HC Deb 05 July 1955 vol 543 cc1063-80
Mr. E. Fletcher

I beg to move, in page 6, line 42, to leave out "two" and insert "three."

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. James H. Hoy)

I think that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if, with this Amendment, we take the two which follow and the first six on the following page, all of which relate to Clause 11.

Mr. Fletcher

I certainly think that that would be convenient, Mr. Hoy, because all the Amendments relating to Clause 11 are interconnected, and I think that it is obviously desirable, before we leave the Committee stage—and whether or not we divide—that certain things should be said, if only for consideration hereafter by the Law Officers and others concerned with this very vexed question of whether or not there should be introduced into our system of the administration of justice appeals on fact from the county court.

During the Second Reading debate it was apparent that this is not a subject on which opinion is divided on party political lines. There is, indeed, considerable division of opinion on both sides of the Committee, and having considered the matter very carefully, first as member of the Evershed Committee and then subsequently, I think that the balance of difficulties is very nicely drawn and that the arguments on both sides are very evenly balanced. I hope, however, that the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General will bear with me if I make just a few observations in the light both of what was said in the Second Reading debate and of the printed recommendations of the Evershed Committee.

This whole series of Amendments—or, at any rate, those standing in my name—has for its effect a reduction in the number of appeals on questions of fact which could go from the county court to the court of appeal. On the other hand, there is an Amendment in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) which proposes to reduce the monetary limit, and which would thereby extend the permitted number of appeals to the Court of Appeal on questions of fact.

8.45 p.m.

Might I just remind you, Mr. Hoy, of the words appearing in the Report of the Evershed Committee? That Report states: The question of appeals from County Courts has proved to be one of obstinate difficulty and has given rise to a remarkable diversity of view amongst the witnesses whose opinions we sought. The Report also states that it was this issue which provoked the most lively controversy. It goes on: We were much impressed by the evidence given by the Lord Chief Justice, who, speaking from his long experience of sitting in the Court of Appeal, informed us that there were several cases within his recollection in which the Court of Appeal felt that the County Court Judge's decision on the facts was plainly wrong —yet the Court of Appeal was powerless to interfere. That would obviously be a very cogent reason, if it stood alone, for giving litigants a right of appeal on questions of fact from the county court to the Court of Appeal in all cases, but this Bill does not do that. The Bill proposes that in future, and indeed for the first time, there should be appeals on questions of fact in the normal case—and I am leaving out Admiralty, Probate and exceptional cases—where the amount involved is over £200.

The precise recommendation of the Evershed Committee was that there should be a right of appeal if the amount involved was over £100, but what worries me now, on further reflection, and I am sure it will also worry the Solicitor-General, is this. If it is correct, as it appeared to the Lord Chief Justice, that there were cases within his experience, in sitting in the Court of Appeal, in which the county court judge had from time to time gone wrong and in which injustice had been done, it is just as likely to occur if the amount involved is under £200 as it is if it were under £100.

Indeed, it may be more likely to occur; I do not know. It may be that county court judges exercise less care when the amount involved is less than £100. I should not like to say whether it is or not, but I think we can assert that, in the case of a litigant who is claiming under £100, his claim is just as important to him as that of any litigant in the county court who is claiming £300 or £400, or indeed of any litigant in the High Court who is claiming £4,000 or £5,000.

If there is a possibility of injustice in the one case, there is also that possibility of injustice in the other. Therefore, I ask myself why, in common sense, there should be an appeal on the facts from the county court in a claim for just over £200 but not in a claim for just under £200. Let us suppose that the litigant cannot be sure what the amount of the claim is. Let us look at it from the position of the county court judge, who, hearing an action for damages for personal injury, knows that there is a disputed question of liability and that the amount involved is arguable and may be either a little more or less than £200. He knows that if he decides on the one side or the other on questions of fact and awards under £200, there will be no appeal.

Sir E. Errington

As I understand the Clause, as drafted, a right of appeal arises when there is a claim for £200 or over, so that the position would be that the litigants themselves would be able to decide, by the very nature of their claim, whether or not they should have a right of appeal.

