we have a clear-cut line each justice as he reaches the age of 75 will, perhaps without any great regret or sense of injustice, be able to pat himself on the back and say, "I am making this sacrifice in the very prime of my life, in order to make those senile contemporaries of mine, who refuse to realise they are far too old to sit on the bench, get off it," and no ill feeling will exist on the part of anybody. For those reasons I hope that the Clause may stand as it is.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: I am a little disappointed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's reply because his argument boils down to this: that not to fix a hard and fast line would involve difficulties and embarrassment for the Lord Chancellor. That seems to me to be a real reason for the imposition of this line. If that is true, if the Lord Chancellor is going to operate subsection (6) and provide that in certain areas people over 75 who have not held high judicial office shall continue to act as magistrates, I should have thought that that subsection would have caused quite as much heartburning, embarrassment and difficulties for the Lord Chancellor. It
    1734
    may be that it is not intended to operate it to the same degree, but whichever way it is done, if we are going to make any exception at all to the general rule, obviously there must be some little difficulty and embarrassment.
    The Attorney-General: I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman appreciates that that subsection only perpetuates the existing practice, experience of which has in fact caused great embarrassment, for a limited period—five years—in order to meet those areas in which there is a shortage of justices.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: I appreciate that, and if that provision is going to be operated we shall get precisely the same position during those five years as that to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has drawn attention if the Amendment moved by my hon. and gallant Friend was accepted. While I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman in his general observations as to the effective age, and how we may look at things differently when we are older, I feel that there is a lot to be said for not imposing a hard and fast line of 75 and perhaps placing greater burdens on the Lord Chancellor.
    I feel that there is great force in the arguments which have been adduced from both sides of the House in favour of this Amendment. I do not at all take the view expressed by the hon. Member for Central Hackney (Mr. H. Hynd) that the line must be drawn somewhere. Nor do I entirely agree with his plea that we want less of the grandfatherly interest and more of the fatherly interest, because one knows that it is always the grandfathers who spoil the children and it is the parents who are harder upon them.
    The Attorney-General: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman want to spoil the children?
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: I do not want to spoil the children at all.
    The Attorney-General: Then get rid of the grandfathers.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: The hon. Gentleman's argument was based on the view that the grandfathers were less sympathetic than the fathers. I do not think that is well-founded. There are so many exceptions to the general rule that the

    1735
    right hon. and learned Gentleman was trying to lay down as to incapacity directly one reaches the age of 75, that I should have thought that we need not have altered the existing law in this respect.
    Surely the Lord Chancellor should act on the advice of the advisory committees. If it be found on a particular bench that one or two members are getting too old, surely it would be comparatively easy to secure their retirement. The Lord Chancellor would have power under this Bill to enforce it, and with that power in his possession I should not have thought that he would meet with much resistance. It may be that in some cases there would be a little heart-burning, but I must say that I should have thought that the general heart-burning which would arise from the imposition of this arbitrary age limit of 75 would be much greater. If we are going to lay down such an age limit one begins to wonder to what other realms such an age limit might in future be applied. I was interested to note that the right hon. and learned Gentleman thought it wisest not to suggest that there should be an age limit applied to Members of this House.
    I wish that the right hon. and learned Gentleman could hold out some hope of modification of this rule, because I feel that in its present form it will cause a great deal of heart-burning and dissatisfaction among those who perform public duties well for many years. I also feel that the automatic removal of people of great experience when they reach the age of 75 will not strengthen the administration of justice.
    Sir G. Jeffreys: I should like to say one or two additional words on this subject. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has stressed the unpleasantness and embarrassment which would be caused to the Lord Chancellor if he had to put into force the powers which are given him in subsection (4) (b, i). Surely the Lord Chancellor would hardly be personally concerned. He would act upon the advice presumably of the lord lieutenant of the county concerned, who in turn would be advised by his advisory committee. I do not think that any inconvenience or embarrassment would be caused to the Lord Chancellor by such action; neither do I think that the lords lieutenant of counties
    1736
    and their advisory committees would be incapable or unwilling to make the necessary recommendations.
    On the bench over which I have the honour to preside we have been rather short of magistrates of late. No fewer than three of my colleagues who were becoming old in the course of the last two or three years have asked me whether I would agree to their applying for transfer to the supplementary list. In two of those cases I had to agree. In one case in which the justice in my opinion was very active and in every way fit to continue his duties, I begged him to continue in order to help us out while we were short of justices. The point I would stress is that far from being unwilling to go, when they felt they were getting deaf, those elderly justices asked to be allowed to go on the supplementary list. I believe that there are many such cases in various districts.
    The Attorney-General: I want only to take up the point which the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys) made about the action of the Lord Chancellor. It is not a question of imposing inconvenience on the Lord Chancellor; if that were the case I should not hesitate about the matter. I do not say I am in favour of imposing inconveniences on Lord Chancellors, but I do not have very strong views about it. It is really that the task is a most invidious, embarrassing and difficult one for the Lord Chancellor to discharge and it is one that he discharges personally. He ought to discharge it personally under the Act and I know that at present he does discharge the duty personally. I know very well the difficulty and anxiety it gives him.
    Although he discharges the duty personally he has to make inquiries and seek advice, and there is always at least a danger that the fact gets about that the Lord Chancellor is considering whether or not so-and-so should be removed from the bench because he is getting too old, and that results, in turn, in a certain degree of canvassing. Some people come forward and say, "You cannot remove him; he is so-and-so"; and other people come forward and say, "He is not really as bad as that; let him go on for another year or two."
    The whole position so far as the Lord Chancellor is concerned becomes one of

    1737
    very great difficulty and if, at the end of the day, he is forced to the conclusion that he ought to retire the justice concerned, then that justice goes with a great sense of unhappiness, perhaps even of injustice towards himself, with great heart-burning, which would never arise if one were able to apply this standard, arbitrary standard though it may be, of retirement at 75. I hope the Committee will feel that in this matter the House really ought to accept the recommendation of the Royal Commission which considered the matter very carefully and, I believe, not unsympathetically and which, in the end, came to the conclusion that the best course was to have this age limit at 75.
    Mr. Walker: I am glad that I have caught your eye, Mr. Bowles, and that I have the opportunity to say a few words on this subject. It is not often that I agree with anything that comes from the other side of the Committee, but I most certainly support what was said by the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys), who moved this Amendment. I have a personal interest in this matter; I am a magistrate and a member of an advisory committee, and I am over 75 years of age. I have not yet been a magistrate for 10 years. When I was approached and asked whether I would be a member of our advisory committee, I mentioned my age, but evidently the person who was responsible for my appointment in the first instance must have regarded me as being of exceptional ability because, the Lord Chancellor acquiesced in my appointment to the advisory committee and as a magistrate.
    4.45 p.m.
    I think we are carrying this subject of old age a little too far these days. My hon. Friends have always made a great boast of the fact that the average age to which a man will live in these days is tremendously higher than it was 30 years ago. I remember that in my trade union not many years ago we regarded the average length of our members' lives as being in the region of 43 years, but today the figure stands well above 65, showing that the present conditions of human life help a man to live longer and retain his mental and physical faculties to a far greater degree than was the case 30 to 40 years ago.
    1738
    The other day, when the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) was congratulated upon reaching the age of 75, I met him in the adjoining Lobby and I said to him, "Well, Sir, I congratulate you upon reaching the age which you have reached, but still you are not as old as I am." He looked at me and asked, "How old are you?" I said, "I was 75 years of age on 12th October." He said, "You do not look like it." I am bound to say that I do not feel like 75 years of age, whatever may be the feelings of my constituents. For instance, I have never worn glasses to read anything printed in these Bills or in HANSARD or in anything else. I have never had a pair of glasses on my eyes, and yet I can read the smallest print published. I can hear the ticking of the smallest watch I have seen anywhere. Here is another fact which may interest some of my hon. Friends. They say that one of the striking signs of old age is that a man begins to learn how to play bowls; well, I do not know how to play bowls.
    The Government are telling me that I am suffering from senile decay or that I have not my faculties about me. I am not going to be a candidate at the next General Election, because I feel rather inclined to have an easy sort of life in the years before me. I could fight the election well enough. But when it comes to sitting on a bench of magistrates and judging whether a person has been drunk and disorderly, or has been driving a motorcar at a greater speed than he should have done, and all the kind of things that come before a magistrates' court today, then I consider that I am just as capable of judging as any younger person, man or woman.
    I have been on the bench for not quite 10 years. I like the work, and I was looking forward with some sort of anticipation to the fact that, when I finished my job here, I could have a bit of relaxation—[Laughter]—and go on the bench of magistrates once a week. It is not a bit of good my hon. Friends laughing. I could give some of the younger blokes a start!
    I agree with the hon. and gallant Member's proposal. I think he hit the nail on the head when he said that today the advisory committees are the people to decide whether a man is too old to sit on a bench of magistrates. I sit on my advisory committee and we have had

    1739
    several cases of this kind brought forward and have decided, as an advisory committee, in the place of the Lord Chancellor, that certain men had long passed their days of usefulness and should be asked to retire and be placed on the supplementary list. I think that is a very good arrangement, and I do not think it requires alteration by an Act of Parliament.
    The advisory committee are appointed by the Lord Chancellor. The committee advise the Lord Lieutenant if the magistrates feel that a man or a woman has got beyond his or her job. They are the people who can give the proper advice to the Lord Chancellor. It is utterly out of the question to expect a gentleman sitting in London to know whether I—or anyone else—am fit for the job of magistrate. When the Lord Chancellor has a local advisory committee and has placed reliance on their wisdom and judgment, they are the people to say whether a man has become too old, has become inefficient, or is lacking the facilities to carry out the work of judging his fellow men who have done wrong in the eyes of the law. I feel there is no necessity to alter the law. We should retain the position in which the advisory committee consider whether or not a man is fit to do the job.
    Mr. Janner: I appeal to hon. Members not to be misled by the specious arguments which have been used in favour of this Amendment, and I ask that we should consider very carefully the subject matter with which we are dealing in this Bill. After all, it is courts of justice about which we are speaking. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Walker) touched the real point when he asked, what does it matter, in a drunk and disorderly case, whether a person is guilty or not guilty, or what sentence ought to be imposed upon him? That is precisely the line of argument which I hope will not be pursued when we are dealing with questions involving the matters which justices of the peace have to attend to.
    Their functions are extremely important functions. They have to judge the man in the street. They deal with the characters, the lives and the future of many, many citizens, most of whom regard their reputation as of just as great importance as the reputations of alleged
    1740
    criminals who are entitled to be taken before higher courts. In my own experience, I have come across hundreds of cases in which people on whom a penalty of even 10s. or so had been imposed who wanted to appeal against conviction because they felt that their characters were being impugned. Moreover, magistrates' courts have to hear in the first instance cases that may have to go to higher courts. The courts in which justices sit are, in my view, as important as any higher court, or as any other court in the land.
    It is a very strange thing that nobody seems to have raised the point in this Debate that a judge in some courts, despite all the experience he has obtained as a judge, and all the amount of preliminary legal training he had to have before being appointed a judge, is expected to retire at the age of 72, and that it is only by special concession, I believe, that he is allowed to say on until he is 75.
    The Attorney-General: A county court judge.
    Mr. Janner: I agree. Incidentally, a county court judge deals with civil matters which are often much less important than cases which go before justices. The county court judge deals with the civil matters of members of the same class of people who go before the petty sessions.
    I would say that we should put aside our own particular ideas with regard to certain individuals, whether they be ourselves or some others whom we know, and who are quite capable of carrying out their duties as justices at the age of 75 or, it may be, even at 85. What we have to consider in this Committee, I submit, is this: Are there any cases in which, if this Bill were not put into effect, magistrates would sit after reaching the age of 75 who would be incompetent in consequence of their age, or—I go a step farther—who would even seem to be incompetent to a person who appears before them for trial? How many people walk out of a police court and say, "After all, what else would you expect from those old fellows sitting there?" Of course, many use stronger terms.
    Mr. Walker: Has my hon. Friend not heard the same remarks made about appointed juries?
    Mr. Janner: After all, juries are subject to the guidance of learned Council on both sides and the summing up of the judge, and so on; whereas magistrates have only their clerks, who sometimes, as my hon. Friend knows, guide not only—
    The Attorney-General: I do not know whether my hon. Friend was suggesting that jurors may be too old? They retire at 60.
    Mr. Janner: I am obliged to my right hon. and learned Friend. They may look 70, though. I think that that is what my hon. Friend had in mind.
    Mr. Walker: My hon. Friend referred to magistrates who did not give satisfaction to the persons before them, and said they were old fogeys, or something of that sort. I have heard the same remark made about juries. I have heard them called ignorant people, who could not give a proper judgment.
    Mr. Janner: I agree, of course, that such remarks were made. We want to avoid giving people the feeling that they appear to have been dealt with unjustly. We ought not to have—let us be honest with each other—we ought not to have people sitting on the benches who are over the age of 75, who do not quite take in all that is said—to put it at its very best—or who are not quite capable of understanding what is going on in these modern times. Let us, at least, say that there should be an age limit drawn somewhere.
    I agreed with my right hon. and learned Friend when he said that, after all, the provisions of the Bill would remove many embarrassments. How can we expect local magistrates who are sitting together to say of one of their colleagues, "He is getting beyond it." My hon. Friend knows as well as I do that there are such difficulties. Even the advisory committee in the district just could not say such a thing without embarrassment, and yet the advisory committees throughout the country would have to say it about a large number of magistrates if this Amendment were agreed to. I would say in these circumstances that 75 is an age at which reasonably a man may be put on the supplemental list. The Bill does not say they are to finish all their duties as
    1742
    justices, and the proposal casts no reflection upon them in any sense. It says only that there should be a certain age which we should take as a limit.
    One other point I would make is this. For many years magistrates have been appointed at much too old an age than they ought to have been. Today there is a tendency, I know, on the part of the Lord Chancellor and on the part of everybody concerned, to appoint younger magistrates, and that is why I feel that the proposal whereby the Lord Chancellor may make exceptions from the rules during five years should be maintained.
    Mr. Logan: If my hon. Friend will read the subsection containing that provision he will find that it is optional. It does not give authority to the Lord Chancellor to retain anyone who knows his job, and it applies only in areas where there is a shortage of experienced magistrates.
    Mr. Janner: My hon. Friend will forgive me if I say that he is not speaking quite as clearly as he has spoken before. That is precisely what I am saying. If he had listened to me very carefully he would have noticed that I was saying that for five years, because of the shortage of magistrates of experience in certain areas, we must give an opportunity for the retention of the services of experienced men, as exceptions from the rules. That is precisely what the Bill says. We do not need the provisions of that subsection in places where there is not a shortage.
    Mr. Logan: But it is quite possible for an anomaly to exist. All that this subsection says is that during five years
    "… in any area where it appears to the Lord Chancellor necessary in order to have enough experienced justices"
    the rules may provide for exceptions. This subsection is not operative by reason of the age of 75, and an inexperienced man could also be kept on because of the shortage.
    Mr. Janner: I must say I do not quite follow all that.
    Mr. Logan: I did not expect my hon. Friend to follow it.
    Mr. Janner: I shall not say any more about that. I think my reading of the subsection to which my hon. Friend is referring is correct. He is referring to

    1743
    subsection (6). I would say, especially in view of subsection (6), that what the Bill proposes does not constitute an aspersion on any individuals. We should take care not only to do justice but to appear to do justice, so that people who appear before the courts may feel that justice is being done. We do not want them to feel that they are being judged by people who are too old to understand them. I hope that hon. Members will see fit not to press the Amendment.
    5.0 p.m.
    Mr. Sutcliffe: If anyone was in doubt whether or not to vote for this Amendment, I am sure that the speech of the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Walker) will have decided him to vote for it. He spoke from his own personal experience, and I thought that he put forward the best possible case for accepting this Amendment.
    There is one other matter which may have been overlooked. Let us not forget that if this Amendment is not accepted we shall bring real tragedy into the lives of many men who are, as the hon. Member for Rossendale is, fit and hale at the age of 75. I have especially in mind a man in my own constituency, a trade union official, who has given all his life to his trade union work and a large part of it to work as a justice of the peace. Now, except for a certain amount of trade union work which he is still able to do, his work as a justice of the peace is his only occupation. He is a highly competent man, and if he is deprived of his one great love—it is no exaggeration to say that it is his only love—at this time in his life, it will be a real tragedy to him.
    He is a visiting magistrate to one of the large prisons, and he will also have to give that up. Placing him on a supplemental list, as the hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Janner) said, enables him to carry on the work to a small extent; but it is only to a small extent. It is the court work in which he is interested, and it is that court work which will be forbidden to him in future. Let us not forget these men who are in first-rate condition physically and in full possession of their faculties, just as much as many men of 60 or even younger, who will be forbidden this work if the Amendment is rejected.
    Mr. Ede: It is only right that a few words should be said on this issue on behalf of the Government. I am bound to say that the vehemence of feeling shown tonight has surprised me. I had anticipated that we should be criticised for fixing the age too high. A number of hon. Members in the Committee at the present moment have experience of the courts, either as counsel, solicitors or magistrates.
    Mr. Scollan: Or defendants.
    Mr. Ede: Well, I have to be very careful not to cast reflections upon hon. Members, or I might get into trouble with the Chair. If there are any whose consciences prick them I hope they will benefit from the experience they have had.
    The courts do not exist for magistrates. The courts exist to administer justice to the people, and in order to do that successfully the composition of the courts must be such as to make some appeal to those who appear before them, either as prosecutors, or as defendants, or as witnesses, that the magistrates are competent to deal with the issues as people who are, at the time they are sitting, fully in possession of their faculties, having a knowledge of the ways of the world. I say, as one who has been a magistrate now for 26 years, that I have sat with colleagues who have not given that assurance to the public, by their mere appearance on the bench. I have sat next to men who have said to me, "Tell me what he is saying?" I have myself on occasion, as a member of an advisory committee, had to make representations to the Lord Chancellor with regard to colleagues.
    It is very difficult indeed to persuade one's colleagues to say, and to bring oneself to the point of saying, "Now, old So-and-so has really passed the limit." I could tell one or two stories in that regard which might be amusing were it not for the tragedy that they represent, of the loud laughter one has heard in court when a magistrate, who has been unable to follow the proceedings because of his physical defects, has made some utterance which indicates that he does not know anything about what has been going on. There are people of that kind, and it may involve some people in a tragedy. I recollect, as chairman of a

    1745
    county council, having to write to two colleagues, both over 83 years of age, to say that their colleagues would find it difficult to vote for their re-election as aldermen. That is not an easy letter to write. Neither of them continued; they did not go for election, and both of them were dead within three months.
    I am quite certain that there are some people who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Walker) said, carry out these public duties as a relaxation. The justice of this country is too important to be old gentleman's relaxation, and I ask the Committee to approach the matter from that point of view. There are also cases where the continuance on the bench of men who are too old prevents the recruitment of suitable young magistrates, and in that way they block the necessary recruitment to the bench. I think that 75 years of age is a reasonable age to have put into the Bill. I should not have been surprised had there been an Amendment to make the age 70.
    I am for the moment concerned with the appointment of recorders, and when appointing a recorder I ask him to give me a promise that he will submit his resignation on reaching the age of 70. I think that is an appropriate thing to do. I have had to write to three or four very old recorders asking them if they will place their resignations in my hands. Of course, the letter always contains a eulogy on their past work.
    Mr. Janner: Is it not a fact that even today a similar request is made on the appointment of a magistrate?
    Mr. Ede: That I cannot say.
    Mr. Walker: When I was appointed a magistrate I was asked to give a promise that I would be prepared to retire on reaching the age of 75.
    Mr. Ede: Now I understand the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to.
    I wrote to one gentleman a eulogistic letter on his past services; he wrote back that he was glad to know they were at last recognised, and that if I would see they were publicly recognised, I could have his resignation. Now one ought not to be placed in that position. I suggest that for the due administration of justice 75 is a very suitable age to fix. Confidence is likely to be shaken in the
    1746
    efficiency of the bench if people beyond that age continue to sit. I therefore hope the Committee will agree that the Clause should remain as at present worded, and that the Amendment shall be rejected.
    Mr. Scollan rose—
    The Deputy-Chairman: I was thinking that the Committee might want to come to a decision very soon.
    Mr. Scollan: And I was thinking that there was something that ought to be said on the matter before we come to a decision.
    As a justice of the peace for the past ten years, with some experience, although not a great deal, of sitting on the J.P. bench, but quite a lot of experience of sitting on the ordinary magistrate's bench, I would remind the Home Secretary that while all he has said may be true, there is nobody either today or in the history of mankind, who could draw a distinct line at a certain age and say, "That is the line of demarcation between competency and incompetency." I have sat with young men of 45 or 46 who should never have been on the bench. They obviously lacked the necessary powers of observation and the necessary judgment for dealing with the cases that came before them.
    When we are dealing with a matter like this, we do not dispose of it by simply saying that the age at which they shall retire is 75 because after that they are incapable of carrying out the duties placed upon them satisfactorily and will not carry the confidence of the public.
    Mr. Ede: I was very careful not to say that.
    Mr. Scollan: The whole of the argument this afternoon has been to the effect that the confidence of the courts would be strengthened if the justices were under 75, and would be shaken if they were over 75. I do not think that anybody who has attended these courts fairly regularly will ever be taken in by that kind of argument. Some other method will have to be devised to ascertain the competency of the people sitting on the bench. Up to the moment, all we have had is a cowardly kind of method of setting down an age limit which cannot be operated effectively. We are not going to eliminate all the J.P.s who are incompetent simply by putting

