HC Deb 12 June 1959 vol 606 cc1356-62

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 19, leave out "before any quarter sessions it is," and insert "it has been".

11.23 a.m.

Mr. Harold Gurden (Birmingham, Selly Oak)

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I should explain briefly that the object of the Bill is to provide additional courts of quarter session so that the waiting list of cases for trial should be reduced. The Lords Amendments before us seek to facilitate the powers of the recorder in order that he may apply to the borough council for permission to hold additional courts while the sessions are in progress. As it left the House the Bill was designed on the lines of previous legislation whereby the council was obliged to give permission for additional courts before the quarter sessions took place, but it has been realised that there may be considerable delay and that it would be far better if the council could give the recorder permission to open additional courts while the sessions are in progress, if it is found that that is necessary because of the long list.

Furthermore, a city council such as that of Birmingham, which is particularly concerned with the Bill, delegates its powers to committees. The committees which have to handle these matters of the quarter sessions and to give the recorder permission to have additional courts may pass a resolution to that effect, but under the Bill as it left the House the matter would have to go to a meeting of the full city council. There again, there may be considerable delays. Rather than wait for the full meeting of the city council, the Amendment provides that the committee to which the powers are delegated by the council may give the recorder permission to open additional courts.

Mr. A. J. Irvine (Liverpool, Edge Hill)

On a point of order. The hon. Member, unless I have misunderstood him, appears to be speaking to all of the Amendments. If that is so, what is his intention? Are these Amendments to be discussed together, or is it in order for the matters to which he is referring to be dealt with in the terms of the first formal Amendment?

Mr. Speaker

I took it from the hon. Member's speech that he considers that all the Amendments are connected and cover the same point. If that is so, he can make a speech on the first Amendment, which is a paving Amendment, to show its relevance in connection with the others. It has no relevance by itself. But the Question on each Amendment will have to be put separately.

Mr. Gurden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That was my intention. I thought that it would save time, since the Amendments are connected. It is fairly clear from the Amendments that it is better to insert them into the Bill, otherwise part of the object of the Bill would not be achieved.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Buckinghamshire, South)

I beg to second the Motion.

Mr. Leslie Hale (Oldham, West)

Before the Bill left the House on a Friday some months ago, there was a considerable discussion about it and the strong objection to it on the ground that it was a gross abuse of the statutory rights of public legislation. The need for the Bill arises only because the Birmingham Corporation, in presenting a Private Bill relating to its sessions, made a blunder, and when later amending legislation followed, another blunder was made. The Birmingham Corporation thought that it was empowered to hold additional quarter sessions, but then discovered that it was not.

That was a matter for Private Bill procedure. Private Bill procedure is expensive, and the Corporation tried to pass through as a Private Member's Measure a public statutory enactment which has no reference to any town in England but Birmingham. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) nods. I do not want to make the old joke, but in the circumstances it would be, appropriate.

I have been in a difficulty, Mr. Speaker, on which I seek your guidance, because it is a rule of the House that one should not quote statements made in another place in the current Session unless they are made on Government business. How there can be a statement on Government business on a Private Member's Measure I do not know. Nevertheless, I feel that I am entitled, in discussing this Lords Amendment, to quote at least from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, who moved the Second Reading in another place.

The noble Lord started his observation with a remarkable statement, because he plunged in medias res, which was not the kind of thing one would expect at all. He rose to whatever one rises in another place and said: My Lords, at the outset I want to make it clear that the Bill applies to the whole country and not only to the City of Birmingham. No one else had mentioned Birmingham or any place other than Birmingham. This was a very sudden anticipation of the possibility of criticism by someone else, because the noble Lord started by asserting "It applies to other towns".

Having said that, the noble Lord went on to make a speech which was in fact the whole of the Second Reading debate, with the exception of a short observation by the noble Lord who sits on the Woolsack. The noble Lord, Lord Meston said: Section 168 (1) of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, provided that the Recorder of Birmingham might in his discretion order a second court of Quarter Sessions to be formed. Any such order required a resolution of the council, which resolution might continue in force for twelve months. I ask your Lordships to keep in mind that the resolution of the council was originally required. Some seventy-two years later there was passed a Private Act—namely, the Birmingham Corporation Act, 1954. Section 61 of that Private Act amended Section 168 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, in its application to the city of Birmingham". He went on to say that that deprived the city by chance of a right which previously existed. The next stage in the proceedings was when Section 15 of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1956, amended Section 168 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, so as to enable local authorities to authorise the formation of further courts of quarter sessions, being the second court permitted by the Act of 1882. Unfortunately, when Section 15 of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1956, was passed, the special provisions contained in Section 61 of the Birmingham Corporation Act, 1954, were overlooked". The whole speech goes on in this way, making it clear that the whole object of the Bill is to amend the Birmingham Corporation Act. The whole object of the Bill is to deal with a matter which affects Birmingham and no other town in England. Therefore, we are being invited to pass a public Measure.

11.30 a.m.

The noble Viscount who sits on the Woolsack made the only other observation in the debate: I have a certain responsibility, in that I introduced the Act of 1956 into this House, and I must admit that I did not remember that provision in the Birmingham Corporation Private Act". Why not call it "Lord Chancellor's Mistake (Rectification) Bill"? However, if I were to remember and carry in my mind the provisions of every Private Act of every corporation, I should be even more insufferable to your Lordships than I am at present". I forbear comment on that. None the less, I am grateful to the noble Lord for promoting this Bill".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords; 12th May, 1959; Vol. 216, c. 329–31.] There it is, naked and unashamed.