Mr. Fletcher

It may well be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) pointed out in the debate on an earlier Amendment, that in the county court, as in the High Court, one can ask for damages at large in an action for personal injury, but one cannot say that one limits one's claim to £400. If it means that in all cases in the county court except those in which the plaintiff deliberately limits his claim to below £200 there is an appeal on question of fact it would meet the point raised by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington), but I do not so read it. Perhaps the Solicitor-General will tells us whether that is the meaning, because it makes a very great difference. The words of the Clause are that there shall be an appeal in any action founded on contract or tort, or for money recoverable by statute, where either— (i) the debt, demand or damage claimed exceeds two hundred pounds; Take the case of an action for personal injuries where the amount is large. Is one to assume that in all such cases there has to be an appeal on question of fact? That is something which must be cleared up before we proceed with this Clause. If that is the case, it is something far more than the Evershed Committee recommended. That Commit- tee recommended that there should be a definite monetary limit to the occasions on which an appeal on questions of fact would be permitted. Be that as it may, and suppose the right of appeal or not is to be determined, not by the amount for which judgment is given, but by the amount which the plaintiff feels he can claim, that only throws the onus of responsibility further back.

Sir E. Errington

I think that would result in almost everybody claiming £201 in order to have right of appeal.

Mr. Fletcher

Not necessarily. I do not agree, and that gives point to what I am trying to say.

The hon. Member is now assuming that there is some virtue in right of appeal, but is forgetting that there is a corresponding virtue in finality and no right of appeal. One of the virtues of county court jurisdiction as we have had it through the centuries has been that it gives the plaintiff certainty and finality, and does not expose him to the risk of appeal.

It is not correct for the hon. Member to assume that all the virtue is on the side of having the right of appeal. It may be so in the High Court. That may be why it has always been the case that one may appeal on fact from a High Court judge to the Court of Appeal, but social considerations, personal considerations, considerations of equity and justice, which affect the poor litigant in the county courts, are quite different. What more often than not he desires is finality.

It is no advantage to him to be told that he has a right of appeal. In fact it may be a positive disadvantage. He may prefer to know that if he has a claim he wants to ventilate he can take it to the county court and get a decision and, although there is the possibility of error, that decision is final. If he wins he cannot be taken to the Court of Appeal and involved in further expenditure.

Sir E. Errington

The hon. Member will realise that this Bill is to come into force when legal aid becomes effective both in the county court and, presumably, for appeals from the county court.

Mr. Fletcher

I am very much obliged to the hon. Member. In fact every intervention which he is good enough to make assists me more. I am very grateful, and should like to adopt that view.

If the hon. Member is now claiming that the introduction of legal aid into the county court will in future make it completely unnecessary for any litigant in the county court to be bothered about any financial burden that may fall on him by reason of litigating in the county court or by any fear of being taken to the Court of Appeal, I welcome it. I hope that in 'view of the interventions of the hon. Member the Solicitor-General will take note of this question. If that be the ideal, and legal aid is introduced on such a favourable, sympathetic and beneficial basis, having regard to the means of litigants, that in future no litigant need bother whether his case goes to the Court of Appeal or not, that would be something that I should welcome.

However, as legal aid is administered at present in the High Court, and as it will be administered in the county courts unless we are very careful, there is already very considerable financial hardship on litigants receiving legal aid because of the exorbitant contributions which they are called upon to pay. I have for a long time been urging the Attorney-General and the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to revise the scale of contributions which are at present exacted from those who obtain legal aid because I think it bears harshly on a great many of them.

It will bear even more harshly on litigants in the county courts because a priori those who want to sue in the county courts are people of limited means whose claims are limited in amount. They will want assistance, but they will not want their certificates of legal aid encumbered with financial contributions which they cannot afford. Unless the regulations are changed, those people will, even with legal aid, be handicapped by the possibilities of appeals to the Court of Appeal. Therefore, I do not think that the debate on the Clause should proceed on the basis that in future, because of legal aid, nobody need worry about an appeal to the Court of Appeal. I hope it will be so, and I shall press for it to be so, but even were it so there would still be other litigants who would not be entitled to legal aid certificates. Perhaps they would be people on the borderline, and so would be more harshly affected than some of those within the scheme. What about them?