    1747
    down an age limit of 75. We should desert that argument altogether, and simply say that, in the absence of knowing what to do in this matter, we have struck at random an age of 75, when we might as well have struck an age of 55 for any good which it is likely to do.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to move, in page 5, line 8, at the end, to add:
    "(11) Rules for the purpose of this section shall be made by the Lord Chancellor by Statutory Instrument, which shall be subject to annulment by resolution of either House of Parliament."
    The purpose of this Amendment will, I think, take somewhat less time to discuss than the one immediately preceding it. The Clause itself deals with the placing on the supplemental list of certain magistrates under rules made by the Lord Chancellor. The effect of the present Amendment would be to secure that these rules were subjected to a certain measure of Parliamentary control. They would be subjected to negative procedure, that is to say, the rules would be subject to annulment if a Motion were carried in either House of Parliament under the procedure of the Statutory Instruments Act.
    If one thing emerges more clearly than another from the discussion of the previous Amendment moved by the hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys), it is that the whole question of the supplemental list is a difficult and delicate one upon which strong feelings can be aroused and upon which it is sometimes difficult to come to an accurate and satisfactory decision. Therefore, it seems right to secure that the vital rules under which this shall be done shall be subject, if hon. Members so desire, to some measure of control by the House.
    After all, we are here to deal with the removal from judicial duties of members of the courts which deal with the overwhelming majority of the criminal cases in this country. That is a point of some substance, and while casting no reflections on the manner in which the present Lord Chancellor or a future Lord Chancellor will carry out this delicate task, it does seem that this is not one of those matters which the House should delegate to even so exalted an officer of the Crown without maintaining some measure of Parlia-
    1748
    mentary control. That is the purpose of the Amendment.
    Anticipating one point which no doubt the Attorney-General will make, I say at once that I am not completely satisfied with its form, inasmuch as if it were inserted in the Clause it would be necessary to make some consequential Amendments in subsection (1). That is a point of detail. The point of principle is abundantly clear, that this is one of those matters over which the House should retain some limited power of veto.
    5.15 p.m.
    The Attorney-General: I found the concluding remarks of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) somewhat surprising, as I practically never take a drafting point, and I would not dream of doing so in this case. If the principle is right, drafting matters can easily be dealt with at some subsequent stage. The question here is whether the principle of the Amendment is right.
    I am all in favour of Parliamentary control but not, perhaps, Parliamentary control for its own sake. If there is some good reason for the existence of Parliamentary control in this particular matter, by all means have it; but is there? In 1941, the Government, in which the hon. Member's party formed a considerable majority, passed an Act called the Justices (Supplemental List) Act, of which this is an exact reproduction, except in the matter of the age limit, which does not affect this particular point. In that Act there was not then a provision that the rules should be laid. Circumstances have not changed since that time. This is purely a machinery matter and does not involve interfering with the administration of the courts of justice, and if there was no reason in 1941 for going through the procedure of laying and making rules subject to a negative Prayer, the hon. Member has certainly not advanced any good reason for doing so today. There is no change of circumstances, and what seemed good to the Government of that day seems good to us. I hope that the hon. Member will withdraw his Amendment.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I do not regard the argument that because a thing was not done in 1941 it should not be done

    1749
    today as a particularly attractive one, nor, indeed, have I noticed it being applied in other spheres of governmental activity during the last few years.
    The Attorney-General: We exercise a wise discrimination.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am asking the right hon. and learned Gentleman to exercise a wise discrimination here. Leaving aside the substantive merits of the matter, I think that it is a little unfair of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to take that argument of 1941. I was not a Member of the House at that time, nor, I think, was the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but I understand from those of our colleagues who were Members that they were working under very great difficulties during restricted Sessions in rather varied places of meeting; and, without casting any reflection upon them, it is obvious that in the circumstances of those times legislation could not have the detailed attention and scrutiny which in the relatively peaceful circumstances of today it is our duty to give to it. Therefore, if the Attorney-General's argument is merely that it was not done in 1941, and therefore there is no reason to do it now, that appears to be one of the least effective arguments I have ever heard used by the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
    I should have been more impressed if he had been able to direct his mind and argument to the subject of the matter, that these rules affect the personal composition of what I believe to be one of the most important series of courts in the country. They affect the personal position of many people who are giving important services to the State and they affect indirectly the actual composition of the courts as they sit. When we recall what relatively trivial matters it is open for the House to discuss on Motions to annul orders—it is open to the House to annul an order of the Ministry of Food to alter the points value of snoek—it is absurd for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to seek to deny to the House the right to discuss the composition of petty sessional benches throughout this country. I must admit that I am not satisfied with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's reply.
    Mr. Hollis: The last thing I envisaged was that I should intervene in the discussion on this Amendment; but I must be allowed to say one or two things, because I am terrified by the argument the Attorney-General has used. I thought everyone knew that one of the great problems, not merely of this Government, but of the whole of modern life since the 1914 war, was this growth of delegated legislation and the continual cutting down of the powers of the House of Commons. We all know that Lord Hewart wrote a book on the subject, and how difficult it may be to find a solution. The problem has not arisen merely in these last few years. It seems quite terrifying that, instead of addressing ourselves to this problem on its merits, we are merely doing something because it happened to be done in 1941, when the two sides competed against one another in undermining the powers of Parliament. It is by far the most terrifying argument I have heard for a long time, and I must say that I am very much frightened by what the Attorney-General said.
    Sir John Mellor: I hope that we shall have a better reply from the Attorney-General because, apart from what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said—that the House was not really able in 1941 to give the full attention desirable, to legislation, and things did slip through which we have often since regretted—as the great mass of delegated legislation has developed, the House has become more and more attentive and anxious to preserve its proper measure of control. Therefore, the Committee should not be satisfied with the very off-hand answer given by the Attorney-General. We should have some reasoned argument why, in this particular context, it should be undesirable for the House to have the power to annul. After all, it is a very simple procedure, and it is attempted only in cases where, on the merits, there are obviously good grounds. The Government need have no apprehensions that the rule-making authority will be embarrassed in any way.
    Mr. James Hudson: I am not sure that I am satisfied with the reply of the Attorney-General to this Amendment. I know that he made a good debating point about the evil past

    1751
    of Members opposite, and that they have 1941 like a millstone round their necks.
    Sir Ian Fraser: I was in that Parliament. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said nothing whatever about Members on this side, but was talking of the House in general, when the Labour Party could have raised the point. It was a general situation and not a party one.
    Mr. Hudson: If the hon. Member had waited, I was going on to say that there was an evil past for those who accepted this position. I am not concerned, because I was not a Member in 1941. I am not satisfied with the position the Attorney-General has laid down. The rules under which the Lord Chancellor will act will cover a great many more subjects than those with which the Committee has concerned itself today. The age of 75 is a diminutive part of the rules the Lord Chancellor may make. There is a likelihood of exclusion from the bench of magistrates, and of those on the supplemental lists, which fills me with anxiety.
    For example, there are the exclusions recommended by the Lord Chancellor's Department to the Royal Commission. Some of those recommendations greatly alarm me. I hope I shall not be out of Order in raising this point, but I am interested in the exclusion of magistrates who are supposed to hold strong views about certain subjects on which they will have to give a decision. Take the case of drink. All sorts of issues come up in the courts where drink is involved—I am not merely referring to the licensing sessions. but to motoring offences, and so on.
    If Parliament cannot have a say with regard to these rules, we may have an authoritarian attitude adopted by the Lord Chancellor's Department to rule out magistrates who are now doing excellent work. It has been recommended by the Lord Chancellor's Department, for instance, that Rechabites, many of whom are doing good work as magistrates, should be excluded because they have made pledges as to their unwillingness to touch or taste intoxicating liquors. I admit that there is a difficulty in the matter, but if the Lord Chancellor acts in this way against the Rechabites, it means that some 600,000 people are concerned. It also means acting against the
    1752
    Sons of Temperance, who also have a membership running into hundreds of thousands. Then there are the people in temperance movements and in the Church with strong opinions about the dangers of drink, who have stated openly that they recognise such dangers.
    5.30 p.m.
    Is the House willing to give to the Lord Chancellor a right to make rules to say "Because these people have expressed that opinion, or given a pledge, or put themselves on the side of temperance, we shall, without any further discussion in Parliament, make these rules the absolute rules in the community"? I do not think it is the process of democracy to grant the present Lord Chancellor, or any other, the absolute right to make rules without in some way providing for an appeal against those rules. It is said that Parliament is not the place to which to make an appeal, but at the moment I do not know of any other. I am sorry that the Attorney-General has shown a little bias in this matter. When I interrupted him during the Second Reading, he spoke about the magistrates who flooded into court when cases were being heard which involved temperance interests.
    The Attorney-General: I hope my hon. Friend will not hold that against me, but I thought I indicated and, if not, i will do so now, that those who take the opposite view are equally active on these occasions in trying to pack the bench; but it usually happens that my hon. Friend's friends are in the majority.
    Mr. Hudson: I have long experience in this matter from the opposite angle. Even when I had not been successful in persuading friends of mine to be present, I have seen benches flooded by parties who are interested in the case from the opposite point of view from that to which I am referring.
    A number of us feel anxious about this matter. Today, there are large numbers of Rechabites who are doing good work as magistrates, and I would also remind my right hon. and learned Friend of the Society of Friends, who are doing very good work in the community and who take a great interest in temperance. If they are to be ruled out by a rule which the Lord Chancellor has said he will bring in. there is a case for some very careful

    1753
    reconsideration of the matter. If the Attorney-General says that there can be no submission to Parliament, or discussion of the rules, I would like him to assure me that there will be some way by which the rules can be reconsidered
    Mr. Marlowe: I appeal to the Attorney-General to deal with this matter on its merits. Up to now, although he said he was not making a drafting point, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has limited himself to making a debating point. His reply that this was the procedure adopted by the last Parliament, in 1941, has no relevance at all to this question. A number of things were done in 1941 which a Parliament that has more leisure to consider these matters would do in a different way. I think that this is the first time I have heard any Minister commending something because it was passed by a Tory majority in the House.
    The Attorney-General: One rarely finds the opportunity, and I grasped it.
    Mr. Marlowe: The right hon. and learned Gentleman bases 'his case solely on that; and by adopting that attitude he is doing scant justice to the Amendment. It may be that there is a good answer to the Amendment, but so far we have not heard it. I ask him to give us the courtesy of an answer on the merits of the case, leaving aside what happened in 1941 or on any other previous occasion. It is clear that, apart from the question of putting justices of the peace on the supplemental list, there is power under the rules to remove them from that list. Nothing is said about the criteria which the Lord Chancellor is expected to observe in exercising that function, or the manner in which he should discharge that duty. These matters will have to be dealt with under the rules.
    The extent to which legislation is brought into being by rule and regulation rather than by Act of Parliament becomes increasingly large. Where it is necessary to proceed by rule, I think it is most essential, unless there is a good case to the contrary, that the rule should pass through Parliament before becoming effective. There seems to be no objection to Parliament considering this matter. So far, the Attorney-General has not suggested one. These rules will affect the status of a large number of people, and it seems quite unnecessary that they should be dealt
    1754
    with by administrative means beyond the control of the House. I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to think again, and to see that this matter is dealt with by Parliamentary procedure.
    Sir I. Eraser: The Home Secretary has said that he was surprised at the warmth and feeling in the House at the proposal that magistrates should be automatically retired at the age of 75. The feeling was expressed in all quarters that that was a change which should be carefully considered before being put into effect. The rules proposed to be made, and which the Attorney-General refuses to submit to the House, affect similar people in a similar manner. No one knows what are to be the rules under which people shall be added to the supplemental list; no one knows what are to be the powers of the magistrates on that list; there is no possibility of discussing the matter. All that can happen is that an edict can go forth from the Lord Chancellor saying, "Here is the law as we have made it within this Department." Parliament cannot pass such a matter of widespread interest, affecting so many people, without having an opportunity to discuss it, and I hope my hon. Friends will press the Amendment, which is an important point of principle, to a Division.
    The Attorney-General: I cannot help thinking that hon. Members who addressed themselves to this Amendment have completely misconceived the position. There may be occasions when it is appropriate to raise the whole subject—and a very interesting subject it is—of delegated legislation. If hon. Members think that this is the best opportunity of raising it, then the case against delegated legislation is much weaker than I thought. Perhaps it is my fault to some extent that hon. Members have not understood the position that arises under this Clause. I said that this procedure had worked satisfactorily since 1941. The rules are in existence, and everybody knows about them. They have been operating, but there has never been a single complaint in regard to their operation. Hon. Members who feel it right to criticise the Clause, representing as it does merely the continuance of the existing law, might have familiarised themselves with what the Clause did and how it operated before they thought it right to criticise its continuance under this Bill.

    1755
    Let me put to hon. Members who have not taken the trouble to read it, what, in fact, the Clause does. The rule-making power, which is constituted under this Clause, is of the most limited kind that I have seen in any statute which delegates the power of legislation to any Minister or Department. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ealing (Mr. J. Hudson) is completely at fault and obviously had not read the Clause when he supposes that it entitles the Lord Chancellor to decide by rules who shall or who shall not be put on the supplemental list. That is provided for under subsection (4).
    The powers which the Lord Chancellor will have to make rules under this Clause are extremely limited. The Clause does not enable the Lord Chancellor to make rules as to what is to be done, but merely as to how to do that which Parliament authorises should be done by the Clause itself, and the limits of those powers are very clearly defined. This is pure machinery; it is the clearest case of pure machinery that I have ever had to present to Parliament.
    Sir I. Fraser: Under the subsection the types of infirmity which might be deemed by the Lord Chancellor to bar a person from continuing to sit on a bench of magistrates are set out. In other words, the type of infirmity is given which might lead to a magistrate being transferred to the supplemental list. Would that be a matter in which the Lord Chancellor would use his discretion as to which rule should apply, or would this be one of the rules?
    The Attorney-General: Most certainly not. That is not a matter than can conceivably be dealt with by the rules. It is laid down in the body of the Bill itself, and the Lord Chancellor will have to direct his attention to the merits of each particular case and to the tests which are laid down in the Bill. He cannot add to those tests; he cannot take away from them by rule; nor can he provide by rule how those tests are to be applied in a particular case. This is pure machinery. I am going to read the rules to hon. Members so that they can realise what a false point they are on. The rules that can be made under this Bill do not affect that matter. If they did, I can well understand the anxiety which hon.
    1756
    Members feel about the matter. It would be said, and, indeed, it has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ealing, "Here the Lord Chancellor will be able to say that a Rechabite is not to be a justice of the peace." Nothing of the kind can be done under this Bill.
    If one looks at the Clause, one finds that subsection (1) merely provides that there may be a supplemental list and that rules may be prescribed. The machinery is stated as to how particular names, which the Lord Chancellor has decided upon, should be included on the list. Then there is provision as to who is to keep it, how it is to be looked after and that sort of clerical work, but the power to put names on the supplemental list is not given by that subsection at all. Subsection (4) has to be looked at in order to ascertain what the power is. Subsections (2) and (3) of the Clause deal with the powers of the justices who are put on the supplemental list. That is not to be governed by rules at all but is set out in terms in the body of the Bill itself.
    5.45 p.m.
    Then we come to subsection (4), which sets out the conditions, and the only conditions, under which a person may be transferred from the active list to the supplemental list. All that is pure machinery. I have the existing rules here if hon. Members are interested in them. A more tedious exercise than reading them I cannot imagine, but I am quite prepared to read every one of them, and if anybody doubts after that that they are machinery of the dullest kind I shall be surprised. They were made in 1941 and they have been in existence ever since. They have not been altered; I see no reason why they should be altered now.
    They have all operated in exactly the same way in the last eight years without exciting the criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for West Ealing or the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). If anyone wants to hear what the rules are I am quite prepared to read them out, but I can assure the Committee they are machinery matters of the simplest kind.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I should like the Attorney-General to clear up one point. He said that these rules will go on. Is that an assurance that the new rules made

    1757
    under this Clause will be substantially the same as the rules made under the 1941 Act?
    The Attorney-General: Yes, certainly. I cannot bind the Lord Chancellor to say that the rules will be exactly the same, but I asked about it and it is said at the moment that there is no reason to be seen, why the rules should be substantially altered. There is the one that covers the case of those who are retired at 75. That is the only new factor in this matter, and so far as I can see there is nothing to necessitate any significant change in the rules as they exist at the present time.
    Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: I have been looking at this Clause and I am a bit worried about subsections (6) and (7) which give the rule-making powers. Subsection (6) gives the Lord Chancellor or the Chancellor of the Duchy the power to make exceptions for various areas where that is necessary. That, I think, would require fresh consideration. I am not quite clear what is aimed at by the provisions in subsection (7) for a different designation. I have found it quite difficult to imagine what is intended by a different designation in the supplemental list, and if the right hon. and learned Gentleman would clear up that point, it would help us.
    The Attorney-General: I am not sure that I am able to answer that particular point off hand, but I shall certainly consider it. I will communicate what the answer is to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I am not quite sure what precisely is in view in a separate designation, but it is only a question of description or title; it is not a case of moving magistrates who have not been moved to the supplemental list to some other list. It only applies to those who can be put on the supplemental list, and at the highest it seems that the list can be given some different name. There is no great significance in that. I understand it relates only to London.
    There is a further point which will commend itself at any rate to hon. and learned Gentlemen in this House. It is contrary at any rate to the practice in regard to this matter of administration of courts of justices of the peace to give Parliament, dealing with the matter on
    1758
    political grounds as we have to do, the power concerning the organisation of the court to override the rule-making authority in regard to matters which are purely machinery. That would be a novel precedent to introduce. It has not hitherto in this matter been felt necessary to introduce that precedent, and I ask the Committee to conclude that there are no grounds in this case for altering the existing law about the matter.
    Mr. J. Hudson: Before my right hon. and learned Friend sits down can he give me an answer on one point? I am willing to be reassured by him, but I am still in doubt—I really have read the Clause although he assumed that I had not—about Clause 4 (4, ii), which lays down that a person may have rules made for him by the Lord Chancellor for entering his name in the supplemental list on the ground that
    "that person declines or neglects to take a proper part in the exercise of those functions."
    If I am sure that the Lord Chancellor will not regard the taking of a pledge by a Rechabite as a sign of his neglect to take a proper part in the exercise of the functions of the court, I am covered, but I should like to hear the Attorney-General say, that there is no likelihood of such an eventuality.
    The Attorney-General: I venture to think that that will depend on who is holding the office of Lord Chancellor. I am quite sure that so long as the office is held by a member of the party now on this side of the House we might feel quite confident about it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I must not joke: I am quite sure that whoever holds the office of Lord Chancellor, irrespective of party, will administer the powers which are given to him in this matter not by rules—that is the point I sought to make—but within the body of the Bill itself and in a judicial manner. The exact limits of the powers which are given by the Bill are not laid down. The matter is very largely at the discretion of the Lord Chancellor and he certainly cannot either enlarge or restrict his discretion by the making of rules. The Amendment which we are discussing does not really enter into the matter.
    Now that I am on my feet I am able to answer the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite on the point that he raised relating to subsection (7). It is like

    1759
    the rest of the Clauses, a re-enactment of the Act in which—I am not sure whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman was a Law Officer of the Crown at that time—our distinguished predecessors took a part. It covers apparently the county of London where, in the commission, the schedule of the names of the justices is drawn up in such a way as to distinguish those who would be on the supplemental list, if such a list were kept for the county. In fact, no such list has been compiled. The system in the county of London appears to work satisfactorily, and it was felt, as it was felt in 1941, that there was no reason to interfere with it.
    Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for reminding me of the last point, which had escaped my memory, in regard to subsection (7). I should like to say one word upon the general position of these rule-making powers and the control by Parliament. When on this side of the House we are convinced that it is merely a matter of machinery, of course we are prepared to allow the Parliamentary control to go, within the strict limits. We recognise, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said, that there may be provision for rules controlling the operation of courts which it is not desirable should be subject to Parliamentary discussion on a party basis.
    The dividing line which appears to us a very serious matter is whether subjects are pure machinery or are legislation disguised as machinery. When we get a Clause whose whole basis is rulemaking powers under a considerable number of subsections, then we are right to look at the matter very carefully and to get the most complete assurances that they cover merely matters of machinery. In his second speech the right hon. and learned Gentleman did that, and he has satisfied me, although I do not seek to make up anyone else's mind about it. I ask him in these matters to consider the feeling, which is very strong in the House irrespective of party, that we should not abdicate our rights in anything that amounts to legislation.
    Mr. Scollan: Perhaps I might point out to the Attorney-General that although this may be a matter of pure machinery, everybody with experience of the long-drawn-out struggle between the temper-
    1760
    ance and the trade factions in Scotland—more acute in Scotland than ever it has been on this side of the Border—will know the difference with which people north of the Border are prepared to accept even this safeguard that the matter is only one of machinery.
    Attention has already been drawn to lines 16 and 17 on page 4. where it refers to the person who
    "declines or neglects to take a proper part in the exercise of those functions."
    On that very point, the trade, with all the money that the trade has behind it, has tried to influence the Lord Chancellor to exclude from these benches, which deal with matters pertaining to the trade, people with very definite temperance views. On the other hand, the faction on the other side claimed with equal justice that anyone who is in any way against the temperance movement was prejudiced and should not fulfil functions in matters of licences.
    The Attorney-General is not perhaps aware how this matter works out in Scotland and the prejudice and the feeling that are aroused. When an ordinary publican applies for a licence, the application comes before a magistrates' bench. If, in their wisdom or otherwise, the magistrates find that something untoward has happened in the carrying out by the publican of his duties, they may disqualify him for holding a licence. He may appeal, and the appeal goes to the J.P.s' court, an entirely different body, presided over by the senior justice. The J.P.'s court, due to the prejudice of the past against people who held very strong views, was loaded in favour of the trade and could get away with the most disgraceful cases in which licences should obviously never have been granted. There were the trade, the insurance companies—because of the amount of money involved, the licences were always insured—and the person himself behind the application, and the whole of the bench practically loaded in regard to the appeal. That sort of thing should be taken out of the hands of the Lord Chancellor and placed where it can be raised on the Floor of the House.
    6.0 p.m.
    On these rules—up to the moment the Attorney-General has said nothing about the rules—the Attorney-General said that he had had an assurance from the Lord