When we asked in this House whether it was a Hybrid Bill, a Private Bill or a Private Member's Bill, there was a good deal of suggestion that, after all, the law relating to recorders and quarter sessions needed amendment, that the hon. Member had come forward as the champion of quarter sessions, that we should have more people tried, that accused would be more quickly tried and that at quarter sessions all over the country there would be more time to get witnesses together. In another place all that is forgotten. This is a Bill to amend the Birmingham Corporation Act. Such is not the purpose of a Public Bill.

I have always thought that it is not the right or duty of a single private Member to start shouting "Object" to other people's Measures, and I do not think that it is my duty today to try to obstruct the hon. Gentleman's Measure, which has already had the assent of the House. I have served my purpose by calling attention to a procedure which appears to me to be a very grave deviation from the normal rules relating to Statutes, which may mean that private Members' Fridays are used for the introduction of local measures. It creates a very unhappy precedent.

Mr. Ronald Bell

I rise, supporting the Motion, which I seconded, to say——

Mr. Speaker

As the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) seconded the Motion, he has no right to speak again without the leave of the House.

Mr. Ronald Bell

With the leave of the House, then, Mr. Speaker, I wish to answer very shortly some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale).

The procedure being adopted is not only permissible by the practice of the House— that has been found, otherwise the Bill could not have gone forward—but is entirely appropriate. This is not a Bill to amend the Birmingham Corporation Act, but a Bill to amend the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1956. The fact that it is a Private Member's Bill has nothing to do with it.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, Bills moved by private Members are just as much Public Bills as those introduced by a Minister of the Crown. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that, if he bears in mind that the object of the Bill and, I have no doubt, the object of the Amendments to which my hon. Friend referred——

Mr. Speaker

While the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) was speaking, I was waiting to see what his speech had to do with the Lords Amendment which we are considering. From the reply now being delivered by the hon. Member, it appears that it is really a matter which should be discussed on Second Reading rather than on Lords Amendments. On a Lords Amendment we are confined to the business of the Amendment. In this case I thought it convenient to allow the hon. Member in charge of the Bill to explain his first Amendment with reference to the others, but I do not think that would open the door to a debate on the wide issues which we are now discussing. Hon. Members should proceed with the business.

Mr. A. J. Irvine

These Amendments are welcome to the House. The view taken by some of my right hon. and hon.

Friends is that it is desirable that the powers of the Corporation, conferred by the Acts which have been referred to, relating to the institution of a second court where that is necessary should be exercisable by any committee of the council. We understand that sometimes it will be convenient to be able to pass the necessary resolution after the quarter sessions have begun because sometimes, in the nature of things, the recorder does not know until the last moment how many cases there will be in his list. In such a case, it may sometimes have been impracticable under the existing provisions to obtain the necessary resolution before the date fixed for the commencement of the sessions.

As we understand them, these Amendments cover these points and embody what may be a small point and, for the time being, a point of only local significance and application. However, as far as they go they seem to make for improvements in the law on this matter. Therefore, I am inclined to welcome them.

As has been said, this is not a Bill confined in its effect to Birmingham. It will not be the first time that a particular matter arising in a particular place has been the occasion for a change in the law of general application and possibly of general and unforeseen advantage. That is the view of the matter which I express with regard to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), whom I am bound to confess I always rely on as a guiding star in my navigations in the House and elsewhere. The Bill is of general application and these Amendments seem to us to improve it.

11.37 a.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Harry Hylton-Foster)

While appreciating the value at all times of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) as a guiding star, perhaps I might make an exception in relation to the rules of order. I do not find it possible, in conformity with the rules of order in relation to this Lords Amendment, to say more than that I very much hope that the House will think fit to agree with it.

One can say from persona] experience that the real bugbear in conducting quarter sessions efficiently are horrible bodies called late committals. That means that a number of cases are committed at a late date or hour and the quarter sessions list becomes swollen at the very last moment. The business of the quarter sessions, and the desirability of a speedy trial, is accordingly distorted. I submit that it is clearly right to agree with this motion to eliminate that evil.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 1, line 25, leave out "and those quarter sessions".

Mr. Gurden

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I thought that I had given sufficient explanation covering all three Amendments. I only want to add now that, in bringing this forward as a Public Bill, it was not my intention to do anything which was not satisfactory to the House. I was advised that it was a Public Bill. I think that what has already been said is sufficient to cover the point made by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale).

Mr. Ronald Bell

I beg to second the Motion.

In passing, I would point out to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) that the words "those quarterly sessions" do not refer exclusively to those at Birmingham.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 7, at end insert: (2) In paragraph (a) of subsection (6) of the said section one hundred and sixty-eight (which provides that a recorder shall not exercise the powers given by that section unless it has been before each quarter sessions certified to him that the council of the borough have resolved that it will be expedient that those powers be exercised), the words "before each quarter sessions" are hereby repealed; and any reference in the said section one hundred and sixty-eight or in the said section fifteen as amended by the foregoing subsection to the council of a borough shall be construed as a reference to that council or the appropriate committee thereof.

Mr. Gurden

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Mr. Ronald Bell

I beg to second the Motion, and, in doing so, to point out to the hon. Member for Oldham, West that the recorder referred to is not exclusively the recorder of Birmingham.

Question put and agreed to.