The more I think about it the more am I conscious that, although there is some apparent anomaly in the fact that hitherto one has been able to appeal from a High Court judge to the Court of Appeal and has not been able to appeal from a county court to the Court of Appeal, nevertheless that distinction has been of benefit to county court litigants, because it has given them the advantage of knowing that the county court judgment is a final and conclusive one and that they cannot be burdened with an appeal. Moreover, that has presumably made county court judges more careful, in trying disputes, to arrive at just conclusions, even though their assessments of the law may not be so refined and up to date as those of a High Court judge, and because of the circumstance that on law the county court judge could, if necessary, be set right in the Court of Appeal.

There is a further consideration, that if we are to preserve for the county court litigants this element of finality and certainty in the county court systems, we can do it only if the county court judge is able to watch the demeanour of witnesses carefully, is able to spend the whole of his time sifting the evidence, listening to what the witnesses say, and is not burdened with the responsibility of having to take a note, of having to write down what the witnesses are saying, in case there is an appeal to the Court of Appeal at which his note will be regarded for reference.

Having given a lot of thought to this matter, I admit that it is very debatable. I know that many of my hon. Friends do not agree with the doubts which I am now expressing. Diverse views have been expressed on both sides of the House. I would at any rate hope that if, after the Bill have been passed through Parliament, it is decided to make this quite considerable innovation in our system of jurisprudence, it will be looked upon as an experiment, and carefully watched, and not regarded as something beyond recall.

9.0 p.m.

For these reasons, while I suppose that the appropriate technical course would be for me to formally move the Amendments which stand in my name, I think. that I have already indicated that my own preference, if it remained with me, would be to move the Amendment, which I gather is not being called, to leave out Clause 11.

Mr. Graeme Finlay (Epping)

While one must pay respect to the long experience of the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) particularly in relation to the Evershed Committee, I must say that I disagree with the points which he takes up. No doubt there is a great deal of room for different points of view in this matter, but the hon. Member has said that the primary criterion for litigants in the county court, the poor man's forum, is finality, and that that is the most important element of all. I am bound to say that that is only half accurate, because I think that what the litigant wants is victorious finality. He wants to win.

No one who has appeared in the county court and seen and heard the defeated party, with his look of disappointment, his criticism of the judge and his supporting witnesses and probably his advocates as well, can be left in any doubt about that. He wants to win, and if he feels that he has not had justice in the county court he wants to appeal. That is the important fact to him. It may be that in the kind of life which the county court judge has to live and the way he has to conduct his duties, he has perhaps restless, informal and difficult surroundings for taking that full detached note upon which it is necessary to formulate an appeal. But are they more difficult than the kind of surroundings experienced by the High Court judge or the judge of assize when he conducts proceedings, and has to take a careful note to enable an appeal to be framed?

I really think that that should not be the case and that steps must be taken to put the matter in order if it is so. I understand that there is a great shortage of shorthand writers and that, for some reason or other, the authorities are not able to attract the requisite number, but surely justice is a very valuable commodity and something should be done to provide such a corps if they are not available. In any event, in the case of a reserved judgment, where an appeal appears likely, somebody from a pool of shorthand writers should be provided. At present, it seems to be necessary for the litigants to lay on a skilled shorthand writer.

While realising that there is no doubt room for more than one point of view, I cannot help feeling that this is an important provision in the interests of accuracy. I notice that it is frequently argued that poor men's courts are places where one has untutored or relatively unlettered people going to litigate and that they are places where formality is a valuable element. I would say as well that accuracy was a highly essential part of the proceedings and that that applies particularly to the way in which the evidence is reported. I think that the Amendment is an undesirable one and that if the hon. Member presses it to its final conclusion I shall vote against it.