    1761
    Chancellor's Department that the present rules would operate, with the exception of the little change that has been made in the Bill. That is not good enough. That kind of assurance does not remove the power and consequently it is absolutely useless. Power must always be retained in this House to challenge any rule made by anybody—many hon. Members on this side of the Committee are getting a bit tired of this delegated legislation—and democratic power must always be retained here, even if the past record of the power is clean. The fact that a power has never been abused does not alter the principle. I hope that the Attorney-General will have another look at this.
    The Attorney-General: I know that it is my fault in that I failed to make this matter sufficiently clear the first or second time that I addressed the Committee. I shall try to make it a little clearer the third time. Perhaps the third time I shall be lucky. It really is not quite correct to say, as the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) did, that this is simply a rulemaking Clause and that that is why the attention of the Committee has been attracted to it. The real core and centre of the Clause is in subsections (1) and (4) which provides (a) that there may be a supplemental list, and (b) what people may be put on that list. The rest of the Clause is machinery to enable those provisions to be brought into effect.
    If our discussion had taken place on the question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," I could well have understood it being said that it is undesirable that the Lord Chancellor should have these powers to transfer to the supplemental list people who by reason of "age or infirmity or other like cause" ought to cease to exercise judicial functions. While I could have understood that being said, I should disagree with it. However, this Amendment in regard to the rules has absolutely nothing to do with that problem.
    I shall not allow myself, on this Amendment at all events, to be drawn into any discussion or argument about the position of magistrates who on the one side may be associated with the drink trade and who, if they are, are disqualified from sitting on applications
    1762
    dealing with licensing matters, or who, on the other side, may be convinced supporters of the temperance view and are not disqualified for that reason from sitting on applications dealing with licensing matters. That is a matter which does not arise on this Amendment and is entirely unaffected by the Clause—entirely unaffected by the Amendment, and, I think, entirely unaffected by the Clause. If we are to deal with the matter now on the basis of the Clause standing part—I hope we shall not have another Debate on it when that Question is put—I must advise the Committee that I see nothing in the two grounds on which alone the Lord Chancellor can transfer a magistrate from the active list to the supplemental list which would enable him to do it on the ground that the magistrate had a bias in regard to temperance matters one way or the other. The sole grounds on which he can do it is that the magistrate must be a person who
    "by reason of age or infirmity or other like; cause"
    is incapable of exercising judicial functions, or, secondly—this is a different ground—that the person refuses or neglects to take a proper part in the discharge of his duties as a magistrate.
    Mr. Scollan: May I ask exactly what the Attorney-General means by
    "age or infirmity or other like cause"?
    What would "other like cause" consist of?
    Mr. Gallacher: Political; infirmity.
    The Attorney-General: I do not think that any Lord Chancellor would be-likely to interpret the Clause in that way or that any court would construe the Clause in that way. "Age or infirmity" refers to physical conditions of a kind likely to incapacitate the magistrate from carrying on his duties.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: And mental conditions?
    The Attorney-General: I was about to say physical or mental conditions. We might have a mental condition which was not literally an infirmity unless we used the expression in a very broad sense. That is the kind of thing to be covered.
    Sir I. Fraser: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman assure us that there will be no definition of infirmity in the rules?
    Mr. Gallacher: A lot of people think that Socialism is a mental infirmity.
    The Attorney-General: That is a discussion which we must pursue on some other occasion, but I certainly can assure the hon. Gentleman that nothing can be included in the rules enlarging, defining or restricting the meaning of those words in subsection (4) in regard to age or infirmity or the other grounds upon which magistrates may be transferred to the supplemental list. I have assured the Committee upon that three times before and I now assure the Committee for the fourth time. Nothing in this Clause can enable the Lord Chancellor to make rules which will in any way increase or diminish his power to transfer people to the supplemental list. That power is given to Parliament in this Bill; all that the Clause does is to provide machinery.
    Mr. Marlowe: With regard to the second power to remove to the supplemental list, which includes the case of a justice neglecting to take a proper part in the exercise of his functions, can the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell me—I must confess that I have not looked this up—whether that is a new power or is it a power which was previously exercisable by the Lord Chancellor? Do the existing rules cover that power?
    The Attorney-General: The rules do not cover the power. The rules cover the power of the Lord Chancellor to transfer persons to the supplemental list. They are pure machinery and do not provide the grounds on which a person may be transferred. I understand that it is a new power.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. and learned Gentleman was quite right when he said that a good deal of this discussion was his own fault in that, the Committee being faced with a long and complex Clause involving rule-making powers set out at great length, he did not apparently regard it as part of his duty in the first place to explain the effect of it to the Committee. He has now, after a certain degree of persuasion,
    1764
    seen fit to do so. I share to a considerable extent the feelings of the hon. Member for West Renfrew (Mr. Scollan) that delegated legislation has gone far enough. In view of the subject matter which the Attorney-General now indicates will be contained in the rules, it is unnecessary to press the matter further, and in the circumstances I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 6.— (AMENDMENT OF 13 & 14 GEO. 5. C. 16.)
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Woodburn): I beg to move, in page 5, line 16, at the end, to add:
    "and section thirty-four of the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1868, in so far as it directs that a justice shall not be disqualified from hearing any case arising under the said Act by reason of his being a member of a district board shall cease to have effect."
    This Clause dealing with certain disqualifications has been added to the Bill. The purpose of the Amendment is to adapt the disqualification to district boards of fisheries in Scotland. It is almost a consequential machinery Amendment.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: Will the Secretary of State for Scotland explain a little more what he means? Do I understand that if this Amendment is accepted a member of a fishery board in Scotland will not be disqualified from sitting as a magistrate or that he will be disqualified? If the effect of that is to secure that he will not be disqualified, what is the reason for making this change? Is it because the automatic operation of the 75 years of age rule makes the Secretary of State think it would be difficult to staff the benches in Scotland?
    Mr. Woodburn: No, Sir. As a fisher, the hon. and learned Gentleman is doing very well. This will disqualify a member of the district board of fisheries from sitting in a case. It is largely academic because in Scotland such cases would normally be taken before the sheriff and would very seldom come before a bench of J.P.s. However, it puts the matter in order in case that ever happened.
    Mr. Gallacher: May I ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if this Amendment is the best he can do for the Scottish Covenant?
    Mr. Scollan: I am not at all clear after that explanation. I understand that at the moment a justice of the peace who sits on a fishery board cannot sit in the court in judgment on someone charged with poaching on the preserves of the fishery board of which he is a member. Does this mean now that he can sit in judgment even though the fishery board of which he is a member is the prosecutor?
    Mr. Woodburn: It means the opposite. Section 34 of the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1868, exempts justices from disqualification; that is, at the moment they are allowed to sit and judge people in these cases. Under this Amendment, by reason of membership of the district fishery board, they will be disqualified from sitting in judgment on such cases.
    Mr. Scollan: Then why does this Amendment say "shall not be disqualified "?
    An Hon. Member: That is Scottish.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 7. —(RESTRICTION ON RIGHT TO PRACTISE AS SOLICITOR.)
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, in page 5, line 23, after "partner," to insert "or employee."
    This is a drafting Amendment to improve the effect of this Bill. The Clause provides that where a solicitor is sitting as a justice of the peace it shall not be lawful for himself or for any partner of his to practise directly or indirectly before any of those justices. I am sure the Committee will agree with that but, of course, quite apart from a solicitor having partners, some solicitors employ at a salary other solicitors who are not partners but employees. The Clause as drawn would not, as I see it, prohibit the appearance before that bench of a salaried, fully qualified employee of a firm of solicitors, a member of which was sitting as a justice of the peace—
    Mr. Julius Silverman: Is not that covered by the
    1766
    words "practise directly or indirectly"? If that phrase has any meaning at all, does it not mean practise by oneself or by one's employees?
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: The hon. Gentleman is anticipating the point I was coming to. I agree that the words "practise directly or indirectly" are a little difficult to interpret. Practise directly is easy, but practise indirectly is not as precise as one would like. I thought the words "practise indirectly" were meant to take into account something in the nature of agency cases, where one solicitor employs another as an agent although not as a regular employee. I have no doubt that it is the intention to prohibit the salaried qualified employees, and it would be much better drafting if the words "or employee" were included in this subsection so that it was clear beyond doubt that such action by a salaried and qualified employee would be prohibited. For that reason, while agreeing with the spirit of the subsection, I think those words should be added.
    6.15 p.m.
    The Attorney-General: I shall certainly look at this again and consider the Clause carefully in the light of what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. The Clause is intended to cover the solicitor who practises by his qualified clerk, and we think that the words we have used are apt to cover not only the solicitor who practises in person but the one who practises by his qualified clerk.
    We had a reason for not using the word "employee." We thought that if that word were used it might be held to embrace not only the qualified clerk in the firm of solicitors but an independent firm acting as agents for that firm, and we did not intend to exclude from the right of practice in court before justices, one of whom was a solicitor, the agent of that solicitor dealing with an independent case not within the scope of his agency. It is not the intention of the Clause to exclude that case, and we wanted to find a form of words that was apt to cover the real employee, the qualified clerk, but not to embrace the agent dealing with cases of his own. However, I will look at it again and make sure it achieves that purpose.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will look at it again because the inclusion of the word "indirectly" makes this Clause apply to the very class of case he does not want it to apply to, that is, the agent who is employed. On that ground, too, the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to look at the drafting and, as he has said he will, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. Pritt: Since the Attorney-General is looking at this again, may I ask him to look also at subsection (4) where there is the following phrase:
    "his being a justice for the county shall not affect the right to practise of any partner of his."
    This may want a little further study because, in comparison with the elaboration of subsection (2) it is rather thin, and one would wonder whether his partner would be entitled to practise by his clerks, and to practise directly or indirectly. In the end one would get to the point where the solicitor was practising himself. I do not suppose there would be any great harm in it, but there would be virtue in having it fairly closely defined.
    Another point concerns subsection (2). Could not the Attorney-General get some better phrase than "practise directly or indirectly"? Perhaps "practise by his clerks or by his agents"? In a profession where we are supposed to try to keep our English correct, this is an odd phrase. I have practised badly, well, angrily and courteously, but I am not conscious of having practised indirectly.
    The Attorney-General: I will certainly look at it.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 8. —(TRAVELLING AND LODGING ALLOWANCES.)
    Mr. Parker: I beg to move in page 5, line 44, at the end, to insert:
    "(2) Subject to the provisions of this section a justice of the peace shall be entitled to
    1768
    receive payments by way of compensation for loss of earnings suffered by him by reason of absenting himself from his employment or occupation for the purpose of performing his duties as a justice, at a rate not exceeding one pound per day or more than two pounds in any one week."
    This is a matter on which many of us on this side of the House feel strongly. We regret that the Government have not seen fit to include in the Bill a provision for payment for loss of time for people who serve as justices. To put shortly the points which I made on Second Reading, we feel that in order fairly to select justices from all sections of the population we must be prepared to pay for loss of time. At present a large number of justices are retired people, married women, people of independent means, or people in business on their own. A certain number are trade unionists, working for their living and having to give up time from their jobs in order to sit on the bench. We feel that many of these people cannot serve as fully as they would like to do because the time they would lose represents a sacrifice of their income, and that many more people would be prepared to serve if they knew that any loss of time would be made good to them.
    We have been told on other Amendments that it is difficult to get justices to serve. That was one of the reasons advanced for not retiring people at the age of 75. Payment for loss of time is one of the ways of ensuring an adequate supply of justices, and would help to fill the gap. It is essentially a point of principle. If we are democratic, we must be prepared to see that our justices are drawn from all sections of the people, irrespective of means. I can see no reason why we should be prepared to pay councillors for loss of time but not be prepared to pay justices for a similar loss.
    When the House agreed that councillors should be paid for loss of time, strong arguments were advanced that Members of Parliament should not have been prepared to vote for an increase in their own salary without being prepared to see that other people in public life were recompensed for loss of time in carrying out their public duties. The same argument that was used to secure payment for loss of time to councillors applies equally to justices. There is no logical reason for any distinction between one group and another.

    1769
    The Royal Commission on justices of the peace recommended against this proposal for very peculiar reasons. As I see it, their main argument was that it would destroy the independence and impartiality of justices. That is absolute nonsense. The Royal Commission went on to say that such a step would create some new kind of stipendiary magistrate. What is wrong with that? The Bill is introduced with a view to creating the extra stipendiary magistrates who will be required in various parts of the country. I do not believe that there is any strong argument in favour of that recommendation of the Royal Commission.
    In the evidence which was given before the Royal Commission, the Labour Party—the party which the Government profess to represent—the Trades Union Congress and a great many other bodies all gave evidence which would favour my proposal. Why should the Government not be prepared to carry out party policy? This is a matter on which we on this side feel very strongly. Governments have frequently been prepared to set aside recommendations of committees of inquiry. Recently there was a good deal of commotion when a Member of another place, a Minister of the Government, set aside such a recommendation. There is no reason whatever why the Government should not be prepared to set aside this recommendation of the Royal Commission, whose recommendations the Government are not bound to accept if they disagree with them.
    We on this side want to see party policy carried out in this matter of Socialist principle, on which we feel very strongly, and we intend to divide the Committee on it if necessary. I ask the Government, if they are not prepared to accept the Amendment, to introduce elsewhere in the Bill an alteration which will achieve the same purpose.
    Mr. Royle: My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) has rendered a service to the Committee in bringing this matter forward. It is a very old point of principle. During recent years there has been a tremendous growth amongst lower-paid workers in accepting public work. It is the duty of the Committee in this case, and of the House generally, to ensure that that service does not demand too great a sacrifice. This principle was first approached when the
    1770
    House discussed the question of the payment of salaries to Members of Parliament and from time to time since then the principle has arisen as to which type of public service should be remunerated without sacrifices being involved. It was very many years before the country was prepared to accept even the principle of meeting loss of wages for members of local authorities.
    I feel I am right in saying—I hope this is not an unfair statement, because I want to be perfectly fair—that the benches have for many years been heavily weighted by justices who were not drawn from the wage-earning classes. As days have gone by, there has been a tendency, which is now very apparent, for valuable magistrates to come from the wage-earning section of the community. Sitting here today, I have been trying to remember whether anyone who could be described as a wage-earner had regularly attended court as a magistrate on week-days, and particularly mornings, rather than on Saturdays, and from my own experience I have had difficulty in recalling any instance of a wage earner who took his place on a bench of magistrates on a working day during the week. This is a definite indication of a shyness, or coyness, on the part of wage-earners to accept the responsibility of the office of justice of the peace. We must face the fact that courts meet mainly on mornings and in mid-week, which makes the attendance of wage-earners very difficult. For these reasons, there is great strength and power in the Amendment.
    A change is now taking place in the composition of benches of magistrates, and the time has come when we should extend the principle which has been accepted in the case of Members of Parliament and of local authorities and should ensure that the sacrifices we ask people to make in performing a very important public duty should not be so great as to affect their standards of living and to punish them for the duties which they perform. It is because of this that a keen examination of the situation is necessary, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to accept the Amendment.
    Mr. Gallacher: I should like to add a few words to what has been said, because I think it is obvious to everyone that the demand which is now being made should

    1771
    be met. Subsection (1), after which it is intended that the Amendment should be added, deals with the necessity of payment for travelling expenses and lodging allowances. Clearly, that provision is contained in the Clause because the Government are prepared to meet any cost involved in the carrying out of his duties by a justice of the peace when travelling is entailed. Obviously, any justice of the peace who is working in a factory or an office—there are many good and desirable justices in such circumstances—who has to travel and obtain a lodging allowance must necessarily stay overnight and, therefore, may incur a loss of two working days.
    6.30 p.m.
    That is a very serious matter for anyone who is anxious and willing to serve in such an honourable occupation. I know many who are justices of the peace who are engaged in various forms of employment and already suffer considerable hardship. If one is receiving a weekly wage and has a day off now and again in order to carry out one's duties this means a very heavy loss. Frozen wages do not mean that they are frozen at the rate of £5 per week if one has a day off. If one has a day off, the wages melt and in these days when prices have gone up and wages have not gone up in comparison, this is a very heavy burden on such people.
    I appeal to the Home Secretary to accept this Amendment, put forward with the backing of every section of the Labour movement. There has never been any question in the Labour movement that expenses should be paid for those who lose time in carrying out these duties. I have no personal interest in this because I have never been a justice of the peace, although on many occasions I have been a disturber of the peace. I make an earnest appeal to the Government to accept the Amendment, or, if not, to consider the matter again and bring in something at a later stage. I hope that some concession will be made.
    Mr. Proctor: I feel there can be only one objection to this proposal. There can be no objection to the principle of payment; the only objection can be on the grounds of cost. I appeal to the Home Secretary to give further consideration to this matter.
    1772
    It is manifestly unfair for us to agree to pay the cost of a motorcar to take a magistrate to court and the cost of lodging and travelling allowances, but not to agree to pay the cost of the wages a man has lost in carrying out his duties.
    There is a special feature about this matter which Parliament should consider. I raised it on Second Reading, but received no reply. In the Labour movement and in trade unions, on numerous occasions and in many instances, payment has been made for time lost by members who have sat on councils and done various other work. The trade unions have felt it very doubtful whether they ought to meet the cost. In a special sense, so that a justice of the peace would not feel in any way bound to any private organisation, we feel that the State should accept the cost in this case and that no organisation should reimburse a man for time lost in dispensing justice on behalf of the whole community.
    I hope that the Home Secretary will agree to look at this matter and will at least say whether or not it is desirable, permissible or legal for anyone to pay a magistrate for the time he loses when performing duties in court. I think there is an overwhelming case for adopting the suggestion that time lost should be paid for, and I believe that regulations could be framed in such a manner as to make it not too costly for the community to bear.
    Mr. Pannell: I think it was John Stuart Mill who said that an unpaid legislature and an unpaid magistracy are forms essentially aristocratic. I believe that he went on to plead, as nine-tenths of the people of this country are those who work for their living, for a paid legislature and a paid magistracy. There is no argument which has been adduced against payment of magistrates which could not be adduced against payment of Members of Parliament, because we are the supreme court of the land and many of our functions are in themselves judicial.
    If one takes the analogy of the local government service, there is an overwhelming case. I will not enter into the subject of the ex officio people who go on to magistrates' benches, but earlier today we have been saying that magistrates should retire at the age of 75. One of the reasons for that, quoted from

    1773
    the Front Bench, was that we should put younger men on the magistrates' bench and make it possible for younger people to go on the bench; otherwise, we would leave the bench automatically to the retired, professional and business interests.
    I believe an argument was adduced by Compton Mackenzie when he referred to the type of persons sitting in a judicial capacity who, having reached the age of three score years and ten,
    "drink in fresh draughts of life from the sheer misery that they can wreak upon others."
    We want to get rid of that mentality and make it easier for younger men to come on to the bench. There should be no difficulty about this, because the Minister of Health has devised regulations in the sphere of local government which could easily be used for cases such as these. No one will suggest that £1 per day is likely to destroy the essentially voluntary service which is given in all parts of the country. This Amendment limits the amount to £2 per week, and my experience in local government was that when all expenses have been paid it does not really equate to a skilled man's wage for a day.
    It cannot be suggested that because a man accepts £1, which is a remuneration for lost time, that is an inducement for him to become a magistrate. The proposal leaves an essential element of voluntary service in the magistracy, and to refuse this proposal is inconsistent because we have gone beyond the stage of local government and are already making such payments for quasi-judicial functions such as courts of referees and military hardship tribunals. In all sorts of legislation which this Government and previous Governments have passed, the claim for £1 a day has been admitted.
    I also feel that the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) is a good one in so far as it is the policy of the party, and, broadly speaking, it is not only the mandate but the spirit and intention of the party at the election which should prevail. It is an overriding principle and this is an extension of something which Parliament has continually, although perhaps cautiously, affirmed, that no man should be kept out of office by means of poverty, or by means of the fact that the sacrifice is too great
    1774
    to enable him to discharge that office. If the argument against this proposal is taken to its logical conclusion, it is the argument which was used against the payment of any Parliamentary salary We are asking so little in this regard and it is so completely inconsistent to except this one form of public service from any payment whatever, and, for the reasons my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor) gave in regard to paying people who use motor cars, this proposal should be accepted.
    If we are to get a better type of younger magistrate, are we to say that he is to be limited in respect of the times on which he may sit on the bench? Speaking of the regulations in regard to lost time in local authority service, the Minister of Health has said that the payment should be received for any approved duty. If any hon. Member reads those regulations, he will see that no councillor even from Ebbw Vale, could get around that. I therefore suggest that the Home Secretary should look at this matter again and act at least in accordance with the spirit, aim and purpose of the party to which we belong, and that in extension of the principle to which I have referred, he should meet this just claim.
    Mr. Ede: The case for this Amendment has been put with great force and clarity by my hon. Friends. My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) and others drew an analogy between this service and that of councillors. I am bound to say that I think there is a considerable distinction between service as a member of a council and service as a justice on the bench. In the first place, magistrates as a rule perform their duties by rota, and there is not that call for continuous and almost daily attention to duties which would take them away from their ordinary vocation which quite frequently falls on members of town councils, particularly in cities. Therefore, I do not think that that analogy is one that can toe prayed in aid too far.
    My hon. Friend the Member for West Salford (Mr. Royle) said that he could not think of wage-earners who attended on days of the week other than Saturday. That is not my experience, and I have been a member of an advisory committee for 20 years. I have never known a suitable person among the wage-earning class who has been approached decline to