Mr. Weitzman

The Amendments which stand in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), are, of course, the direct opposite of the Amendments moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher). Subsection (2, a, i) of the Clause provides a right of appeal, where the debt, demand or damage claimed exceeds two hundred pounds. There seems to be no doubt what that means. My Amendment would make the figure £100. I believe that the right of appeal ought to be given to a dissatisfied litigant in every case. If it were possible from the practical point of view, I should like it to be given in the county courts in every case, but from the practical point of view and from the way in which our courts have been administered that right has not been given for many years and should not be accepted now.

But I would remind the Committee of the declared intention of the Government about the conferment of the right of appeal. It is that the right of appeal which is in operation now in connection with any action brought in the High Court should be preserved, and it is because of that declared intention that I have put the Amendments in my name on the Order Paper.

I will tell the Committee why I did this. As matters are now, if a person brings an action in the High Court for, say, £100 or less, he will get costs on the High Court scale if, in contract, he gets £100 or, in tort, £50. Having brought it in the High Court he has the right of appeal on fact. The Government say that they intend to see that the litigant's rights are preserved on the question of appeal on fact, but they are not doing it in the provision that they have inserted now in limiting that right of appeal to where a man is claiming £200 or more. If they really mean to allow a litigant to enjoy the rights as they exist today, then they must accept the Amendments which I have put down, because that will have the result of carrying out their declared intention.

I would ask the Solicitor-General to look into this matter to see whether something can be done to carry out the Government's declared purpose as would be the case if my Amendments were accepted.

Sir E. Errington

I should like to say a word or two on this matter. I do not think there is very much difference between myself and the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher). Obviously, the whole question of appeal is one of difficulty and of a nice and careful balance. While legal aid in the county court will not solve the question of the difficulty that a poor litigant may have about appealing, it will help otherwise very much indeed.

The figure of £200 is the dividing line between an appeal on fact and the absence of an appeal on fact, and it will be quite inexplicable to the average litigant who goes to the county court and is dissatisfied with the judge's decision. The situation at present is that a litigant can even go to the Court of Appeal, with the leave of the judge, on a matter where the amount involved is under £20. I submit that £20 is about the mark where the question of finality is really desirable and I do not hold, as does the hon. Member for Islington, East, that finality is in any sense a virtue by itself. Finality can be a most distressing thing if injustice is done to the person to whom finality is given.

In those circumstances, I submit that there is no reason why the whole of the amount between the £20, where leave may be given by the judge, up to the £400, which is the limit of jurisdiction, should not be subject to appeal on fact. My own view, which may be entirely wrong, of subsection (2, a, i) of the Clause is that it is entirely in the hands of the litigant, who can claim what figure he likes. If he has a claim for £50 or £60 there appears to be no reason why he should not make that claim £201 in order to get the benefit of the appeal.

Mr. Weitzman

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the litigant has to pay a considerably higher fee if he does that?

Sir E. Errington

It would be for the litigant to decide whether it would be worth paying the extra fee for having an appeal. I submit that we have a position where, in effect, it is possible, at any rate for the plaintiff, to have an appeal right up from the £20 to the £400 so that there is a considerable danger of a great number of appeals.

Frankly, as the situation stands, it does not seem that the courts could deal with those appeals because of the remarkable, but none the less true, shortage of shorthand writers. It was for this reason that I took the opportunity on Second Reading of suggesting that what should happen for economy and good sense was that mechanical aids should be made available in the county courts. There is a criticism in the Evershed Report of the efficacy of those aids, but, electronics having developed as they have, so much and so quickly, I doubt whether those objections would be valid at this time.

If I am right, the expense of installing those aids would be small, the expense of upkeep would be negligible, and the result would be that there would be a record of every case heard in the county courts. Of course, the real expense in an appeal would be the transcript of the recording of the automatic machine. However, that would be an expense which would only be incurred, presumably, by a litigant who had decided that injustice had been done and that he was prepared to face the expenditure of doing so, or had the leave of the legal aid committee to do so.

9.15 p.m.

That seems to me to be the only way out of the impasse which now arises. I do not think that a person who has heard of somebody who has been awarded, or who has failed to be awarded, damages of £50 or £60, knowing that there is no appeal on fact, would be satisfied to hear that somebody who had claimed more than £200 would have a right of appeal which was not available to him. There is no logical distinction between the over-£200 and the under-£200, and it is a convenient step to be taken.

I believe that the effect of it will be to increase the number of appeals, and that will mean a considerable expense, and unless the mechanical method, which I very strongly submit is the real method of dealing with the situation, is used, I am afraid that the only result will be increased expense to litigants, and, what is much more important, a lack of justice being done to their cases.

The Solicitor-General

It is very unwise to venture upon prophecy, but on Second Reading I said that we should never get agreement on this topic, and I believe that to be true. The Order Paper and the things that have been said reveal it to be true.

There are lots of arguments against conferring any right of appeal on fact. One of them is that, by doing it, we may be dislocating the business of the Court of Appeal by putting upon it a burden which it cannot reasonably sustain.

Another is the practical, physical difficulty of securing an adequate record for the Court of Appeal of what happens in the county court. I have been listening to what my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) has been saying about electronic recording devices. I hope that one day we shall put the Official Reporter out of business by something of that kind, but we have not thought about it yet; subject to our personal inaudibility at the Dispatch Box, I do not suppose that we shall be slow about it when the time comes. I beg to assure my hon. Friend that we shall be watchful of the progress of that science, and as soon as it looks to be a useful and effective answer to this part of the problem, we will consider its adoption. That is sure.

In urging just those few arguments against a right of appeal, I hope I have brought the Committee to consider why there is a need to put a limit on the right of appeal on questions of fact if it is proposed to introduce one. If it were left without some money limit, one would, in our view, be in danger—the Evershed Committee indicated the possibility of the danger—of giving the Court of Appeal more than it could properly do.

As against the arguments adduced by the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), one would go further to destroy the obvious merit in the proposition that the county court is in many instances something which is quick and cheap and final by way of decision. On the other hand, there are a large number of good arguments—they are all set out in the Evershed Committee Report—for introducing a right of appeal on fact. It does not seem to be very sensible that, whereas, whatever the amount of the claim may be, the High Court judge's finding on fact is not sacrosanct, the county court judge's finding on fact should be sacrosanct, more particularly when there is an overlap in jurisdiction.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Finlay) pointed out, it is very important that a litigant should not be left with a sense of fulminating grievance. That does not help anyone or serve any good purpose, and it certainly will not be true, if the House of Commons approves this Bill, that the amount concerned will be so trivial as not to justify the expense of the appeal. What we have set about is, frankly, a compromise. Subject to this consideration, which was emphasised by the Evershed Report, I believe it to he true if we put the alternative figure too low, it will be difficult hereafter to raise it, but the other way, not so. It seems right, therefore, on that consideration, to adopt as a matter of decision, the "Iron Curtain" as it were of a certain amount.

I confess that I do not understand the indignation which is expressed when the amount adopted is the amount claimed. That was the recommendation of the Evershed Committee and is a method which we have always adopted in the question of determining county court jurisdiction. It is difficult to see what other gauge or yardstick could be adopted if we are to consider a money limit over and above which we are to confer a right of appeal.

I am not depressed by the fact that the litigant may himself determine whether he has a right of appeal or not. As has been pointed out, he may have to pay more for it, and if he inflated his claim on paper he would have to do so. But if he is the kind of litigant who desires finality he may not claim a right of appeal and if he is the other kind of litigant he may.

Sir E. Errington

Only if he happens to be a plaintiff.

Mr. R. Bell

If he does so, he automatically gives the defendant a right of appeal as well.

The Solicitor-General

Yes, of course, he gives the defendant the right of appeal. That, presumably, is a risk which he calculates at the moment of decision.