    1775
    accept the position of a magistrate on the grounds that he could not afford the time to attend to the duties.
    Mr. Royle: The argument that I was adducing was that the wage-earner had of necessity to choose Saturday morning because mid-week was inconvenient to him and cost too much, and that therefore the benches were not properly balanced.
    Mr. Ede: In my county there are only two benches at most whose regular day of meeting is a Saturday. I repeat that I have never had this particular reason adduced to me as a reason for a person not accepting an appointment.
    The Royal Commission examined this question with great care. They expressed the greatest sympathy with the objects of the proposal and they pointed out that it might appear anomalous that members of local authorities should be entitled to payment for loss of remunerative time while justices are not so entitled. I agree with the conclusions which the Commission subsequently reached. I think it would be found that there would be insinuations against people who regularly attended the bench, particularly benches such as those which my hon. Friend has in mind, which meet on more than one day per week, if it were found that a magistrate who was a wage earner was to be found more frequently on the bench than persons in other ranks of life who shared with him the position of a justice of the peace.
    We have gone a long way in this Clause. We have met the question of travelling expenses and the question of lodging allowances, which are not unimportant factors for those magistrates who desire to attend quarter sessions in counties which are fairly extensive in area. We have also extended these provisions to the attendance of magistrates at courses of instruction in connection with their duties as magistrates. These are concessions which have never previously been made to magistrates, and we think that it is as far as we ought to go, having regard to the duties which fall upon men and women who are appointed as justices. We do not regard those duties as being analogous to those which fall on persons who serve as councillors or as Members of Parliament.
    1776
    6.45 p.m.
    I remember that there was some effort made to run this party on a rota principle late at night. I am not sure that it was a good principle because I have never placed myself on such a rota.
    Mr. Pannell: Will my right hon. Friend deal with the point that this principle has already been admitted in connection with quasi-judicial functions in respect of courts of referees and bodies of that kind? I think those are more apposite examples than are councillors, and those concerned are on rotas.
    Mr. Ede: I do not think that such persons can be regarded as being in quite the same position as magistrates. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] If my hon. Friends will allow me to continue—
    Mr. Gallacher: The right hon. Gentleman has all night.
    Mr. Ede: No, I have not. We rise at ten o'clock, and I would remind supporters of the Bill that we are not making such progress as to make it desirable that an undue amount of further time should be spent on these earlier Clauses.
    I do not regard the kind of tribunals which have been mentioned by hon. Members as being in the same position as a magistrates' court. The latter is a body which meets in public and in regard to which it is highly desirable that no question as to the remuneration of the persons who attend should enter into the mind of anyone who has to appear before the bench. In the case of the other bodies, the people concerned are discharging far more a sectional than a public function. A person sits on such a tribunal as the representative of a particular interest and not as a representative of the public at large. I therefore do not think that they are in any way analogous bodies.
    I know how strong is the feeling on this matter, and I should very much have liked to be able to give way to the blandishments of my hon. Friends. I am bound to say, however, that for the reasons I have given the Government think it inadvisable that payment for loss of time as distinct from payment of travelling expenses and lodging allowances should be made in the case of justices of the peace.
    Mr. Gallacher: If two justices, one moderately well-to-do and the other a worker, go on duties which entitle them to lodging allowances, and the moderately well-to-do magistrate goes to a hotel which costs 30s. a night, can the worker receive an allowance of 30s. and go to an hotel which charges 10s. a night?
    Mr. Ede: He certainly cannot do that. It may be in accordance with the hon. Member's principles, but let us be quite certain that no one will be allowed, even under the Clause as it now stands, to draw more in the way of expenses than he actually has to expend.
    Mr. Carmichael: There is a serious anomaly here, when one looks at the position in England as against that in Scotland. I am thinking of the City of Glasgow, where the magisterial work is carried out by councillors who are elevated to the bench for a period of three years. Under the Local Government Act, that magistrate as a councillor, would be entitled to claim for loss of time while sitting on the bench. Obviously, if he is permitted that right under the Local Government Act my reading of the Act would be that as a councillor he is entitled to claim for lost time and it does not say in the Act that he claims for any specific job which he may be undertaking. I am completely ignorant of anybody having made any claim. He cannot sit on the bench unless he is a councillor and most of the cases in a city like Glasgow are conducted by the magistrates and not by a J.P. court.
    In other parts of the country, particularly in England, it is quite common for those cases to come to the justice of the peace court. Here we have payment being made to the magistrates in Scotland sitting on the bench in a city like Glasgow, and yet apparently the Government at this stage are resisting the application of the same principle to justices of the peace. That matter should be made clear. It will probably be found that there is an anomaly and that I am right in my reading of the Act.
    Mr. Pritt: I feel dissatisfied with the speech of the Home Secretary. There were several points which he made. The first one was that he did not know of a case in which a man had refused to accept the position of a justice of the peace because he felt he would find it
    1778
    difficult to attend except at a financial loss. Of course not. When people are offered such a position they regard it sometimes as an honour for themselves and sometimes as an honour to the people among whom they work. They may even accept it without realising that it is necessarily going to take them away from their work, and as a result they sit on Saturdays if they happen to be near a bench which sits on Saturdays.
    The Home Secretary said that the Government have gone some way in matters like this. I do not believe in the principle of seeing what is right and going half way. It is much better to go all the way. The rest of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was a long and rather careful examination of whether there existed a parallel between other functions and the judicial function, but never did the Home Secretary face squarely the merits of it. The merits of it are that it is desired that people should serve as justices of the peace and should not be debarred by financial hardship from doing so, if they are otherwise fit to do so. Then we learned of a very terrible thought, that the voluntary system could in some way be invaded and somebody might actually be paid for loss of time.
    After all, a very great number of judges in this country are paid. All those before whom I have practised invariably are paid, but they seem to do their work tolerably well. There is one school of opinion which feels that if one is paid for the job one does it better. What earthly catastrophe for the country will follow if a voluntary justice is told, "You are a voluntary justice, you will never make a penny out of it, but we will make sure that you do not lose £1 a day by the time you lose?"
    Mr. Bing: I hope that the Home Secretary will look at this again before the Report stage. When we were discussing the question of juries it was never then put forward as a reason against paying them that people would think that they were prejudiced or that people would crowd on to the jury in order to get the payment. What we really wish to secure here is that there should be a regular attendance of justices of the peace and that each justice should feel equally able to attend. There are certain people who, when they leave their job, lose money as a result of it. There are

    1779
    others who can be absent, like Members of Parliament, for a whole year, and still continue to draw their salaries. All that is desired is to put on an equality those people who are penalised for doing their duty and those people who are the salaried classes and continue to draw their salary at the same time as they are sitting on the bench.
    My right hon. Friend said that possibly people would think that someone was on the bench because he was paid. Is it really thought that a man who is prepared to lose a day's work in order to sit on the bench, and draws £1 for doing so is going there for that purpose? Surely not. Under this Clause, so moderately drawn by my hon. Friends, a justice of the peace could not do it for more than two days in the week. Is it really suggested that a man who has sufficient public stature to become a justice of the peace will adopt the position necessary for him to engage in some sort of underhanded action in order to absent himself from work for two days to sit on a bench?
    What we wish to do is to get a regular attendance of justices. I do not think there would be any harm in having a compulsory rota to make certain that justices do serve when they accept the honour. But if anything of that sort is done we must not penalise the working-class man as against other members of the community. I hope that in those circumstances my right hon. Friend will look at this again.
    Mr. David Jones: I ask the Home Secretary to look at this again, otherwise a large section of the population will be penalised. Earlier in our discussions there was a demand from both sides of the Committee that younger magistrates should be appointed. Younger magistrates will have a greater family responsibility the younger they are appointed, and as a consequence they will be unable to make the sacrifice which they will have to make if they lose time, as they do now. Before coming into the House I was a railway signalman. I never had any difficulty whatever in getting leave of absence from the railway company who employed me, provided I was not being paid by the company when I was absent.
    It obviously follows that any working railwayman, particularly those on shift
    1780
    work who attend magistrates' courts, are faced at the end of the week with a loss of one-sixth of their income. That is the plain and simple fact. Surely it is not unreasonable to argue that if these people are doing a job for the community they should be reimbursed for the loss of wages they incur for doing a public duty. It seems to me, therefore, that if we are to recruit the large number of younger magistrates which the Lord Chancellor wishes to recruit in the not too far distant future, some provision must be made to reimburse them for the loss of remunerative time. They are not being rewarded, they are being paid the wages which they lose.
    I cannot see the difference which the Home Secretary sought to draw between the courts of referees, hardship tribunals and magistrates' courts. After all, both sections of the community are represented on the Ministry of Labour tribunals. Both are reimbursed for loss of time if they incur it. The chairmen are usually legal gentlemen who draw their fee at the end of the day, and I have not noticed that they have done their job any the worse because they drew their fee. The Royal Commission seem to me to have drawn a completely false conclusion. In paragraph 207 they state:
    "If we had thought that the lack of remuneration was depriving the public of the services of any considerable number of able and suitable persons, we should have recommended the adoption of the proposed change. We do not doubt that there are many persons, especially among the younger members of the community, who are prevented from accepting appointment as justices because they cannot leave their work."
    That may be true in certain instances, but in a large number of occupations in this country it is not true that they could not be relieved from their jobs. The plain fact is that, because they would be deprived of one-sixth of their weekly income if they did remain away from their jobs for one day, they do not accept the position. If we are to have this increased number of young magistrates, this Amendment ought to be accepted. I hope that the Front Bench will have second thoughts and agree to have another look at this problem.
    7.0 p.m.
    Brigadier Peto: As I said during the Second Reading Debate in support of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker), that I thought that

    1781
    on balance it was wiser to have a broad cross-section of the community as justices rather than forgo that opportunity through the inability of certain members of the working-class to serve because they could not afford it, I should like to record my support for this
    Amendment. I hope that the Home Secretary will re-examine the matter.
    Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 6; Noes, 183.

    Division No. 299.]

    AYES

    [7.0 p.m.

    Bing, G. H. C.

    Peto, Brig. C. H. M.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Gallacher, W.

    Piratin, P.

    Mr. Parker and Mr. Royle.

    Hollis, M. C.

    Pritt, D. N.

    NOES

    Acland, Sir Richard

    Hall. Rt. Hon. Glenvil

    Paget, R. T.

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.

    Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)

    Attewell, H. C.

    Hardy, E. A.

    Palmer, A. M. F.

    Awbery, S. S.

    Hastings, Dr. Somerville

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Ayles, W. H.

    Haworth, J.

    Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

    Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.

    Herbison, Miss M.

    Paton, J. (Norwich)

    Bacon, Miss A.

    Holman, P.

    Pearson, A.

    Barlow, Sir J.

    Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)

    Porter, E. (Warrington)

    Battley, J. R.

    Holmes, Sir J. Stanley (Harwich)

    Price, M. Philips

    Berry, H.

    Hoy, J.

    Pryde, D. J.

    Blackburn, A. R.

    Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)

    Randall, H. E.

    Blenkinsop, A.

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Ranger, J.

    Blyton, W. R.

    Hurd, A.

    Reid, T. (Swindon)

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'pl. Exch'ge)

    Irvine, A. J. (Liverpool)

    Rhodes, H.

    Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

    Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

    Brook, D. (Halifax)

    Jay, D. P. T.

    Ross, William (Kilmarnock)

    Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)

    Jeger, G. (Winchester)

    Sanderson, Sir F.

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Jenkins, R. H.

    Savory, Prof. D. L.

    Brown, T. J. (Ince)

    Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)

    Scott-Elliot, W.

    Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.

    Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.

    Segal, Dr. S.

    Burden, T. W.

    Keenan, W.

    Sharp, Granville

    Burke, W. A.

    Kenyon, C.

    Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (St. Helens)

    Butcher, H. W.

    King, E. M.

    Silkin, Rt. Hon. L.

    Chamberlain, R. A.

    Kinley, J.

    Simmons, C. J.

    Chater, D.

    Lavers, S.

    Skinnard, F. W.

    Chetwynd, G. R.

    Lee, F. (Hulme)

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke)

    Clarke, Col. R. S.

    Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)

    Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)

    Cobb, F. A.

    Lewis, T. (Southampton)

    Snow, J. W.

    Collindridge, F.

    Lindgren, G. S.

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Comyns, Dr. L.

    Lipson, D. L.

    Sparks, J. A.

    Corlett, Dr. J.

    Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.

    Steele, T.

    Cullen, Mrs.

    Logan, D. G.

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)

    Daggar, G.

    McAdam, W.

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

    Daines, P.

    McGhee, H. G.

    Sutcliffe, H.

    Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

    McKinlay, A. S.

    Symonds, A. L.

    Davies, Edward (Burslem)

    MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

    Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

    Deer, G.

    Macpherson, T. (Romford)

    Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

    Delargy, H. J.

    Mainwaring, W. H.

    Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

    Dodds, N. N.

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)

    Driberg, T. E. N.

    Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)

    Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

    Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

    Mann, Mrs. J.

    Tolley, L.

    Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)

    Mathers, Rt. Hon. George

    Turton, R. H.

    Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)

    Mellish, R. J.

    Ungoed-Thomas, L.

    Evans, John (Ogmore)

    Messer, F.

    Usborne, Henry

    Fairhurst, F.

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Viant, S. P.

    Fernyhough, E.

    Molson, A. H. E.

    Walker, G. H.

    Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)

    Morgan, Dr. H. B

    Watson, W. M.

    Follick, M.

    Morley, R.

    West, D. G.

    Foot, M. M.

    Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)

    Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

    Fraser, Sir I. (Lonsdale)

    Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)

    Wilkes, L.

    Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

    Mort, D. L.

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Ganley, Mrs. C. S.

    Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.

    Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)

    Gibbins, J.

    Murray, J. D.

    Wills, Mrs. E. A.

    Gibson, C. W.

    Nally, W.

    Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

    Glanville, J. E. (Consett)

    Neal, H. (Claycross)

    Woods, G. S.

    Gordon-Walker, P. C.

    Neven-Spence, Sir B.

    Wyatt, W.

    Grenfell, D. R.

    Nield, B. (Chester)

    York, C.

    Grey, C. F.

    Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J. (Derby)

    Younger, Hon. Kenneth

    Grierson, E.

    Noel-Buxton, Lady

    Guest, Dr. L. Haden

    O'Brien, T.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Guy, W. H.

    Oldfield, W. H.

    Mr. Hannan and Mr. Bowden.

    Hale, Leslie

    O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

    Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, in page 6, line 36, at the end, to insert:
    "which shall be subject to annulment by resolution of either House of Parliament."
    Here again we get the question of whether a Statutory Instrument should be subject to a Prayer in the House, and I rather think that I can pray in aid some of the arguments used by the Attorney-General in resisting the previous Amendment, because this is not a question of rules, but one of regulations. It appears to me to be more than a matter of mere machinery implementing the decisions of the House, because in Clause 6 we provide for the payment of travelling and lodging allowances, though not, we note, for the loss of time; but nowhere in the Clause is anything laid down as to what shall be paid as travelling and lodging allowances. That is all left to the regulations, and, as the Bill now stands, the regulations which are made cannot be subject to a Prayer in the House. If the Committee will look at line 28 on page 6, they will see that the
    "Regulations may make provision as to the manner in which this Clause is to be administered, and in particular … for prescribing the rates of allowances."
    When it comes to rates of allowances, which may, of course, affect the burden on the rates, a strong case exists for saying that a Statutory Instrument should be capable of being prayed against in the House. Subject to what may be said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the omission of these words in the Amendment, in view of what he said on a previous Amendment, would appear to be rather an oversight, and so I shall not seek to take up any more time in moving the Amendment, in the hope that the Attorney-General will accept it.
    Mr. Ede: This Clause is very analogous to the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1948, for the payment of allowances to members of local authorities, but whereas it was urged by some of my hon. Friends that it was analogous in all respects, I think it is analogous only in some respects. So far as this part of the provisions is concerned, we have followed the precedent which was then created. The Statutory Instruments to be made under that Act also dealt with the question of actual
    1784
    payments to members, and those Statutory Instruments are not subject to annulment by the House. I think that is a fairly sound precedent on which to base ourselves, though I do not think that this particular matter, which, after all, compared with the other matters in the Bill, is of a minor character, should be subject to this procedure. I do not think we should depart from the precedent created by the Local Government Act, 1948, and I hope that the Committee will be prepared to accept that precedent.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: I think that is a very unsatisfactory reply, because the right hon. Gentleman has done no more than say that, under a quite recent Act dealing with local authorities and their members, there was some similar power and that perhaps attention was not drawn to the question of making such Statutory Instruments without providing that they should be prayed against. The right hon. Gentleman has given no reason whatever why the Statutory Instruments made under this Clause should not be dealt with in that manner, and I should like him to say what possible objection there could be in his view to providing that the House should retain some degree of control over the steps that are taken to implement the provisions of this Clause.
    If the House were not satisfied with the rates of lodging allowances laid down in the Statutory Instruments, it could do nothing about it unless this Amendment is carried. If this Amendment is carried, and the allowances are right, no more Parliamentary time will be taken up, but if, in the opinion of hon. Members, they are laid down wrongly, then if the right hon. Gentleman has his way, hon. Members will be unable to do anything about it, because we shall not be able to pray against the Statutory Instrument. We may pray against the Minister, but our prayers may not be answered as quickly as we would like them to be.
    I ask the right hon. Gentleman to treat this Amendment a little more seriously and say that he will consider the matter again. If he cannot do that—and he appears to be unable to do so—will he put forward an adequate reason for resisting the Amendment?
    7.15 p.m.
    Mr. Ede: I am sorry that the hon. and learned Gentleman should think that I

    1785
    have not treated this matter seriously. I say that these regulations, as a matter of fact, are less sweeping in their scope than those made under the Local Government Act, 1948.
    This is a matter that can safely be left to the administration of the Department concerned, and if the House felt that an administrative mistake of a serious character had been made, a Motion to reduce the salary of the Minister concerned could always be put down, and the matter could be raised. I do not think we want to cheapen the power of the House to deal with such instruments by unnecessarily extending the power to annul them in cases where it does not appear to be necessary. I should have thought myself that the analogy which I quoted of the Statutory Instrument under the Local Government Act, 1948, was in fact quite a sound one, because that Statutory Instrument deals, in addition to the matters now in the Clause. with a matter which the Government have just successfully resisted being added to the Clause.
    Sir J. Mellor: I really cannot see why the Home Secretary should argue that the House would in any way be cheapening its control by admitting the right to annulment in a case of this kind. It would make no difference at all to the exercise in other respects of the powers or rights of the House to annul if it thought fit. This case can be considered entirely by itself, and I do not see why the Home Secretary should seek to rely upon precedent. If we are to take this course because there has been a precedent for a Statutory Instrument being made unaccompanied by any right of the House to annul it, then we shall gradually lose the power and narrow the rights of the House to supervise delegated legislation.
    I think the line taken by the right hon. Gentleman on this Amendment, and that taken by the Attorney-General on a previous Amendment, should serve as a warning to the Committee. We should never lightly allow a provision in a Bill for regulations to be made to pass without having attached to it a provision for the right of hon. Members to move the annulment of the regulations when they so desire. Otherwise, we shall gradually have the right of the House to supervise delegated legislation whittled away.
    1786
    Therefore, I think that we should insist on this Amendment.
    The Home Secretary said, "Oh, but it is quite easy, if you do not like what is done under a regulation, to move to reduce a Minister's salary," presumably on a Supply Day. Our opportunities of debate on Supply Days are very limited. What happens is that there are whole hosts of subjects—administrative matters—to be raised in the House on a Supply Day, all of a great variety of character which bear no reference to one another, and it is quite easy for the Minister concerned, when he replies to take the ones he wishes to answer. He finds it very easy, having taken up the time at his disposal, to say, "I am very sorry, but there are many other points with which I have not been able to deal." We know that if there is a difficult point for the Minister to deal with, it is extremely difficult to get an answer.
    Therefore, I think that we should insist upon this right to annul regulations of which we may disapprove, because it is one of the few procedures in the House by which we can really get to the point. There is usually only one point, and the Minister has to answer it. As I say, I hope that this Amendment will be insisted upon.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has not said his last word, because the whole of this question of the control by the House over the actions of Ministers is a matter on which a great many hon. Members—and not only on one side—feel very strongly indeed. It is no argument to say that it was not done last year in the Local Government Act, because it is possible that that Act was wrong. It certainly does not entitle the Home Secretary to be freed from the necessity of justifying his responsibility with regard to this point on the actual facts of this particular matter.
    There is one aspect that has not yet been mentioned, which is that this does affect the expenditure of public money. The scales to be prescribed by these regulations will directly affect the amount of public money expended. Surely, if there is one matter on which the House is entitled to insist, it is with regard to the expenditure of public funds. To leave that matter in the hands of a Minister of the Crown is, quite frankly,

    1787
    the sort of argument which cost the Ministers of his late Majesty King Charles 1 their heads.
    There is the other and broader aspect. I should have thought that the Home Secretary was convinced by the discussion on the previous Amendment that many people feel anxious lest financial difficulty should prevent suitable people from performing these duties. It may be that the scales which the right hon. Gentleman will prescribe will deal adequately with that point. On the other hand, it may not. We do not know what the scales will be. It is wrong for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he will prescribe and that other hon. Members of this House shall have no say in the matter, because in practice that is what it means. It is a little disingenuous for a right hon. Gentleman who is not only Home Secretary but Deputy-Leader of the House to say, "Oh, all you have to do is to move to reduce my salary and to debate the matter."
    The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well the practical difficulties to* which the hon. Baronet referred. If this matter is dealt with under the ordinary Parliamentary power to annul Statutory Instruments, it is possible, because the Business is exempted Business, to have a discussion upon the particular matter of the regulations without any possibility of that discussion being crowded out. The right hon. Gentleman must know perfectly well that that is the most satisfactory method of doing it. I ask him to look at it from the point of view of his hon. Friends. Some of them may dislike the scales prescribed, but it would be difficult for them to put down a Motion to reduce his salary. They may think that in other respects he is a good Home Secretary—there is no accounting for opinions—but they may wish, none the less, to deal with this particular matter. To force them, just because they want to deal with this matter, to launch a frontal attack upon his position is really putting them in a false position.
    The right hon. Gentleman has shown himself to be a good Parliamentarian. I hope he will understand that there are a great many hon. Members who feel that the House should not vote away its rights to Ministers of the Crown in the manner proposed in this Clause. It would be
    1788
    perfectly simple for the right hon. Gentleman to accept this Amendment. It would not involve any of the waste of time about which those of us who are anxious that this Bill should be got on with are concerned. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will say that he will accept the Amendment and give the House the right and the responsibility of dealing with this highly important matter.
    Mr. Butcher: I very much hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not turn a deaf ear to the very reasonable request that is being made to him that in this matter he should reserve the right of the legislature to review the scales which he may make. I do not believe that if he were to accept this Amendment it would cause him one minute's more work or anxiety than he is likely to have if he declines it. Indeed, I think that we are likely to spend more time in the Committee stage on this particular point than is likely to be spent in several successive Parliaments in examining the scales. I believe that this is one of those essential rights that must rest with hon. Members. It gives us an opportunity, on behalf of our constituents who find themselves, on the one hand, in difficulty about the scale, or who, alternatively, feel that the scale may be too large, to bring the matter before the House.
    The right hon. Gentleman has shown himself, in very many matters connected both with this Bill and in his present office, one of the best Ministers on the Government Front Bench. I should like to say something nicer about him because I realise that that is not very high praise. I will go so far as to say that in the 1941 Government he was one of the most successful Ministers of the Labour Party at a time when there was acute competition among many brilliant Ministers. But I think that at the present time he would be very wise, for his own sake, for the sake of this House, and, indeed, for the sake of the Bill, to accept this Amendment.
    Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider this matter, because I think he will agree that my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself have not been unreasonable in our attitude towards this Bill. We have tried to help, and we are anxious that it should go through. But on this point,

    1789
    as I indicated in an earlier Debate which we had on an Amendment that is within the recollection of the Attorney-General, we try to act on principle, and, as we believe, on grounds on reasonableness with regard to delegated legislation.
    When the right hon. and learned Gentleman pointed out to the Committee that the provision which we were discussing a short time ago was merely a matter of machinery, we accepted it and withdrew the Amendment; but here, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) has said, a matter of public money is concerned over which, I believe, the House should keep the right of control. I agree with my hon. Friends that the probability of the need for exercising control may be slight, but on the question of principle the House ought to keep that control. What harm would that do to the working of the Bill? If the right hon. Gentleman had shown any serious danger of interference with its useful working, I would have paid the greatest attention to him, but I think he might meet us on this point because it is one which I think, on reflection, he will see is not made in any frivolous way. It is made to support a principle which we feel strongly, and we feel that it is one that Parliament should try to maintain.
    7.30 p.m.
    I am not entering into the delightful pastime of picking out the resemblances of the right hon. Gentleman to the late Lord Strafford, although there would be many such resemblances of which he would not be ashamed. Despite that entrancing by-way, into which I am not going to stray, let me come back to the original point; I ask the right hon. Gentleman to have another look at this, because it is a reasonable principle. It is very difficult to get principles when dealing with subsidiary legislation, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, but I suggest that this is a reasonable principle which, unless there is some very good reason to the contrary, the Committee ought to maintain; namely, that when the disposal of public money is involved there ought to be the right of recourse to Parliament so that the views of Parliament can be expressed.
    I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider this point, which is not put forward in any fractious or contentious way,
    1790
    and that he will say that he will have another look at this proposal before the next stage of the Bill.
    Mr. Ede: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the approach which he has made to the subject, for it is rather more easy for me to deal with it than with some of the remarks which were made before. If I were really so great a person as has been made out, I could at least claim that, in support of any attitude that I might adopt. But I am more modest.
    I am quite willing to have another look at this point between now and the next stage of the Bill, and to see what we get involved in as we go through the Bill. I am one who pays Members who come here to pray, the courtesy of listening to their Prayers. This has become the most pious Parliament since the days of the Commonwealth. No Parliament since the days of the Commonwealth has engaged in so many Prayers at such length as we have had in the course of this Parliament. In the very distant future there might be a possibility that I should sit on the other side of this Committee, and then, with my strong Nonconformist and Puritan ancestry, I might be putting terrible temptations in my own way. But I do not conceal the fact that I, like the right hon. and learned Gentleman, do not desire Parliament to lose its control over essential finance. Sometimes, however, by paying too much attention to detail, we may very well lose the opportunity of dealing with the bigger issues.
    I will, however, examine this Amendment with some others which still appear on the Order Paper, and perhaps between now and the next stage of the Bill it might be possible for my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and myself to have a conference with the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) on those cases in which this may be regarded as desirable and those in which we may get agreement that such provision is unnecessary. I hope that with that suggestion we may be allowed to get on with the Bill.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: I am sure that all of us on both sides of the Committee are glad to hear what the Home Secretary has just said. He referred to the frequency of Prayers at this time. I would say that never has there been such

    1791
    cause for Prayers as there has been during these last four years. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has adopted this attitude. I hope that before the Report stage we shall be able to secure agreement as to what Statutory Instruments under this Bill shall be prayable against. In view of what he has said, and so that we can get on with our next business, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 10. —(AREA OF COMMISSION.)
    The Deputy-Chairman: It might be of convenience to the Committee if a general Debate took place on the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Dumpleton), on page 7, to leave out line 31, and if the Committee decided to divide on that, there could be a Division on the next Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) in page 7, line 31, to leave out "fifty" and insert "twenty." Then if that Amendment is put to the vote and "fifty" stands, the other Amendments could not be voted upon. Therefore, I suggest that discussion on those Amendments should take place on the first Amendment.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: On a point of Order, Mr. Bowles. May I draw your attention to the Amendment to page 7, line 42, to insert a proviso? That is an Amendment of a different character from those which you have so properly suggested should be taken together. I was not clear from what you said whether we were going to discuss that with the other Amendments on page 3436 of the Order Paper, because if so, I should raise my voice in objection to that procedure.
    The Deputy-Chairman: No, I was referring to all the Amendments in page 7, line 31, down to the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) to insert a new proviso. Also the two Amendments in the names of the hon. and gallant Member for Barnstable (Brigadier Peto) and Devizes (Mr. Hollis), in lines 34 and 40 respectively, may be discussed now.
    Brigadier Peto: Further to that point of Order, Mr. Bowles, I do not think that the Amendment in my name can be included in the Debate on the Amendment to page 7, line 31, because it is entirely a separate issue.
    The Deputy-Chairman: A discussion can take place, and if the hon. and gallant Member would like a Division on that Amendment it would be allowed.
    Mr. Marlowe: When you said that we could discuss the Amendments down to the Amendment standing in my name, Mr. Bowles, do I understand you to mean that we should discuss them exclusive of my Amendment or inclusive of it?
    The Deputy-Chairman: Exclusive.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Further to the point of Order, Mr. Bowles. Would you kindly indicate exactly what you have in mind on this point? I understood you to say that you would call, for the purpose of Division the Amendment standing in my name, but I understood you to indicate that in the event of that Amendment being divided on and defeated, it would exclude a Division on the subsequent Amendments.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Yes, if that were the case it would not be possible to insert "twenty-five" or "thirty-five" or "forty" or whatever number is suggested in the other Amendments.
    Mr. John E. Haire: I beg to move, in page 7, to leave out line 31.
    I move this Amendment in the temporary absence of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Dumpleton), and although I do not subscribe to the numerical basis for determining the retention of a commission of the peace, I am glad to accept your Ruling, Mr. Bowles, that the Debate will now be free for all.
    This is undoubtedly the most controversial Clause in the Bill, and there is no doubt that there will be a considerable amount of special pleading during the discussion which I have the opportunity of beginning. I feel that this special pleading is right and proper in a Clause which deals with non-county boroughs which many of us have the honour to represent, and if the consensus of opinion in the

    1793
    Committee, as it was on the Second Reading, is very much in favour of an Amendment to this Clause, I hope that the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General will not hesitate to reconsider it.
    In another place, when this Clause was being discussed, there was a most acceptable spirit of compromise and, as the Home Secretary is in a very genial mood tonight, I hope he will show an equally conciliatory attitude. I hope that my right hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench do not feel that all the Amendments that can be made to this Bill have been made in another place. So far this afternoon we have had no Amendments accepted and have been given only promises about the Report stage.
    In another place, after there had been considerable pressure, the Lord Chancellor finally brought in a figure of 50,000 population below which separate commissions would go. It seems to me that that was quite an arbitrary figure. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor) said on Second Reading, it seemed as though the Government took the Roche Committee's figure of 25,000 and, having thought of that figure, doubled it. In fact, there is little doubt that 50,000 was quite arbitrary and I know that many of my hon. Friends, and certainly I myself, do not accept it. I want, therefore, to take the Committee back to the Roche Report, paragraph 97, in which this numerical test is first applied. We find the following:
    "We recommend that separate commissions of the peace should be abolished in all boroughs in which the population is less than 25,000 unless there are some special circumstances in the administration of justice that make a separate commission desirable."
    I stand by that decision as being the most equitable in all the circumstances. The Royal Commission thought that perhaps this figure might be increased, but my reading of the Royal Commission's Report is that they were basing their judgment rather on the difficulty of obtaining, whole-time justices' clerks than on a population test.
    In the Second Reading Debate the Attorney-General replied to many points which had been put during that Debate on this Clause and I find myself, as I believe do many of my hon. Friends, in the position of not being able to accept the arguments which he put forward—
    1794
    certainly not if our figure of 25,000 population is the test accepted. I believe that many of his arguments might apply to non-county boroughs smaller than that. For example, he said that a satisfactory advisory committee could not be obtained in a non-county borough of under 50,000. I very much beg to differ with him because I am satisfied that in a town of 25,000, 30,000, or 35,000 a good advisory committee can be obtained.
    The Attorney-General went on to say that everybody in such a town knows who is on the committee. I do not know who is on the advisory committee in my non-county borough and I know of nobody else who does. He went on to say that the members of the advisory committee would be canvassed. Obviously that inference cannot follow in view of what I said on the second point. He said there would be dissatisfaction on the part of candidates not appointed. Clearly that must remain whatever the figure and must always remain.
    He said the areas are too small to find a sufficient number of justices. In a non-county borough of some 41,000, like my own, I would certainly disagree with him that it would be impossible to obtain sufficient men of integrity to serve on the local Bench. He said there would not be sufficient work to give the justices experience. Most of us who represent non-county boroughs of above 25,000 realise that these courts, which sit two and sometimes three times a week, provide plenty of experience for the justices. The Attorney-General said that in a small community every one knows every one else's business. That is certainly not so where the population is more than 25,000.
    All these arguments, which I have taken carefully from his winding-up speech on the Second Reading, break down when we apply a test of more than 25,000. I agree entirely that in small communities below that figure the arguments which he propounded are acceptable but, in answer to a speech by the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) my right hon. and learned Friend went further—he admitted at once that there was nothing logical about this decision. The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames was putting forward the argument that if it were right to retain separate commissions of the

    1795
    peace in a non-county borough of 20,000 which had a quarter sessions and a recorder, then clearly it was right to keep a separate commission of the peace in a population of 25,000 or more.
    7.45 p.m.
    The Attorney-General said he would concede that point at once. In fact, therefore, he has proved that there is absolutely nothing logical about this present position. It seemed to me, too, that in another place compromise became caprice at one stage, because when a bishop and a general joined hands in a love dance on the theme of Winchester, no lawyer and certainly not the Lord Chancellor could resist their blandishments. We should like to do a little blandishing of my right hon. Friend this evening.
    What are my hon. Friends, who support this Amendment, putting forward? We are fighting to save approximately 49 non-county boroughs with populations above 25,000. If this Clause is acceptable to the Committee in its present form, it means that 170 non-county boroughs will be deprived of their separate commissions.
    The Attorney-General: I rather thought that the Amendment which my hon. Friend was moving was to delete the words,
    "and a population of 50,000 or over"
    which would leave the commissions as they are at present.
    Mr. Haire: I accepted the Ruling of the Chair.
    The Deputy-Chairman: May I explain again? We are having a general Debate on the first Amendment. Any hon. Member who wants a figure of 25,000 or 30,000 or 40,000 or so on is quite at liberty to put his case for that particular figure on this Amendment.
    The Attorney-General: I am much obliged to you, Mr. Bowles. I understand that my hon. Friend is no longer taking the view that a figure of under 25,000 is appropriate.
    Mr. Haire: Yes. I was saying that if this Clause were amended by the Amendment which has been moved, then 170 non-county boroughs would be reprieved and would be permitted to retain their separate commissions of the peace, but if we accept the figure of 25,000 as the test
    1796
    then, in fact, some 49 boroughs are reprieved, and it is that particular reprieve which I am supporting this evening.
    Many of these boroughs of above 25,000 are rapidly growing towns. They have a civic pride, a progressive spirit, a long tradition; and they are most ambitious to improve their status. Many of them have a long history in the administration of justice and many of them, I regret to say, are suffering at the present moment from a sense of great frustration because of the removal of some of their functions in the last few years. I believe the Home Secretary will understand this, because he has had a long experience of local government and he knows the value of local patriotism and psychology. Indeed, in another connection and when he was moving the Second Reading, he said:
    "The Government feel, however, that it would be undesirable at the present juncture—when the entire future structure of local government is a matter ripe for re-examination—to make changes which, however justifiable, would be regarded as affecting the prestige and status of the local authorities concerned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 28th November. 1949; Vol. 470, c. 799.]
    We are, in fact, arguing that very point—that by the removal of the separate commission of the peace we are affecting their prestige and status. I know that this is the feeling of many of my constituents in High Wycombe. They feel that their long-standing tradition is again being whittled down. In High Wycombe we have a town of great progressive zeal which has proved its capacity for self-administration over many years. For example, though our commission dates back only 100 years to 1852, our local courts date back for eight or nine centuries. It cannot be said, therefore, that in this town of 41,000 we are a picturesque survival of the past. I must ask my right hon. Friend—must we, now, in the 20th century, lose this further link with the past? Must all that we have achieved through the centuries be lightly cast aside in the mere hope of increased efficiency?
    On our local bench we have 13 justices. Their average age is 61. When the Clause we have just passed is applied, two will depart, and the average age will be reduced to 58. However, there are plenty of others willing to serve on this bench. Moreover, they are efficient, they are all

    1797
    men of high integrity; men of character and ability; and they are held in great respect locally. They are fully adequate to the demand. We have before our local bench in High Wycombe 2,000 cases a year. That certainly provides the local justices with an opportunity for obtaining experience; which submission, I have no doubt, my right hon. Friend will willingly accept. We are certainly able to pay the local justices' clerk. A penny rate in High Wycombe produces nearly £1,300. Can the Home Secretary really say that the present bench in High Wycombe is not adequately carrying out its duties? Or can he give any evidence whatsoever of any reproof which has been administered to them? Certainly there appear to be very few appeals from the decisions which they have taken in the past.
    My view is that these local courts—though I admit at once to my right hon. Friend that under the proposed change the same justices will sit on the same benches—still will not be in the same tradition. Yet these local courts, such as ours in High Wycombe, are the essence—indeed, the foundation—of our British liberty and justice. I hope they will not be lightly condemned to death.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think it is a fortunate coincidence that it fell to the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Haire) to move the Amendment on which this discussion is taking place, because he, in moving the Amendment which would, in fact, safeguard all existing commissions of the peace, disclosed that his own constituency had the substantial number of 41,000 people—I think I am right—in the petty sessional area. It so happens that I, who have on the Paper an Amendment asking for the lowest qualification figure, also have precisely that number of people living within the petty sessional area which I am anxious to preserve. So both the hon. Member for Wycombe and I can claim that we are not arguing any special case specially for our own constituencies, but that we are seeking, as I am sure is right, to argue this matter on the particular merits of the matter, only calling in aid the situation in our own constituencies by way of illustration of the general principles; and it does seem to me that that is the right way to approach this matter.
    1798
    All the Amendments, in the group of Amendments which the Committee is discussing, differ in the solution which they offer to this problem, but they all agree in the conclusion that the figure at present in the Bill of 50,000 is too high. Indeed, this discussion is really a discussion as to what is a small borough. Everybody, I think, accepted the Home Secretary's logic that when we get to really small boroughs we do get a situation in which justice is not efficiently administered, both because of the absence of sufficient work and the absence of sufficient persons properly qualified to be justices. But the question has to be resolved as to what is the proper line of demarcation, assuming that we accept the population test at all.
    The hon. Member for Wycombe, although most gallantly coming to the aid of one of his hon. and absent Friends and moving an Amendment which would do away altogether with the population test, I think himself accepted the population test, and, although I think it is a very unsatisfactory one, I admit, quite frankly, that it is difficult to produce a better. But it is an unsatisfactory test for this reason, that there are times, such as certainly occur in the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, and in many other boroughs, in which the amount of work for the local bench is immensely affected by the large number of people who do not live within the physical jurisdiction of the court but who come in about their business or pleasure and who, unfortunately, in the course of that business or pleasure, commit offences which bring them before the local magistrates.
    Therefore, the population of a town is a very imperfect guide as to whether or not there is adequate justification for the retention of a separate commission of the peace. Having said that, I think one is entitled to put it in this way. If population is the only practical but a somewhat imprecise test, then the figure should not be applied too rigidly. The figure should err, if it errs at all, on the low side; and it is, among other reasons, for that reason that in my Amendment the figure of 20,000 is put forward. I put it forward, too, for the reason to which the hon. Member for Wycombe has already referred; that is to say, that I share with the Attorney-General an incapacity to

    1799
    distinguish between the position of a petty sessional bench where there is a recorder's court and where there is not.
    The Committee will recall from the Debate on Second Reading that where there is a recorder's court or a court of quarter sessions, if there are 20,000 people in the town, not only the recorder's court but the bench of magistrates is also saved; whereas the absence of a recorder's court condemns the bench of magistrates to extinction unless the population is 50,000. I asked on Second Reading why this differentiation was made—why if 20,000 was too small where there was no court of quarter sessions it was adequate where there was; and in words to which the hon. Member for Wycombe referred, though he did not actually quote them, the Attorney-General frankly admitted that there was no logical basis for this differentiation. He said:
    "There is obvious reason—and I concede this point to the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter)—why a separate commission should be satisfactory in a town with a population of 20,000, either because it is a county borough or because it happens to have a recordership as well, and not satisfactory in a non-county borough which has not got a recordership."—[OFFICIAL RFPORT, 28th November, 1949; Vol. 470, c. 898.]
    The Attorney-General was very frank there.
    But surely we cannot proceed under this Bill to destroy existing commissions of the peace when the Attorney-General of England, speaking for the Second Reading of the Bill containing a Clause to that end, is unable to give any reason for such a differentiation. That is why I and some of my hon. Friends did put down this identical figure of 20,000 in our Amendment. The point we seek to put to the Committee is this: if 20,000 is right where there is a recordership, then 20,000 is right where there is not a recordership; and we rest our argument on that part of the matter on that proposition.
    I agree—and I would not myself stress the matter very far—that there is a good deal to be said for the other proposition of fixing it at 25,000, which has the advantage of being the figure recommended by the Roche Committee. On broad general principles, there is not very much between 20,000 and 25,000. How-
    1800
    ever, if 20,000 is to remain in the boroughs which have courts of quarter sessions, then there seems to be good reason, if only from the point of view of administrative tidiness, for making 20,000 the figure where there are not—for making 20,000 the general test. That is the reason I have sought to argue this particular figure.
    Now, the Attorney-General made a present to us in the most generous way of that argument. I would quote the expression, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, of any gift from the right hon. and learned Attorney-General; and, indeed, if there were any Member of the independent Liberal Party present I should translate it for his benefit thus: the Attorney-General is at his most dangerous when he appears to be conciliatory. But we have not yet been given any logical argument upon this point, and we have therefore put down this figure of 20,000.
    8.0 p.m.
    The practical question with which we are concerned on the Home Secretary's own case is: Will such a figure, or any figure like it, give sufficient work? I have been able to give only the figures as they affect my own constituency. The number of people living within its petty sessional court area, which is threatened by this Bill, is 41,000—twice the 20,000. I gave the figures to the House on Second Reading; I have sent particulars to the Home Secretary, and I do not therefore propose to inflict them again upon the Committee. Nevertheless, they show something just under 3,000 cases in a year, many of them serious and substantial cases; and they also show a court with 290 sittings in the course of a year.
    Obviously therefore, at the 41,000 level there is, in this case at any rate, more than sufficient work. It certainly is, on all accounts, a busy court. It is certainly a court in which a great deal of work is done, and I have yet to hear—and this is a matter with which the Home Secretary will be in every, sense familiar—that there is any difficulty in finding for that court justices of the peace of the highest calibre. However much the Home Secretary and I may differ on the general question, he will agree with me that justices of the very highest calibre sit in that court.