I do not wish to detain the Committee long in emphasising that, frankly, this is a compromise. We have to proceed on a course which corresponds substantially with the Evershed Committee recommendation in the sense that it was recommending a distinction based on a money figure being the amount claimed by the defendant in the claim. I believe that we have been supported in our choice of the position taken up in this Bill by the obvious argument that it would be unfair, where we are depriving the defendant of a right to transfer from the county court to the High Court, to deprive him of the right of appeal which he had before.

In answer to the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman), may I point out that the Evershed Committee was recommending that for this purpose we should take £100 to be the effective figure because it was the effective limit of county court jurisdiction having regard to the defendant's right of transfer. In choosing £200, we have taken that figure as being the effective limit of county court jurisdiction because that is the present limit of jurisdiction subject to the defendant's right of transfer.

In indicating that line of thought I hope I have indicated the logic underlying the choice of that figure. In effecting this compromise figure we have chosen to draw the line at that point.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Hale

I beg to move, in page 7, line 8, to leave out from "land" to the end of line 9.

The Temporary Chairman

I think it would be convenient if this Amendment was discussed with the proposed Amendment in the name of the hon. Member in line 36, to leave out subsection (4).

Mr. Hale

I am obliged, Mr. Hoy. They deal, in fact, with separate points, but I see no difficulty in arguing them together as they come within the purview of the same type of consideration. The proposed Amendment in line 36 will omit the subsection which excludes the right of appeal in cases under the Rent Restrictions Acts.

I think it has been made clear in a previous discussion that we all have a certain mental dichotomy in this matter. I want to be quite frank with the Committee. I start upon the basis that I am not in favour of appeals, and I am not in favour of the Clause. I am not in favour of appeals of any kind in any sort of action. As to the question of costs, I start upon the basis that I am not in favour of awarding costs as a normal consequence of litigation. People should go into court and pay their own costs. If, however, we accept it as the will of the people, that costs should be awarded and that appeals should be made, we must consider the matter from that standpoint. Therefore, my main point of dissent has gone.

Upon that basis, I want to make a quite simple point in regard to land. The Clause provides that an appeal can be made upon a question of fact in relation to the trial of an issue about the ownership or possession of land or a home only if the rateable value is more than £60. This seems to me to be the most fantastic of all the fantastic provisions in this somewhat unusual Bill. A man's home is his home; it does not matter whether it is great or small, to him it is the most important thing he has—and if we are to confer a right of appeal in the case of castles or villas I see no reason why we should not do so in the case of cottages, which are just as important to their owners.

The theory is often quoted in the House that an Englishman's home is his castle, but apparently it will be a castle only if it has a rateable value of over £60. The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, God made them high or lowly And ordered their estate. And now the right of appeal is conferred if the rateable value is more than £60, but not otherwise. [Laughter.] I am glad that this matter is beginning to appear as fantastic to the Committee as it appears to me.

Then we get this extraordinary omission of appeals in Rent Act cases. Here we come to a different and important point. There is a right of appeal on law, which has frequently been exercised, but it requires a very able man to say, in connection with the determination of greater hardship, where law ends and fact begins. There is a whole series of decisions in connection with the law relating to this matter, which has laid down the considerations which should enter the mind of a county court judge in deciding this vexed and difficult point. No one knows what is a matter of fact or what is a matter of law.

There is a reported decision by a court of appeal upon an appeal from a county court—I do not know whether this is a real case—in which, having observed that the learned county court judge had made nine separate findings of fact without a single fact having been proved before him, the appeal court went on to say, "There has been some argument in this matter as to whether this is an appeal on fact or an appeal on law, or an appeal on mixed fact and law." We must consider ourselves in some difficulty, therefore, because when we endeavour to adapt law which has never existed to facts which cannot be proved some confusion of mind becomes inevitable. That is certainly the difficulty about this matter.

I do not suppose there are any cases in the county court which involve more heartburning and sorrow than Rent Act cases. All these are cases where an owner of property has to prove substantial hardship. Today, there is no question of an owner saying, "I am the owner, and I want possession," as was the case in my early days, with proceedings under the Small Tenements Recovery Act, 1838. I am not suggesting that I was alive then, but that Act continued until I arrived on the scene.