    1801
    That being so, there being no logical argument and no practical argument for its destruction, we surely come to the view that it would be wiser and more sensible to exclude it from the destructive provisions of this Clause. On that point I once again call in aid the Attorney-General, since he was in generous mood on the Second Reading. He said:
    "In considering that aspect of the matter "—
    that is the figure—
    "we had to add some weight for the long tradition and status of the county boroughs and of the nor-county boroughs which possessed their own recorderships."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 28th November. 1949; Vol. 470, c. 898.]
    I do not dispute that proposition. I only add that long tradition and status are not confined to boroughs that have recorders, and are not confined to county boroughs. It is in many cases an historical accident whether a town has a recorder or has not, or whether, as in the case of Kingston-upon-Thames, it in fact has a recorder but, owing to the fact that that recorder does not perform judicial duties, is not protected by this Bill. That only goes to show how historical accident has decided a matter which itself is now to decide whether these courts are to continue or not.
    I also urge this upon the Government. I am sure it is generally appreciated that in the administration of justice, as in so many other fields, local pride and local patriotism have their value. Justices, other things being equal, will do their work better if they feel that they are working in a court with long and honourable traditions than if they feel they are working in a court for an area arbitrarily carved out of some larger and unrelated area. That is a practical consideration and one which should weigh with the Government when they are taking a great deal of trouble to put on the Statute Book a Bill designed to improve—as many of its Clauses undoubtedly will—the administration of petty sessional courts. I therefore hope that before this Debate ends we shall hear from the right hon. Gentleman some indication that he is prepared to accept the weight of genuine feeling and, I believe, serious argument which has been, and I foresee will be, directed upon him from every quarter of the Committee.
    Mr. Collins: I hope the fact that we are now discussing some six differ-
    1802
    ent possible solutions to this difficulty will not be regarded by my right hon. Friend as evidence that there is any drastic division of opinion on the essence of the difficulty we wish to overcome. I think, it was well expressed by the Home Secretary himself when he said, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, that in the courts of summary jurisdiction the people of this country
    "get their causes heard and determined by people who understand their way of life, who give due weight to the law and at the same time bring to the consideration of matters a refreshing common sense which enables their decisions to be received with general respect by those whom they serve."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th November, 1949; Vol. 470, c. 813.]
    I am quite sure my right hon. Friend feels that in most cases that description would apply to the members of county benches who, if this Clause remains unaltered, will replace the borough benches, as has been pointed out, very often in the same place and in the same court.
    I ask my right hon. Friend to realise that in many non-county boroughs there is a strongly-held opinion that that will not be a real or satisfactory replacement, and that it is essential that when the line of demarcation is finally drawn—if it is to be a line in the accepted sense, on a population basis or otherwise—the way in which the decision is made as to whether a non-county borough shall or shall not retain its borough bench must be one which will not leave any justification for the feeling that there has been a real severance with the valued traditions of the past, or a real deprivation of a substantial population—such as 25,000 people—of their right to a borough bench.
    As was said earlier, there has been a considerable and regrettable curtailment of the prestige and authority of the many non-county boroughs. The control of the schools, the fire service, and so on, have been surrendered to the county councils; the regional hospital boards now exercise their functions in regard to maternity and child welfare. We all agree—at any rate I hope we do—that there were very sound reasons for this, although the new machinery has not yet provided that measure of devolution which was promised and which is so necessary if the public are to get the maximum benefit. But the arguments which were quite relevant and cogent then, under those conditions, are not

    1803
    applicable and cannot provide the same saving in the case of non-county boroughs under Clause 10 as it stands, whereby it is proposed to close down the borough magistrates' courts.
    There may be—and I think there is—a sound reason for amalgamating small benches of magistrates to save costs. On Second Reading the example was quoted of a borough with some 3,000 population, in which no cases had been heard for the last two years. I am not now speaking in support of the retention of a bench in such a case; but in the case of my own county town of Taunton, with a population of 32,000, there is a bench which sits every week and has a long list of cases to try, and has to sit all day and often on another day. In 1947 they tried 1,208 cases as compared with—and in my view this is important—only 440 cases for the county; in 1948 the number of borough cases was 1,205, and including the juvenile courts there were 100 sittings, compared with only 361 cases and 47 sittings in the petty sessional division. Not only was the work of the borough three times as great as that of the county, but if those two were amalgamated it would inevitably mean extra sittings, and possibly a duplication of courts on the same day, and there could not possibly be any saving.
    As the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) pointed out, there is a very good reason why boroughs of this kind have a lot of work to do. Main trunk roads run through them, and there are big railway junctions there. Taunton is a large military centre, which means that many extra cases come before the court.
    Reference was made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Haire) to the remarks of the Attorney-General during the Second Reading. What struck me then was the very lame reason for rejecting the Roche Committee's recommendation of the 25,000 line of demarcation. The Attorney-General said that most people were agreed that the figure of 50,000 was about right. He added that people much better qualified than he was to judge thought that this figure was much too low, and that 50,000 was the level at which there was the broadest measure of agreement. I should like to know precisely who these well-qualified
    1804
    people are. They certainly do not include the Association of Municipal Corporations, who, I should have thought, were people well-qualified to judge.
    I think that people in touch with the local situation know that to fix the minimum population as high as 50,000 for a separate commission of the peace is certainly not in all cases a good proposition. It is even more absurd when we get the anomaly which occurs in my area in the two towns of Taunton and Bridgwater, only 12 miles apart, one a town of 32,000 which is to lose its borough bench and the other a town of 20,000 which is to retain it, merely by an accident of history and because it has at present a quarter sessions.
    The Home Secretary is too good a Parliamentarian and too good a student of history to disregard the intriguing situation which he has created. From a study of history he will recall that in 1645 those two eminent Parliamentarians, Cromwell and Fairfax, laid siege to Bridgwater, which was held by the Royalists, and before the town was finally reduced, it is recorded that Cromwell only escaped drowning by two minutes and only just succeeded in ducking a cannon-ball which killed an officer by his side. After the Restoration, the Royal favour was granted to Bridgwater and denied to Taunton which had its Charter annulled by Charles II.
    Mr. Ede: It was successfully defended by Blake, who was a native of Bridgwater.
    Mr. Collins: I am aware of that. What I would like to know from my right hon. Friend is why he insists, three centuries later, in favouring Bridgwater so illogically, and whether it is a reward for holding out for the King or for having missed Cromwell.
    I would suggest that if Bridgwater is rewarded for having produced Blake, Taunton should be no less rewarded for having assisted him to defend the town successfully. I suggest that the incident I have quoted shows the complete absurdity of the present line of demarcation, and I do not believe that my right hon. Friend would for one moment be prepared to defend it, because it is indefensible. I ask him to agree that there are non-county boroughs with a

    1805
    population of less than 50,000 which by their status, as he himself will appreciate, have a right to put forward a case for retention of their borough bench. I do not accept the Amendment of 25,000 as being necessarily the right one, but I hope that the Home Secretary will give us an assurance that he will endeavour to meet the case we have put forward.
    Reference has been made to the necessity for having due regard to the sense of local dignity and tradition in populous and ancient boroughs. I can assure him that in the non-county boroughs, which are no less ancient or populous than some of the boroughs which by reason of their quarter sessions are to retain their bench, the traditions are just as great, and I hope, therefore, he will have due regard to all these factors and continue the good work and good intentions which he showed in regard to the previous Amendment.
    8.15 p.m.
    Sir I. Fraser: The modern tendency is to complicate and centralise Government, and consequently tremendous burdens fall upon Parliament. We have seen today examples of that in the discussions which we have had about delegated legislation. There is also the development of the welfare State and nationalisation of both private industry and municipal undertakings. All these tendencies detract from the prestige, influence and local patriotism of the boroughs. It is not surprising if many of them feel that the honourable position they have held in times gone by is being undermined. Their gas and electricity undertakings are taken over by others; their hospitals, schools, fire Services—all these administrative responsibilities for which they have had the care for many years are taken away from them. Now it is proposed to take away yet another function.
    It will be in the mind of the Committee that a great many of the people who sit on the councils are also justices of the peace, and so, in two directions, they feel that their power and influence is being taken away from them. Many of these boroughs are growing rapidly and becoming more and more important both industrially and commercially and from every other aspect. It does not seem to be the time, unless extraordinarily good reasons can be shown, to take away from
    1806
    them this very important function of administering justice locally.
    One of the arguments put forward is that advisory committees of sufficient standing cannot be found to recommend magistrates. I cannot believe that is true. If it is true of a town of 40,000 or even 45,000 inhabitants that does not have a recordership, it must be true of a town of 25,000 that has a recordership. There is no logic about that argument. Nor do I think in practice that there is any foundation for it. If the alternative method were adopted whereby we put the borough bench into the county bench, we have still to get advice from somebody, and we shall find that we are getting advice from exactly the same kind of persons as those whom it is suggested are not capable of giving the advice.
    I do not want to keep the Committee because many of the arguments I support have already been made, and I do not want to repeat them. I only want to put before the Committee the example of Morecambe and Heysham, because it is an example of injustice that will be done unless modification of these proposals is agreed to, and also because it is a seaside town where there is a special factor to which I want to make reference. The population of Morecambe and Heysham is 40,000, but in the summer it is 90,000 or even 100,000, which adds to the work of the magistrate's court in the number of cases it has to try. I am not by any means convinced that it is a wholly good test, but if a population figure is to be the test, then surely some regard must be had to the fact that during a large part of the year a town like Morecambe has twice as many people in it as this magical number. This also applies, of course, to other seaside towns.
    I earnestly hope that the Home Secretary, who has shown himself to be very wise in these matters and sensitive to opinion expressed in the House, will reconsider this question and make some concession before the Debate ends, to enable towns like Morecambe, with an admirable bench of justices which carries out its work efficiently, to have its bench reprieved from the extinction this Measure threatens.
    Mr. Tolley: I want to add to the appeal from both sides of the Committee for my right hon. Friend

    1807
    to consider very carefully what he is doing in this Clause. Much has been said about the transference of powers from local to county authorities, but in this respect I think we are touching on something of a vital character. In my town we have a population of 36,000, and we have had our magisterial bench for something like 150 years. It has a great reputation for fair play and justice, which it is proud of and jealously guards. While serving as chairman of the magistrates, the one thing which impressed me, on each occasion when it was my duty to say to the prisoner, "Are you willing to be tried in this court, or would you prefer to be tried elsewhere?" was that in every case he wanted to be tried by the local magistrates. That proves conclusively the trust local people have in their local magistrates. It is a great tribute, not merely to the magistrates of the town, but to the traditions of the court.
    It has been argued that no case has been put forward by the Home Secretary for the abolition of these courts. I want to be absolutely certain that a case can be made out, otherwise the old position should be maintained. I do not think a case can be made out. It has also been said that it is impossible to get justices to serve in local courts. That is not true. I have always been impressed by the type of person who has been appointed, and the willingness and sincerity with which he has administered justice.
    For the first time in its history, Kidderminster has appointed a full-time magistrates' clerk. We made the appointment on the basis of sharing the clerk with two smaller authorities. It is an excellent arrangement, because it provides adequate work for him to do and enables us to share the expenses, showing that we had economy in mind. I know it has been said that in all probability the same courts will be retained under the new set-up, but there is no guarantee of that. Another point is the enormous amount of trouble that will be caused to minor offenders, such as those whose chimney has caught fire or those without dog licences, by having to travel miles away to some other court, if the Kidderminster magistrates' court is to go. The position will become
    1808
    ridiculous and farcical. I know that my right hon. Friend has all those virtues which make him a man of understanding when a good case is put to him, and I plead with him to give consideration to this matter again with a view to reversing his decision.
    Mr. Hollis: I should like to make a few observations on the Amendment standing in my name and that of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Maude), in page 7, line 40, at end, insert "and for Devizes." Devizes has played a considerable part in the deliberations on this Bill, both in another place and here. Members may remember that the Lord Chancellor in another place recognised that Devizes in some ways was in a unique position.
    The Attorney-General: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but is this one of the Amendments we agreed to take together? I thought we were to take this Amendment separately, because it would be a little difficult to deal with it now, as it deals with the position of recorders rather than the size of the population for Commission of the Peace.
    The Deputy-Chairman: It was my view that the Amendment should be discussed now. In any case, I cannot see that the words suggested to be added make much sense. I told the hon. Member that he might discuss the Amendment, and that if he wished a Division could be taken.
    Mr. Hollis: As I was saying, the Lord Chancellor, by his own confession, was in two minds, and, as Members may remember, the question of Devizes was raised during the Second Reading Debate, not by myself, but by the hon. Member for Central Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. Wilkes), who, as far as I am aware, is not interested in Devizes in a Parliamentary sense. The Attorney-General admitted that it was in some way a special and unique case. I do not wish again to go over everything that has been said, but to take the argument a little further from the point which it had reached by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech.
    8.30 p.m.
    The Attorney-General said that last year 31 people—rather fewer than the previous year—were sent to the Devizes Quarter Sessions. His argument was that

    1809
    that was a number which could well be taken care of by the county if the local quarter sessions were abolished. Although I believe that my case is a strong one it is one of certain delicacy, because it is open to an enemy to say that although Devizes has not an exceptionally large population, it breeds an exceptionally large number of criminals.
    That is far from being the case, and what I wish to put to the Committee is that it is true that those 31 cases could be dealt with if the Devizes Quarter Sessions were abolished, but they would be dealt with much less quickly. Through certain historical enactments the Devizes Quarter Sessions take place at a time different from the county sessions and, therefore, justice is done a great deal more expeditiously than would otherwise be the case. People do not come solely from the town of Devizes or from the county of Wiltshire. On the contrary, owing largely to the high standing which the Devizes Quarter Session has attained, through a series of rather distinguished recorders, and for other reasons, people are sent there not merely from other parts of Wiltshire but also from the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire, Bath and Bristol.
    My contention is that through a series of historical enactments, as has been admitted, the Devizes court is in a unique position. It makes a serious contribution to the expeditious enactment of justice. As Lord Macaulay once said, "I have never raised my hand to destroy an enemy that is not also an injustice." A peculiar position has been built up by this court. It is no advantage to anyone, out of a mere desire for tidiness, that it should be abolished. If it were abolished it would delay the administration of justice, and I appeal to the Committee to recognise the special position of Devizes and to give it that recognition in the Bill.
    Mr. Ede: I am not intervening now with a view to closing the discussion on this Amendment but, the Debate having gone on for some little time, I think it is desirable that the Government's view should be stated. The Attorney-General will be speaking later, but I thought it would be probably for the convenience of the committee if I intervened now to give the reasons why the Government have put
    1810
    forward the Clause in the form in which it is in the Bill.
    There is an almost complete example of an arithmetical progression in the figures set down in the Amendments on the Order Paper. The lowest is 20,000 and the highest is 50,000. The only figure that is omitted on the 5,000 scale is 35,000. which might be arrived at by adding the highest and the lowest, 20,00 and 50,000. and dividing by two and saying "If we split the difference everybody ought to be happy." [HON. MEMBERS: "Thirty-five thousand is in."] Then the example is even more complete than I thought. I want to repeat something that I said on an earlier Amendment. These courts exist to serve the public, and not for the private convenience of the magistrates if that should happen to be in conflict with the needs of the public.
    If people are willing to give their time as justices of the peace, they are entitled to have their convenience reasonably considered but not to the extent of inflicting any injury on the public service. It is desirable that the administration of justice in the country should be considered on a reasonably wide basis. Sometimes the existence of a small borough, having its own court, its own advisory committee, its own bench of magistrates, and its own limited jurisdiction, may conflict with that.
    A great deal was said in the course of the Second Reading Debate, and has been said in this Debate today, about the destruction of benches. Let us be quite clear—that is an exaggeration of what happens. No bench is destroyed by the Bill. Certain benches that are now borough benches will in future become county benches under the Bill, and the area they are to serve will be settled by a magistrates' court committee, which will have regard to the convenience of justices in the county as a whole. There is nothing against that as an abstract proposition.
    It is desirable that the widest possible consideration should be given. Quite frequently we have a case where a county bench and a borough bench meet in the same building. That is the case in Kingston-upon-Thames, where in the new Guildhall there are very convenient courts which are used sometimes by the borough bench and sometimes by the county bench. When, in fact, the assizes and the

    1811
    quarter sessions of the county could not be held in the County Hall owing to an accident through bombing, the quarter sessions at least were held there. I am not quite sure about the county assizes.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The assizes were held there certainly once.
    Mr. Ede: I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me that information. I thought it was so, but I could not be certain.
    The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) on Second Reading regaled us with the history of his borough, some of which I think was rather imaginative, but at any rate it was interesting. All my life I have lived within seven miles of Kingston-upon-Thames. I am a believer in the greater Kingston—restoring Kingston to its original boundary, because the present little borough is not the historical place to which he alluded. There are adjoining it two boroughs, both of which he represents along with Kingston-upon-Thames—Surbiton and Maiden and Coombe, both of which are part of the original Kingston-upon-Thames. If the hon. Gentleman will look in the Victorian history of the County of Surrey, he will see that all the churches in Surbiton and in New Maiden are included in the Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames.
    Mr. Messer: Only the "pubs" are outside.
    Mr. Ede: He alluded also to the fact that my right hon. and learned Friend is recorder. The Charter of King Charles I says that the King's Attorney-General shall be the steward of the manor and shall look after the property of the manor.
    The Attorney-General: What salary is attached to it?
    Mr. Ede: I can well understand, in the course of history, that it has been found desirable to remove the Attorney-General from that position. In 1835 it was said that the Corporation of Kingston was harmless but not useless, and at the same time it was said that the area of the Court of Kingston-upon-Thames "is complicated and confused, and varies from time to time." History can therefore be quoted on both sides on this
    1812
    issue. We are not so much concerned with history, although I hope I have indicated to the Committee that I give it due consideration when I have to bring these matters under review. What we are concerned with is the people who are living today, and with the best way of securing the due administration of justice.
    I got into great trouble for saying that I believed that Kingston, Surbiton and Maiden ought to be united for municipal purposes. They were Kingston, and they are Kingston, for everything, except a few dots on the map, and only the hon. Member and I know exactly where they are, when we go through the borough and pass from one borough to another. It is important that the administration of justice should be according to the population as a whole and not to the population of that narrow group of people who now live on the 1,400 acres which constitute the modern borough of Kingston-upon-Thames.
    I say the same with regard to the case put forward on Second Reading by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Swingler), and tonight, again, in the case put by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Collins). In both those cases there is a county bench that meets in the borough. I suggest that it is highly desirable, if we are to get to the position we all want to reach, that we should have whole-time clerks in place of the existing part-time clerks who, on occasion, have private business to do with a very large number of people living in the area for whom they must of necessity be suspected of having some regard.
    I recollect that one of the part-time clerks of the bench of which I was a member went with us to view a proposed diversion of a footpath. I inquired where the representative of the landowner was over whose land the footpath went. The clerk who was supposed to advise us. said: "I represent him." I declined to go on the expedition and we got another person to advise us on a subsequent occasion. There is that difficulty if we rely upon part-time clerks. I do not want to anticipate the discussion that we shall have later, but I must say that unless we have an arrangement by which county administration can be considered as a whole, we shall have very great difficulty indeed in establishing a system of whole-time clerks.
    Mr. Collins: My right hon. Friend has mentioned Taunton. The present position in Taunton is that the clerk to the borough court and the clerk to the county magistrates are the same person. Is there any difficulty about that? It is a full-time job.
    Mr. Ede: I am bound to say that the greater part of the objection which has been raised seems to go, in that particular case. There can be no fault in people meeting separately to deal with this matter. Again, sometimes it is a very great advantage that the constitution of the bench can be made up from people living outside the ordinary small borough, which is the centre, where there is a person involved who may be of some consequence in the borough and where it would be very difficult for people to feel that persons resident in the borough and trying the case could be devoid of bias in one way or the other. Then the bench, if the area is wide enough, can be constituted from people who do not live in his immediate vicinity.
    8.45 p.m.
    I will not say—I should be foolish to say—that the figure of 50,000 is in any way inspired. It is an effort to find a figure. My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor, supported, I think, by Lord Roche, thought that in this connection it was the best figure that could be got, but the Government are quite willing to consider what is the best figure to put in. However, I want to make it quite clear that we could not regard the lower figures which have been inserted in these Amendments as being likely to give us the proper figure. I admit that there is an anomaly in that the 20,000 borough which has a recorder presents a logical difficulty to put to us, but, after all, it was a desire to save certain recorderships which led us to include that figure.
    I hope that before the Debate ends we may get some clearer indication of exactly where the main weight of opinion in the Committee falls with regard to the appropriate figure. I should find no great difficulty in going to the figure of 40,000, which I think might exempt one or two places which I still think ought to be included, but I hope that we shall get a clearer indication from the Committee than we have at present had, as we have really had hon. Members speaking more or less with a view to preserving their own borough rather than giving con-
    1814
    sideration to the general principles which I have tried to lay down and which I think ought to govern the decision of the Committee in the matter now before it.
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: We are all grateful to the Home Secretary for his intervention at this stage to give us some indication of the way his mind is working. I am sorry that I should rise to catch your eye, Mr. Bowles, on a matter of rather special pleading, but I think we are agreed with the Home Secretary in principle that what we must do is to see to the interests of the people of the present and the future and to work on general principles. It seems to me from the discussion which we have had so far that it is in the mind of the Home Secretary that we should not make any changes unless we can show that, first of all, justice will be expedited thereby and, secondly, there may be some saving in administrative cost.
    I have risen to put the point of view of Banbury which I have the honour and privilege to represent at the moment. It is not one of the larger centres and, equally, I am glad to say, has not got such a large calendar of criminal charges as some about which other hon. Members have spoken. I want to put on record some remarks made by the recorder of Banbury as recently as September, when he pointed out that this recordship, which has been in existence for some 400 years—since the time of Philip and Mary—is of very considerable importance and a matter of prestige to the local authorities who, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Tolley) pointed out, are under heavy attack these days in other ways. The recorder went on to say:
    "Some of these non-county borough courts of quarter sessions serve a useful purpose because among the prisoners who are for trial at these sessions are some who have been in custody for some time and who would have had to remain in custody for a considerable number of weeks more before they could be tried at the county sessions. All the prisoners who are to be tried today would otherwise have had these charges hanging over their heads for a number of weeks until another court was held. Not only that, but both the county sessions and the City of Oxford sessions"—
    which are the alternatives—
    "already have large calendars and these prisoners would go to swell the calendar at those courts."

    1815
    Therefore in the case of Banbury, which is the centre of a larger area, there is not any way whereby under the present suggestion justice would be expedited; in fact, it would be retarded and individuals would be kept waiting longer.
    The other point, which is of considerable interest in the more rural areas of this country, affects jurors. At present jurors can be called up in Banbury and, if not required that day, they are dismissed and can go back to their business. On the other hand, if they are called to go to Oxford, which is some 23 miles away, they will have to spend the whole day there because, even if dismissed, they will not get off in time to carry on with their normal work. This will be not only a considerable source of expense but also a considerable source of annoyance to those concerned. The calendar at Oxford will be longer and more people will be required to stand by for a greater length of time, so the expense will be increased considerably. I hope that the Attorney-General will listen to the plea put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) when he asked that we should insert "twenty" instead of "fifty."
    Mr. Proctor: We are all grateful for the intervention of the Home Secretary in which my right hon. Friend indicated that he is susceptible to the receipt of good advice from the Committee. I feel certain that one of the worst injuries one can do anyone is to do him what one imagines to be a good turn which he bitterly resents being done. I feel that the non-county boroughs have a case here for the consideration of this Committee. We should not do anything that violates their feelings unless there is an overwhelming reason for doing it.
    So far as I have listened to and studied the Government case, I can see no overwhelming reason for taking the action that the Government propose in connection with the abolition of the commissions of peace where the population is less than 50,000. The argument that a place was so small that we could not get enough magistrates seemed to me to be difficult to sustain because I started life in a small country village with a very sparse population, but there was no difficulty in getting magistrates—
    Mr. McGhee: Of one colour.
    Mr. Proctor: Yes, but other and more delightful colours have since appeared in the countryside. The next argument was that because the population was so small everyone would know the business of everybody else. In a community of 25,000 neither of those arguments will apply, and I hope that the Government will give careful consideration to that figure. Of course, as the population goes up to 30,000, 35,000 and 40,000 the case becomes stronger, and when we come to 44,000, which is the population I represent, in the borough of Eccles it is overwhelming. I must speak candidly. I find that on no other issue have the inhabitants and the town council of my borough been so disturbed as on this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, I say that. On no other issue have I received such a galaxy of advice and instructions. [An HON. MEMBER: "From magistrates?"] I have received it from the town council. Throughout the country there is a sentiment that we should not, if it is possible to avoid it, interfere too much with what local pride and devotion has built up over the years.
    We can look with some confidence today to the acceptance by the Home Secretary of good advice. I recognise the need to convince the Front Bench to be reasonable in this matter. I recollect the happy compromise of the past when my right hon. Friend was in charge of another Bill. When we had the Licensing Bill he started off by being execrated by the brewers; the tenants suspected him, the landlords abhorred him and the managers doubted him; but he accepted so much good advice from both sides of the Committee that in the end the tenants regarded him as their good companion, the landlords accepted him as their friend, the managers looked upon him as their possible benefactor, and the brewers, despite his personal teetotalism, regarded him almost as a confederate. If my right hon. Friend takes the good advice that has been offered him on all sides this evening, there will be a very happy outcome of the proposals now before the Committee and in the results to be obtained by the Bill.
    I still plead the figure of 25,000 as a reasonable one, that it will meet all

    1817
    possible objections and that no great inefficiency would result from it. I am sure that justice would be administered as efficiently in the future under that system as it would if the figure of 50,000 were left in the Bill
    Mr. Butcher: I join with the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Proctor) in saying that of all the alternatives put forward this evening to the Home Secretary, the right figure is 25,000. That figure represents a compact and suitable unit, and in suggesting it we have the reinforcement of the Roche Committee. I am bound to say, however, that my belief in that figure is rather shaken, for since we have now agreed that where a recordership exists the figure can be reduced to 20,000, I cannot help feeling that in sheer logic we must have the same figure for boroughs, whether a recordership exists or not.
    The Home Secretary, in his very attractive and historical intervention, for which, I am sure, the whole Committee are grateful, said we are concerned with the people who are living today. That, of course, is perfectly true. We are not concerned really with preserving into the future recorderships which came from the past or in preserving them because they may be useful training grounds for judges of the High Court. We are concerned with the people who are living today.
    We have the assurance of the Attorney-General that despite the difficulties which he admits, and which he puts quite freely, it is possible to satisfy the criterion of the Home Secretary and efficiently to provide for the administration of justice in units of 20,000. I believe that in logic and in justice the Roche Committee recommendation of 25,000 should have been accepted. Perhaps the Government were unwise to depart from that figure, but, having departed from that figure in places where a recordership exists, to 20,000, I believe that in logic and fairness to preserve the historical connection which exists in so many ancient boroughs, the figure of 20,000 is right.
    9.0 p.m.
    The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Collins) drew an agreeable parallel between the case of Bridgwater and Taunton, the one safeguarded because of its recordership and the other not safeguarded. Of course, the one without a recordership was the one which took the
    1818
    side of the Parliament in the 1640's. Boston is in exactly the same position and had not the ancient borough of Boston displayed its loyalty to Parliament in those days without doubt there would have been a recordership and it would have been reprieved But we cannot allow the history of our ancient institutions to govern us in deciding whether the figure recommended by the Roche Committee or the figure advocated by the Government should be accepted. I am happy to say that in either case Boston would be reprieved.
    Mr. Swingler: We are all glad to have had the intervention of the Home Secretary, because he indicated that the Government would be prepared to reconsider the figure of 50,000; but I thought that his arguments were rather unexpectedly based on a bit of special pleading with reference to the example of Kingston-upon-Thames. We expected special pleading from all sides of the Committee in this Debate and perhaps it is appropriate that the Treasury Bench should have fallen for it.
    As I said on Second Reading, I believe it a good principle that when a Committee is set up to inquire into a subject and make recommendations, if Ministers dissent from the recommendations they should give good reasons for doing so. I still feel that we have not had good reasons given to the Committee why we should dissent from the recommendations of the Roche Committee that the figure should be 25,000. That is why I stick to that figure. Perhaps everyone who takes part in this Debate should declare his interests, and in that case I name Stafford, which has a population figure of about 38,000 and I should be glad if that figure were accepted. But I think the figure of 25,000 is a good figure, first, because it was recommended by the Roche Committee and, secondly, because no one has yet produced any good reasons for dissenting from it.
    I think that everyone in this Committee, however, urged on by the need for special pleading, agrees with what the Home Secretary said, that we are concerned with what is the public interest in the administration of justice. There are two main points about determining the area of the commission. One is whether we have an adequate catchment area for the appointment of justices, and

    1819
    the other is whether there is sufficient work for them to do. The Home Secretary suggested that we had not a sufficient catchment area for the appointment of justices in an area with a population of under 50,000, but nothing has been said to suggest that we have not competent benches in boroughs with populations of less than 50,000 at the moment.
    There has been a certain amount of vying about the amount of work some of those benches have to do. I do not propose to enter into that, because it is not necessarily a particularly good argument to show what an extraordinary number of offences there may be in Taunton or Stafford. I do say that a borough which has a population of 25,000 or over has provided up to now, and can provide, a sufficient number of competent justices of the peace. I should like to hear any arguments to the contrary. The experience now is—and figures have been produced by my hon. Friends and other hon. Members to show—that there is sufficient work for them to do.
    Therefore, why not adopt this figure, because it fulfils another recommendation, namely, that a local court should be local. The bias in favour of the bigger figure is a bias against making the court local. There is a desire to merge as many non-county boroughs as possible with the county so as to have a much bigger area. The whole basis of that trend of thought is against having local courts and the maintenance of a local basis. I hope that the Attorney-General will go a little further than the Home Secretary did. The Home Secretary has reduced the figure from 50,000 to 40,000. Perhaps the Attorney-General can reduce that figure from 40,000 to the figure recommended by the Roche Committee of 25,000.
    Brigadier Peto: The Amendment which we are discussing is concerned with rather a broad issue by comparison with the small Amendment which I put down, in page 7, line 34, at the end, to insert:
    "or that a joint Recordership existed for two boroughs which together had a population of twenty thousand or over."
    That is a very narrow issue. It was referred to in the Second Reading Debate as dealing with a unique case. The Amendment has been put down on
    1820
    account of the fact that the Government have already seen fit to make an exception in the case of boroughs which in June last had a commission of the peace and also a recordership. I cannot see why the Government should not go a little further and include in that provision two boroughs where there is a joint recordership, provided that the same two qualifications are fulfilled.
    In the Second Reading Debate, the Attorney-General mentioned the small matter I had raised in regard to Barnstaple and Bideford. He based his answer to that point first on the ground that we had to do away with the courts of small boroughs because of a lack of business. Those were not the words he used, but I think that is what he really intended to say—because there were not sufficient prisoners to justify having the courts there. Secondly, he said there was the difficulty of empanelling a sufficient number of jurors.
    I have been in consultation with the Recorder of Barnstaple and Bideford, who in a letter which he has written to me takes exception to the Attorney-General's arithmetic. The Attorney-General, in his reply to the Second Reading Debate, said that in Barnstaple and Bideford the number dealt with worked out at one-sixteenth of a prisoner for each sitting over a period of two years. To go into the exact details would be too wearisome, but the recorder for these two boroughs has given me the number of cases tried and appeals heard, which he worked out as representing in the two years 1947 and 1948, which from his point of view are the two worst years, at two-thirds of a prisoner for each sitting. But in 1949, which is a much more normal year, he has already had no fewer than six prisoners before him and one appeal. So that in the years 1948 and 1949 there have been a total of 11 cases. That may or may not be a very large number, but that is one of the things I was asked to bring out—that the point about the one-sixteenth of a prisoner was not correct.
    The reason Barnstaple and Bideford wish to continue with their recordership, their commission and their quarter sessions is, firstly, antiquity. My hon. Friend mentioned the antiquity of Banbury, but the antiquity of the recordership of Barnstaple, for example, goes back to

    1821
    1377, when the first quarter sessions was allowed to them. That of Bideford goes back to 1574. In an intervention just now, the Home Secretary said that these courts were really established for the convenience of the public and not for the convenience of those who served as justices. How can it be to the convenience of the public to send jurors, justices, prisoners and policemen in large numbers—probably two to each case—to Exeter? It is 40 miles to Exeter from Barnstaple, and getting on for 60 miles from other parts of the county. Why waste a lot of time and money going to Exeter when they could have their courts at Barnstaple and Bideford?
    It must be a good deal more expensive to the public at large, through the Exchequer, for claims to be made for travelling and other expenses by those who have to serve as witnesses or jurors than it would be to keep these little courts of quarter sessions in 'the towns we are discussing. That costs the public nothing. The expense of these courts comes entirely out of the amount paid by the borough. In the case of Barnstaple the average payment, including the salary of the recorder, and including the clerk and all expenses, is £125 a year. That cannot possibly be considered excessive.
    With regard to the point about the loss of dignity which I mentioned on Second Reading and which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) stressed in his speech, I bitterly regret the continual withdrawing of responsibility for local government from the local authorities. I think that is a point which is increasing in importance throughout the country as it becomes more generally realised.
    9.15 p.m.
    Mr. John McKay: I wish to assure the House that I speak impartially, because if I was ever informed of the population of Wallsend I must have forgotten it. In these days we hear a great deal about personalities. Personality is something we ought to preserve. Non-county boroughs have their personality and their character, and I am sure it will be agreed that that character should be preserved as far as possible. Under this Bill Wallsend may lose its characteristics in this sphere of local activity. Many hon. Members have described the characteristics of their
    1822
    boroughs, and I wish to indicate to the Committee the characteristics of the borough of Wallsend. Wallsend stands upon that great river the Tyne. It has large shipbuilding yards; it has one of the largest pits in the county of Northumberland; and it has a very intelligent population. I, therefore, say that it should continue to have its court, and the activity it has carried on in the past should be ensured to it in the future. We ought to preserve these activities for the smaller boroughs who have their varied life and personalities. Many local activities 'have been taken away from them in the past few years.
    While I appeal for a lower figure in the Bill, I shall not use the technique of describing the high character of the Home Secretary, in an attempt to induce him to share my point of view. We all know his good qualities, and there is no necessity to enlarge upon them. We know from past experience on previous Bills that when we have appealed to him, putting forward a good case, his nature is such that he has been prepared to yield to our appeals. Has sufficient evidence been adduced today, has a sufficiently strong feeling been expressed, so that we can again appeal successfully to his flexibility and good judgment? He has already conceded our point to a certain extent. Surely after the logical arguments adduced and the unanimity of opinion expressed, the Home Secretary will be able to accept our point of view today.
    Mr. Molson: I hope that the Home Secretary will listen to the appeals that have been made from all parts of the House on behalf of the boroughs which hon. Members represent. We are all grateful to him for the intervention he made in the Debate. From one point of view, however, I find myself in disagreement with the line which he took. He suggested that it was desirable and necessary that Parliament should lay down some logical and universal rule that was to apply throughout the country. I feel that what has been particularly interesting about this Debate has been the way in which hon. Members on both sides of the House have spoken on behalf of the boroughs they represent.
    I should have thought that the Home Secretary, deeply versed as he is in the history of this country, would realise to

    1823
    what an extent the local administration of justice has arisen out of the spontaneous activities of quite small localities. I believe that there is a general feeling in this country now that Parliament and Whitehall try to lay down general principles without sufficient consideration for the sentiments of the local authorities and the people who live in their areas.
    I hope that I shall not be considered an extremist when I speak in favour of the actual Amendment now before the Committee. Even the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Haire), who moved it in the absence of the hon. Members who put it on the Order Paper, was not prepared to propose that no existing benches should be abolished, but that is the position I adopt because of the size of the borough of Glossop where, I think, there is a strong feeling that the bench which has existed for 70 or 80 years and administered justice in an entirely satisfactory way should not be taken away.
    As the hon. Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) has pointed out, during the last few years—it has not been confined to this Parliament but it is true of other Parliaments also—one function after another has been taken away from the smaller boroughs, and I very much regret that it should be proposed in this Bill to take away one more of the local rights to which, I believe, the people of the borough of Glossop are deeply attached.
    Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I should like to congratulate all the hon. Members who have taken part in this Debate not merely on the force with which they have put forward their arguments but on the diversity of the arguments, which never appeared to run dry however similar was the ground which hon. Members seemed to be following—a diversity which was to be found in every quarter of the Committee. I think that we all approach this problem with a profound historical and nostalgic regret that any change is to take place. I do not think that is a bad thing when we are considering it from the point of view of the many associations which our constituents have with those olden days and old institutions.
    On the other hand, my mental process has been that I do not like to pay lip service' to the admirable reports which Lords Roche and du Parcq have
    1824
    produced and then refuse to consider the suggestions that constitute the admirability of those reports. Therefore, I will turn back for a few moments and see what these reports have stated. The argument of Lord Roche's Committee was that in the small boroughs we have a considerable danger of a shortage of magistrates, especially, as was bound to be the case, when some of the magistrates are members of the local authority. There is the further argument the right hon. Gentleman has advanced about an overdose of local knowledge. The Lord Roche Committee also commented on the lack of experience the small area is inclined to produce.
    These are the arguments we have to meet, and we have to consider whether they are of substance or not. I have listened very carefully to practically every speech, and I still hold the opinion that there is substance in them. The ingenuity of Members has not been defeated by these arguments, because they have said: "Well, after all, Lord Roche's Committee only recommended the abolition of boroughs of 25,000 and over, so where do we go from there?" We have to recognise that Lord Roche's Committee went on to say, with regard to boroughs between 25,000 and 75,000, that they would come into the grouping suggested by that report, which would make substantial alterations in the set-up as it existed.
    Let us look now at what the Lord du Parcq Committee has to say. They put it sharply, that the small commissions are detrimental both to the selection of justices and the efficient organisation of the work. I think that the great respect and affection which all of those who knew him had for Lord du Parcq deserves repeating. No one would believe for a moment that he would come to that conclusion rashly, or without due consideration of the position. That is the position in which we find ourselves when we ask, what are the tests we have to apply? They are the tests we find in these reports.
    Therefore, in considering the problem before us tonight, we have to say, whether, if we have a population of x thousand, we shall have a shortage of magistrates and difficulties in selection of justices and in regard to the organisation of the work. As everyone has agreed, there is a difficult

    1825
    problem here. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, there is no magic in the figure of 50,000 in answering that question, or in any other figure.
    I believe that when we are in that difficulty, when within a small range of figures we find there is no clear guidance given by the criteria I have mentioned, it is a healthy rule to try and get the general feeling of the Committee, especially when, on a subject like this, we can try to collect the feeling of the Committee irrespective of party or political predilections. I suggest to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that our national genius for compromise is not at all a bad characteristic; after all, it has stood us in good stead in much more difficult problems than the one we have had to face tonight. I believe that it would meet that feeling and the general sense of the Committee—although, of course, there would be some disappointments—if the right hon. and learned Gentleman were to give us another 5,000 and go to a figure of 35,000 as a reasonable way out of the difficulty.
    9.30 p.m.
    Mr. Collins: The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that there was no criteria, and implied that there was something like a Dutch auction in arriving at the figure of 35,000. One of the criteria was that 25,000 was the lowest figure mentioned by the Roche Committee and the other was that 25,000 was put forward by the Association of Municipal Corporations, which represents all the non-county boroughs which are interested in this matter.
    Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The hon. Member has put forward a point which is well worth consideration by the Committee. The Roche Committee certainly did not consider independent existence for boroughs under 75,000. The Du Parcq Committee said they thought we might have to go above the figure of 25,000, or even deal with the matter on a county borough basis, which was the original form of the Bill and which would be far more severe. The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Collins) implied that I said that we had no criteria. It may be my fault, but I did not mean to go as far as that. I indicated the criteria which I thought applied from the reports. I say that when we seek absolute guidance between the figure of 35,000 and the figure
    1826
    of 50,000, I do not think this is a criterion which gives us absolute guidance. When we are in that difficulty we ought to seek a reasonable compromise, provided it does not let us down on the important points I have mentioned.
    I do not think that 35,000 would let us down. I do not think there would be a shortage of magistrates, or any difficulty in the selection or arrangement of work. Conscious as I am that I am putting forward a compromise, of which I am not in the least ashamed—I hope I never shall be when it is a reasonable way of obtaining agreement—I ask the Attorney-General whether he could not satisfy the general view of the Committee.
    The Attorney-General: I am very much obliged to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) for the fair way in which he has put this matter, which we have at all times recognised as constituting a most difficult problem. I said on Second Reading when we were discussing this particular aspect of the Bill that it was undoubtedly the most controversial part of the Bill, and we saw then, as we are seeing today, the great force of the argument that the abolition of the small commissions of the peace will weaken—but certainly not destroy—the tradition and the esprit de corps of the boroughs to which the Commissions are attached, and that is a most important consideration, and I would concede it at once. So far from detracting from these admirable local traditions, from this corporate sense, from this esprit de corps, we ought to do all we possibly can to encourage them. That would certainly be the wish of all of us on both sides of the Committee.
    On the other hand, there is fairly general agreement, and certainly there is agreement between the right hon. and learned Gentleman and myself, that these very small commissions of the peace are inimical to justice. That matter was very fully considered by the two committees which studied the problem and during the long Debates in another place. It is right to say that all the incidents mentioned in the course of our discussions earlier this evening and during the Second Reading Debate about maladministration on the part of justices of the peace, and the criticisms of cases where something had gone wrong in the course of the

    1827
    work of the justices were cases which related to the smaller boroughs, and which arose from the evils which are inherent in the small and separate commissions of the peace.
    The problem, therefore, comes to this—at what figure is it right to draw the line? I do not depart for a moment from the position I took on Second Reading when I said that the process by which we had arrived at the figure of 50,000 was an arbitrary process. In another place, some people thought it was too large; others thought it was too small. In this Committee I believe there are still some, although we have not heard many in the course of our discussion today, who think a figure of 50,000 is too small, and that even at that figure we would not get satisfactory separate commissions of the peace.
    On the other hand, it is quite obvious from the Debate we have had here that there are a great many in the Committee who think we have fixed the figure too high. We are quite prepared to go through the same process of compromise as we went through in another place and by which we reached the figure of 50,000, and if we can find something which commends itself to the majority of the members of the Committee as an optimum figure and a proper basis of compromise, we will put down an Amendment on the Report stage embodying that figure.
    The question is—what is the figure at which there is the most general consensus of opinion? That is the figure we would seek to reach—not going too low, because clearly we cannot sacrifice the principle of this thing and we cannot go back to the very small commissions with the evils which are attached to them. For our part, we would be quite ready to accept the figure suggested by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that of 35,000. I am particularly happy about it, because, as hon. Members know, I am interested in it. I am the recorder of a borough of 40,000, and under this figure my borough is safe. I am glad to think we shall not stop at 40,000, but shall go a little further, and by going a little further we shall bring in a considerable addition to the number of boroughs.
    Captain Crookshank: How many?
    The Attorney-General: If we take the figure of 35,000 we shall save from abolition 32 boroughs, of which seven have recorderships, so that the net saving is, in fact, 25. I hope that hon. Members who have spoken about the matter and who very naturally approached it, as I confess I have, from the point of view of the town in which they have some particular interest, and who have consequently advanced a figure which would save their particular town, will agree, looking at the matter as objectively as they can, that this figure of 35,000, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has put forward—and which I confess is a little smaller than the one we had in mind—is a fair compromise figure. It is a figure which does not go as far as some of us would like to go and which will involve the abolition of the commissions of the peace for some towns and boroughs where many of us would like to see them remain.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: How many?
    The Attorney-General: That involves another feat of mental arithmetic which is really too much for me at this time of night. I will try to get instructions on it, and give the Committee the figure that will now go.
    I hope, on that view, that hon. Members will consent to withdraw the various Amendments, on our undertaking that on Report stage we will put down an Amendment saving all those commissions which have more than 35,000 population.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: May I point out to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that there is an Amendment on the Order Paper which proposes to leave out "fifty" and to insert "thirty-five," and which would appear to achieve that object?
    The Attorney-General: That is all right. I am much obliged to the hon. and learned Member. I thought that was one of the figures which were missed out in this—as one of my hon. Friends 'behind me called it—rather peculiar Dutch auction we have been conducting in this matter. I am quite prepared to accept the Amendment which is on the Order Paper. The hon. and learned Member for Chester (Mr. Nield) will have the distinction of having his Amend-

    1829
    ment on this important, difficult and controversial matter accepted. I hope on that Amendment we shall all be able to vote and that it will not be necessary to divide the House on other Amendments in which some lower figures are suggested.
    Mr. Maude: Can the Attorney-General give me one figure? What is the net figure, if we take 20,000 for the commissions without recorders, and the commissions with recorders? How many more would be saved? I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman actually gave us a figure of 25.
    The Attorney-General: Thirty-five.
    Mr. Maude: No, 25.
    The Attorney-General: The question is, what would be saved by the additional 15,000 of population? It is a very considerable number. I must say quite frankly that I do not think we could go to that figure. I quite agree with the point, and I will refer to it in a moment, that probably it is illogical to retain commissions of the peace for 20,000 when there is a recorder, and not to retain them where there is not a recorder. We have had to add weight for the fact that there is a recorder. Perhaps for this reason some better administration of justice is to be found in those small boroughs
    Mr. Mitchison: I should like to ask my right hon. and learned Friend one simple question: Am I right in assuming that, for the purpose of measuring these populations, the most recent estimated figures of the Registrar-General are taken?
    The Attorney-General: That is so. May I now pass to this question of recorders, which is the subject of a number of suggestions? I very deeply regret that some of these old recorderships are to go. As one who has been a recorder, I regard them with great favour. They are not only useful as judicial tribunals in areas where they are trying a reasonable number of cases, but even in those towns in which they are not doing much judicial work they are a link with the historic past and to some extent the centre of that local tradition and esprit de corps which I referred to in connection with commissions of
    1830
    the peace, and to which it is quite right to attach great importance.
    9.45 p.m.
    We should have liked to retain them if it had been possible. I have given the most anxious consideration to the matter in consultation with the Bar Council—I have had very close consultation with them—to see if there was any device by which we could preserve the old recorderships notwithstanding the abolition of the commissions of the peace to which and with which the recorderships have hitherto been associated. One suggestion was that it might be possible to amend the law so as to enable jurors to be selected from petty sessional divisions of the county instead of the area which had previously been the borough. That would not be possible under the Bill. It would be quite outside the scope of the Title of the Bill. So, if we abolish the small commissions—I mean now the ones under 20,000—it seems inevitable that we should be left with recorders exercising a limited jurisdiction in their own boroughs but drawing jurors from the whole of the county, with the result that all sorts of curious and impossible anomalies would arise.
    Moreover—this is the real difficulty about the matter, and one has to face it—most of these recorderships have long since ceased to exercise any significant judicial functions. Under the Criminal Justice Act. 1925, power was given to county petty sessions to commit a borough quarter sessions if so doing would save time and expense. That would have been very useful if the recorders had altered the date of their sessions so as to space them in between the holdings of the county sessions, but unfortunately they very rarely did so. One or two did, but as a general rule I am afraid that the holders of the small recorderships, who are remunerated in very small amounts, exhibited no great thirst for additional work.
    If they were now to perform any useful function in expediting trials and diverting cases from county sessions, it would be necessary to take statutory powers to fix the times of the borough quarter sessions. I think it would be very difficult for the Executive to take power to fix the times at which these recorders should hold their courts. I doubt whether the recorders would welcome powers of that kind being taken, and if one took