It is not so now. There is the landlord who is having to prove hardship, or the son or daughter who wants to get married and who cannot get a home, and people who have lived, often for twenty or twenty-five years, in a particular house. These are matters of great importance. As I have said before, and one has to face up to it, there is the landlord's judge and the tenant's judge; the plaintiff's judge and the defendant's judge.

9.30 p.m.

On the whole, I think that the great advantage of the right of appeal, and the argument strongly in favour of it, is that the existence of the right of appeal makes the inferior court more careful. Judges do not like appeals. A judge is almost as upset by the critical observations of an appellate court as is a sergeant major by the observations of his colonel, and a colonel by the observations of his brigadier, and so on. Therefore, I think that the strongest case that can be put for the right of appeal is that it imposes the duty of greater care. It is, therefore, possible that the existence of the right without its exercise may be the value of this Clause.

I do not think that this right of appeal will be much exercised. I do not think that there are many litigants who, when their issues have been tried in the county court, will want to appeal. Except on questions of law, where we may have insurance companies asking for a statement on law which will be followed in other cases, what argument can there be for saying that we will give the right of appeal to someone who has claimed a liquidated sum of damages or the right of appeal about land of over £60 rateable value, if we are to exclude the right of appeal concerning the home of a person who has lived in it for twenty-five or thirty years? I can see no defence for that at all.

The defence which was put up in the course of the Second Reading debate appeared to me to be the least convincing of all. It was said that this was a very difficult matter upon which a county court judge had great difficulty in coming to a decision. I hope that I am paraphrasing the argument fairly; I have not checked my references. If a county court has difficulty in coming to a decision then let us have some finality.

Finality is a relative thing, however. One can have finality at any stage of the proceedings. I know of no solitary ground for thinking that finality in a court of appeal is likely to produce more justice than in the court of first instance. I should have thought that there was more possibility of error before the appellate court than in the court of first instance, where the judge sees the witnesses and hears the evidence.

If we are to allow an appeal on law in all Rent Act cases, as we do now, and an appeal on fact in nearly every other substantial county court case, I suggest that there are two classes of cases of equal importance to anything that the county court is likely to be called upon to hear. If we put, in terms of value, the value of being allowed to remain in one's rent-controlled house for another ten years, we should find it being expressed in terms much more emphatically than some of the other appellant rights with which we have to deal. If we put it in terms of damage and loss because of eviction, storage of furniture and being forced out, we are dealing with a more substantial issue than that in some of the matters to which we have referred. Although I have not much hope of persuading the right hon. and learned Gentleman to accept the Amendment, I suggest that there are many substantial reasons for accepting it.

The Solicitor-General

Two points arise on this Amendment. My answer to the hon. Gentleman and to the Committee is that we still have to observe the need to draw the line at some point. All we have done is to take £60 net annual value for rating as being the rough equivalent, as indeed it is, of the £100 yearly value which previously existed under Section 51, to which this provision relates. The other point is that it was urged before the Ever-shed Committee—I am looking at page 181 of the final Report, that To introduce a right of appeal on fact would be to substitute for the decision of the Judge with local knowledge that of a remote tribunal quite out of touch with local conditions and ways of life. It is thought that this objection is of particular force in relation to proceedings under the Rent Restrictions Acts, which by Statute are assigned to the County Court and in which a knowledge of local conditions on the part of the County Court Judge is of importance. That was the argument before the Committee, which it accepted. The recommendation is to be found in paragraph 559 (c), on page 183, that there should not be a right of appeal on fact in cases under the Rent Restrictions Acts, just on that ground.

We have adopted that recommendation in subsection (4), together with the equivalent statutory jurisdiction. I hope that the hon. Member and the Committee will understand the principles which we have accepted and which I believe to be sound.

Mr. Hale

I should not like to say that I am satisfied with the answer or that I am impressed with it, but at this late hour I shall not ask my colleagues to take this issue to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.