    1831
    them in regard to the small commissions of the peace, I think it might be very difficult to avoid taking them also for the larger recorderships. On the whole, we have come to the conclusion—I have had a lot of consultation with the Bar Council about this, and I emphasise it because I have had a special interest in the matter as an ex officio head of the Bar—
    Captain Crookshank: Might not the Bar also?
    The Attorney-General:—that it really is impossible to find any means to save these small recorderships. I regret it as one who has been a recorder for some time and who realises the useful work which some of these recorder's courts have done and the tradition which they assist to maintain, but there it is—I do not think there is any possibility of going below the figures we have fixed in the Bill.
    Now I come to the special cases which have been mentioned, first of all, the case of Devizes. We should certainly have liked to make an exception in that case. It has a very distinguished recorder and at one time by staggering the court—by spacing it in between the county sessions—he succeeded in handling a considerable number of cases. The fact that the dates had to be put back was, I think, due to circumstances over which he himself had no control. If we dealt with Devizes specially it would mean putting that town, which has a population of only 7,000 I believe, in a very special and preferential position, and I have no doubt that if we did that in the case of Devizes very strong claims would be made out by other small boroughs for similar preferential treatment. As a result of the abolition of the quarter sessions there, a certain amount of additional work will be thrown on the county sessions but not such as they will not be able to handle.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: On a point of Order, Major Milner. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has now gone on to the question of recorderships. I hope this will not prevent discussion of the Amendment standing in my name which deals with the discretionary power to retain a recordership even if the population be below 20,000.
    The Attorney-General: I was told, Major Milner, that that Amendment
    1832
    would be taken separately but that we were to discuss Devizes and Barnstaple in the course of this general Debate and, if it were desired to take those Amendments, they could be taken after the Debate.
    Mr. Hollis: Is there, in fact, any other town of the same size as Devizes which draws from as wide an area? What is pertinent is not only the size of the town but the size of the area from which it draws.
    The Chairman: The hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) is presumably referring to his Amendment to page 7, line 42? I was hoping that this Debate would cover that point and that perhaps it would only be necessary if the hon. and learned Gentleman desired it, to call it for a Division.
    Hon. Members: No.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: I raised this question at the outset of the Debate, I think with Mr. Bowles, and I distinctly said at that time that it would be inconvenient to take it in this Debate. Indeed, he did not suggest it should be taken because I stressed that it raised a quite separate point which we have not had an opportunity of discussing. In fact, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is the first person to touch on this point.
    The Chairman: No doubt we can solve the difficulty. There is no suspension of the Rule, so I assume that the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman will not come up tonight and therefore we can consider it in the meantime.
    The Attorney-General: In answer to the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis), the fact is that the Devizes quarter sessions are not now drawing prisoners from a wide area. The numbers have dropped. In practice they are only trying cases from the borough. It would have been open to any borough courts, by arrangement with the county, to draw prisoners from the county. I believe that in Berkshire some of the quarter sessions have been doing that, but the practice has not been widely developed and in the great majority of; these cases—I think we are abolishing 32 recorders' courts—the total number of cases tried in the course of last year was 174, giving an average of about five persons a court a year. That is the position

    1833
    and it is difficult to justify the retention of judicial courts on that basis.
    That is also the answer I must make to the hon. and gallant Member for Barnstaple (Brigadier Peto), who raised the question of the rather curious arrangement existing there of a joint recordership for Barnstaple and Bideford. He has suggested in his Amendment that we might save those cases where a joint recorder-ship was arranged for. That would mean that the Home Secretary, by appointing the same gentleman as recorder for a number of small boroughs, could bring those boroughs up in the aggregate to over 20,000, thus saving a separate commissioner of the peace for each one of them. That would be quite impracticable and anomalous.
    Brigadier Peto: If I may interrupt, my Amendment refers to those which already exist—not to new ones to be made.
    The Attorney-General: While the venerable and respected recorder of Barnstaple and Bideford may go down to his sessions—I suppose he has eight of them each year—what happens in the great majority of cases is that the mayor appears, the clerk of the peace appears and the police appear; the usher and the town crier are there, and then the recorder says, "Bring up the prisoner." The policeman then says, "Prisoner? We have not had a prisoner for years." That is the truth in one of those towns. They have not had a prisoner for four years. If our arithmetic went wrong earlier, it was because I was dealing with the number of cases and the hon. and gallant Member was dealing with (the number of prisoners. It really is impossible to justify the retention of that particular recordership.
    The position is very much the same in the case of Banbury, which was raised by the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker). That recorder has tried, I think, five cases in the course of the last year. When the point is made that the existence of these recorders' courts saves prisoners being taken a long way, travelling expenses and all the rest, it really is quite illusory if one looks at the number of prisoners who have been dealt with at the recorders' courts. I hope the Committee will feel that we have tried—
    Mr. Dodds-Parker: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say that this proposal will either expedite justice or save expense?
    The Attorney-General: I do not think that it will delay justice in any way or involve increased expense. The number of cases involved here is so small as to be negligible when considered against the large number of cases for trial. I feel quite confident of that.
    I now have the arithmetic worked out. If we save commissions of over 35,000. the net result is that 108 separate commissions of the peace will go. That is a large number, but the great majority of them are very small in population. I should say the majority of them are certainly below the 20,000 mark.
    I hope the Committee will feel that we have approached this matter as reasonably and as fairly as we can both in regard to the recorders and in regard to the commissions, and will let us deal with the matter upon that basis.
    Mr. C. Williams: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman be so courteous as to answer this question: may we have a list of the boroughs which are to go?
    The Attorney-General: Certainly. I will communicate it to the hon. Member.
    Mr. Williams: It is a very great pity that we did not have this list long ago. Many of these places have very little idea what is happening. I happen to represent one of them at Dartmouth; there are many others in the West Country. I have no intention of talking out this discussion, but I wish to raise the question of certain places because during the Debate many of us have been prevented from putting the cases of our constituencies by the very quick way in which the Government have replied. At a convenient time, if I possibly can, I shall put the case of many places which have had no chance whatever of being discussed tonight—places of great historic value and which undoubtedly should have had a fair chance of being discussed before these proceedings ended. I know perfectly well what is the position now: the Government get up and make their last offer; there it is, and it is just as well to accept it. But it has not been fair to many of the most ancient and

    1835
    historic boroughs in the whole of Great Britain.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Basil Nield: I beg to move, in page 7, line 31, to leave out "fifty," and to insert "thirty-five."
    The merits of this Amendment must be quite obvious to the Committee and I cannot conceive that the Government will reject them.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  IRONSTONE WORKINGS, NORTHANTS
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Snow.]
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. Mitchison: Anyone visiting the countryside round Corby and Kettering must be appalled by the devastation that is being caused there by ironstone workings past and present. Drags and shovels seem to stand on every skyline and the whole countryside is disfigured by deep cuttings and large tracts of what is known as hill and dale—impassable areas of heaped limestone, quite useless for agriculture, and only capable at the most of some sort of tree planting.
  This devastation of the countryside has been considered by Government after Government and by numerous committees, inspectors, standing conferences, public inquiries and so on. With more powerful modern machinery, both the rate of excavation and the number of excavating machines appear to be increasing and the devastation becomes continually more widespread and more obvious. Local feeling is becoming very strong indeed. I know of representations by such different bodies as the branches at Corby of the British Iron and Steel and Kindred Trades Association—the men who are actually working the iron ore into steel—the Free Churches of the district, the local branch of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the Rural Community Council, rambling clubs, an art society and so on.
  1836
  The County Council have continually protested at public inquiries and in other ways, while 10 borough and district councils recently formed a deputation to the Minister on the subject and the National Association of Parish Councils made it the first resolution—a unanimous one—that they passed at their recent meeting in London. None of these protests failed to recognise the real need for iron ore. They confined themselves to the need for full restoration after it has been excavated.
  As long ago as 1945, my right hon. Friend promised a statement at the earliest opportunity. That promise was repeated in the White Paper, Cmd. 6906, which published parts of the Waters Report in September, 1946, and on 28th January, 1947, my right hon. Friend's Parliamentary Secretary, after saying that this was a subject in which my right hon. Friend was taking a very keen interest, promised that a statement of policy would be made
  "in the very near future."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th January, 1947, Vol. 432, c. 909.]
  That was nearly three years ago. No such statement has yet been issued but in September, 1948, my right hon. Friend set up a standing conference with his Regional Controller as chairman and including representatives of the iron ore producers, other Government Departments and county councils to consider, or rather to reconsider, the technical aspects of the problem, which had already been reported on by Mr. Waters in 1946. The landowners and farmers were put on a second standing conference some months afterwards, apparently because the ironstone producers were unwilling to have them on the original standing conference. These standing conferences have recently issued interim reports, and once more my right hon. Friend has promised a statement of policy. I hope that it will be forthcoming very soon.
  Meanwhile local inquiries have been held and are still being held into particular pieces of excavation, and their results await the statement of policy. So apparently do applications to mine or excavate a very large area of land, more than 28,000 acres in my constituency and 25,000 acres in the neighbouring constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Tiffany). Meanwhile, the producers are continuing to

  1837
  excavate under informal arrangements, the terms of which are unknown.
  The problem is not only an urgent but a complex one. The first point is the restoration of ground which was worked before planning control, and which has been left as hill and dale. In 1939 the Kennet Committee suggested restoration by a special board at the expense of the mineral lessors and mining companies and local authorities In 1946, Mr. Waters commended a somewhat similar proposal from the ironstone producers and ironstone royalty owners which, however, contained the provision for the restoration of past workings, and he suggested that the restoration of past workings should be effected by Government grant. The first question I wish to ask my right hon. Friend is whether he will accept the principle that there should be restoration of these workings wherever it is physically or reasonably possible, and whoever pays for that?
  May I add that Mr. Waters made his report in May, 1945. At that time there were only about 3,600 derelict acres. As I understand the position, the combined effect of the 1932 and 1943 Acts and of some—
  Mr. Manningham-Buller: The hon. and learned Gentleman said there were only about 3,600 derelict acres. Were not those deemed to be incapable of restoration?
  Mr. Mitchison: Yes. That is why I called them derelict acres. As I understand the position at that time, the combined effect of the 1932 and 1943 Acts and Articles 4. 5, 16 and 17 of the General Interim Development Order of that year was to enable the Minister to stop this or impose conditions as from May, 1945. It is significant to note that at that time Mr. Waters estimated the total acreage involved would be 116,500 of probable and possible ironstone reserves. That was in 1945 and relates to the restoration of the past.
  I suggest that the question of the present and future workings is a much easier one. It is intimately tied up with the method of working, and with the position of the iron ore deposits which are being worked. Where they are comparatively shallow, with no limestone above them, I believe that there is no difficulty about restoration to agricultural use. and
  1838
  that it is, in fact, proceeding. It is, however, very desirable that the public should appreciate the position, and my second question to my right hon. Friend is whether in such easy cases restoration is, in fact, proceeding, and if so, over what total area.
  Perhaps the main difficulty arises where the ironstone lies at a greater depth, and with limestone above it. In such cases, excavation is now proceeding by mechanical shovels, which dig up the Whole of the soil and the limestone above the iron ore, and leave it in hill and dale, practically incapable of restoration or of use for any but limited forestry purposes. In most such places, however, there seems to be no difficulty in removing the top soil by a dragline, setting it apart and replacing it on top of the workings of the shovel. This would, of course, from the excavating point of view be an unnecessary additional cost, but it should be incurred if it is necessary for the restoration of the countryside.
  In one of his recent answers, given in July this year, my right hon. Friend said that he did not want to cripple the industry. May I remind him that Stewarts and Lloyds, the company principally concerned with these excavations in my constituency, made an additional profit of over £1 million last year, making their total capital trading profit up to £6½ million, and they have revenue reserves and capital reserves amounting to £13 million. Surely they and other companies would not be crippled if they were compelled to restore the countryside which they have devastated and are devastating. It is not only a matter concerning landowners and farmers who, as a rule, have received full compensation under their mining leases, but also the public at large, who are deprived of the beauty and amenities of the countryside.
  The third question I wish to ask my right hon. Friend is whether, where one method of excavation will ensure restoration at additional cost, he will insist on restoration as a condition of allowing the work to be done. If not, what price does he put on the amenities and beauty of the countryside? That is to say, up to what figure would he impose additional excavating costs in order to ensure restoration? Curiously enough, the very deep deposits seem to present less difficulty than the moderately deep ones.

  1839
  The shovel cannot get at them unless the dragline is put on for the top soil, and that which ought to be done on public grounds in the case of the moderately deep deposits is done as a matter of business for the very deep ones. My right hon. Friend is no doubt aware that for that reason restoration is proceeding at such a deep deposit as that on Prior's Hill Farm at Gretton, while the neighbouring deposit near Stanion is being worked by the shovel alone.
  I understand that a few very large draglines have been imported from dollar countries and that it is hoped that they can so work the moderately deep deposits, even with some limestone intervening, as to allow of full restoration. My last question to my right hon. Friend is what has been the result of trying out these very large draglines, and what hope can he hold out that, even in competition with the National Coal Board, enough of them will be available to ensure full restoration in cases where it might otherwise be difficult?
  This is a question of urgency in view of the state of public opinion. It is also a question of how far money ought to be spent in preventing the devastation of our countryside, where prevention is possible but costly. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that lost acres can never be replaced and that the responsibility of the ironstone companies in this matter is considerable. If, since the past workings were arranged for at the time and have now been worked out and abandoned, he considers it inequitable to put an additional burden on private interests in respect of them, then surely he must face up to the question of public responsibility.
  The Government of the day allowed the mess to be made and the Government of this day must make it good if they can. If we spend money on coast protection, on reclaiming marginal land for agriculture, and on other such purposes, surely these devastated acres have a similar claim. Unrestored, they will be a dreary monument to the rapacity of private enterprise and to the indecision of successive Governments. It is intolerable that Northamptonshire should stay as it is; even more intolerable that (further work should proceed without full restoration, wherever restoration is possible, not merely economically practicable.
  10.13 p.m.
  Mr. Manningham-Buller: I wish to congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) on his success on getting the Adjournment tonight to raise this most important question. I think that I have raised it on more occasions than he has, but there is no party dissension on this matter. I make one criticism of what he has said and that is his reflection on Stewarts and Lloyds who have in fact been in the forefront in attempting restoration.
  I do not propose to comment on the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I think that his descriptive powers regarding the situation in Northamptonshire as it exists today are rather lacking. He could not present a picture as bad as it really is—and it will look worse in the future if something is not done. I think that the record of the Minister of Town and Country Planning is quite deplorable. We have had all sorts of promises, we got something put into the Town and Country Planning Act and we have raised the matter here; but the Minister remains in his Ministry and the situation in Northamptonshire deteriorates. I must say that I think the only hope for Northamptonshire will be to extend the excavations to excavating the right hon. Gentleman from his Ministry, which I am sure will happen in the course of the next year.
  10.15 p.m.
  The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Silkin): I should like to congratulate my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Mitchison) on seizing this opportunity of raising this question once more. He has shown an almost insatiable thirst for information on this subject. Every Tuesday there is a batch of Questions about it, and this evening we have been treated to a good many more. I do not think it is possible for me in the short time available to make a full statement on the situation, but I think it might be useful if I brought the House back to a sense of proportion in this matter. To hear my hon. and learned Friend and the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) talk, one would imagine that the whole of Northamptonshire is derelict, covered with shovels and draglines, hills and dales, and so on. I think the House ought to know what are the true facts.

  1841
  Of 6,500 acres worked in Northamptonshire before the introduction of planning control in 1946 only 19 per cent. are left as hill and dale. There has been, as the hon. and learned Member for Daventry pointed out, a good deal of restoration even without planning control, and I think it only fair that that should be stated. Forty-five per cent. of the land that had been worked had been restored to agriculture without planning control at all. In other cases there had been afforestation; a certain amount of land had been used for industrial or other purposes; and, in fact, at the time of the introduction of planning control only one-third of 1 per cent. of the agricultural land in Northamptonshire was of the kind my hon. and learned Friend described as "derelict." Now I do not want to decry even one-third of 1 per cent. It is very unpleasant and disagreeable, and something ought to be done about it. But it is, I think, fair to point out that all this had taken place in the days when there was no planning control, and it is possible to exaggerate what happened.
  Since then more land has been worked. Still the process of after-treatment continues. It is estimated that in 1949, for instance, 33 acres will become derelict in Northamptonshire. But all the rest will have been treated in one way or another, and the 33 acres represents the really difficult land, the expensive land, which, as even my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, was difficult to deal with—the land containing large quantities of limestone.
  Mr. Manningham-Buller: The right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the total area derelict has increased by only 33 acres since 1946?
  Mr. Silkin: No. If the hon. and learned Gentleman had been listening more carefully than he appears to have been, he would have heard that I said this is the estimate for 1949 in Northamptonshire. I did say that this is the total increase in derelict land in Northamptonshire for 1949. If we take the estimated amount of dereliction over the next 10 years, it is about 500 acres. Again, I am not saying this is insignificant. I think it is something which has to be dealt with, but I think it is important to get this problem in its true proportion, and that is what I am trying to do. I have been criticised over and over again for doing
  1842
  nothing about it. The hon. and learned Gentleman even demands my dismissal on that score. I am in good company. He is demanding everybody's dismissal.
  I should like to tell the House what has in fact been done. This is not a simple problem. My hon. and learned Friend asked that we should insist on full restoration in all cases. I say, with great respect to him, that he really does not know what he is talking about. To insist on full restoration is to ask something which is quite impracticable. One has to face up to the fact that, unpleasant as the land in the area may be, what is going on in Northamptonshire and in the surrounding counties is an essential process in the economic life of our country. One cannot do without this iron ore; it has got to be worked and worked efficiently, and one cannot dictate to the producers how they are to work it; they must be left to work it in the way they consider to be most efficient. For my hon. and learned Friend to lay down methods of working is just nonsense.
  Mr. Mitchison: May I defend myself by saying that the suggestion was made by Mr. Waters himself? I claim to be no expert, but Mr. Waters is.
  Mr. Silkin: My hon. and learned Friend has adopted the suggestions and put them forward, and he ought of his own knowledge to know what he is talking about. Let us take, for instance, this question of complete restoration. There was a public inquiry some months ago in respect of an application to work a large area in Northamptonshire. Evidence was given on behalf of the producer that it would cost £2,000 per acre to restore that land after working to agricultural use. When it had been restored it would be worth from £50 to £70 per acre. It may be that the figure of £2,000 is an exaggeration, but it was given by a highly reputable and presumably well-informed and competent expert.
  Mr. Manningham-Buller: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how that estimate compares with the cost of restoring after opencast mining?
  Mr. Silkin: No, I cannot; but the fact is that to impose a condition on a producer, which is what I am being asked to do, that in all cases we should insist on restoration to agricultural use, seems to

  1843
  me to savour of a lunatic asylum. How can one run an undertaking economically by spending £2,000 per acre in order to get something worth £50 to £70? Allowing for complete pessimism on the part of this expert, and assuming that we divide the figure by two, three or four, we are still left with £500 per acre in order to get something worth £50 to £70 an acre.
  Mr. Mitchison rose —
  Mr. Silkin: I have only a limited amount of time, and I would like to state my case.
  I merely illustrate that as one of the difficulties I am faced with in trying to decide what are reasonable conditions to impose. I am being asked to impose conditions on the producers, and it is no good imposing conditions which will kill the industry or are impracticable. We want this production to go on, and we have to impose conditions which are sensible and practicable. I say that to insist upon full restoration in all cases is sheer nonsense. We have to form a judgment as to what are the right kind of conditions to impose to ensure, on the one hand, that as much land as possible is restored to agricultural use, and, on the other hand, that the industry is allowed to continue and produce. We have, of course, to have regard to amenities. I recognise that as being important, and that a price has to be paid for it. But there is another factor.
  We must accept the position that probably we shall have to spend in any case rather more in after-treatment than will be the value of the land when we have carried out the treatment. We must accept that in the interests of amenities and in the interests of growing food. What is the right figure? If we are prepared to spend £2,000 an acre, or £1,000 or £500, there are millions of acres of marginal land in the country where the same amount might be expended much more profitably. We cannot ignore that consideration, and we have to face up to it.
  There is also the question whether it is desirable, in certain cases to press for afforestation instead of complete restora-
  1844
  tion to agricultural use. At this moment we do not really know enough about hills and dales to be quite satisfied in all cases what is the right kind of treatment, and whether, if we press for afforestation in cases where, for instance, there is a great amount of limestone, we shall get successful results. It is for that reason, and for a variety of other reasons, that I decided to set up this conference. I see nothing ridiculous in having two conferences, one of producers and others, and one of land owners, because, quite understandably, the producers are not willing to disclose confidential figures of production to the people with whom they have to argue about rents and royalties. They made it quite plain that they would not disclose this information if the owners were present.
  Since I wanted the views of the owners, as well as those of the producers, I thought that the most satisfactory way of doing it was to set up two conferences. I now have an interim report from both parties. It is not complete, but it does give a good deal of useful information upon which I hope we can now base a policy. I am not going to be jockeyed or even bullied by the hon. and learned Member into settling a policy prematurely. I really do want to know what I am doing.
  Now that I have the report of these conferences, I am in a position to tell the House in substance what the proposals are, and I propose in the near future—I hope in January—to publish a White Paper setting out what the proposals are, and what I think are likely to be reasonable conditions that can be imposed. Of course, there are other difficulties. The question will still arise as to who is going to pay. One can require the producers to pay a certain amount, and it may be there will be a margin which will have to be found elsewhere.
  The Question having been proposed at Ten o'Clock, and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Half-past Ten o'Clock.