MERGER OF PALATINE COURTS WITH HIGH COURT (Hansard, 7 April 1971)

§ Miss Mary Holt (Preston, North)
I beg to move Amendment No. 32, in page 29, line 33, at end insert: 'but such directions shall be given by the Lord Chancellor under section 2 as will ensure that there shall be sittings of a court of the Chancery Division of the High Court within Lancashire presided over by the holder for the time being of the office of Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster at such places and times as the Lord Chancellor shall direct.'

Mr. Deputy-Speaker
It will be for the convenience of the House if, with this Amendment, we take also Amendments No. 41, in Schedule 2, page 43, line 18, leave out 'persons' and insert 'person'.

§ Miss Holt
I am happy to have the opportunity of moving the Amendment because there has been so much anxiety in Lancashire about the merger of the Lancashire Chancery Court with the High Court. Since the Second Reading there have been several Amendments and additions to the Bill but none of those which have been proposed in relation to the Lancashire Chancery Court has been accepted. Nevertheless, a number of 573 assurances have been given by the Lord Chancellor outside the House, and by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, Home Department, when the Bill was in Committee.
Speaking at Blackpool on 19th February, 1971, the Lord Chancellor said of the Vice-Chancellor of the Lancashire Chancery Court: I am particularly anxious to allay the fears expressed both on behalf of litigants and on behalf of the profession and indeed on their behalf in Parliament that his functions are going to be taken away or that part of his work will he transferred out of the county when the Bill becomes law. The very reverse is the case.… So far as concerns his work the intention is that he should be available to try even more cases locally than heretofore. It is possible some work will be added unto him. It is certain that none will be taken away. My hon. Friend said in Committee: On each circuit there should be available facilities for trying Chancery cases in the main centres of those circuits. Either a High Court Chancery judge would go there to try them, or, which would be more usual, a circuit judge with special experience of this kind of work would try them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 25th February, 1971; c. 406.] These assurances have to some extent lessened the worst fears of the legal profession in Lancashire, but they are not entirely satisfied. It has to be remembered that the Lancashire Chancery Court fulfilled a particularly valuable purpose in Lancashire. It served an area of about 11 million people and provided them with a court of equity offering the same quality of justice as the Chancery Division of the High Court, with its own judge exercising all the powers of a High Court judge; its own staff; its own district registries; and its own first-class local Chancery Bar.
It was in this latter respect that the court was so different from any other. Quite apart from the volume of work, its position, with its local Chancery Bar, made it far more important as a court than the only other Chancery court outside London—Durham. Under the Bill the court will be merged with the High Court. The Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster will remain, but the judge of the court will become a circuit judge. Under Clause 2 the Lord Chancellor directs where the High Court is to sit.
As the Bill stands, the people of Lan- 574 cashire will have to be satisfied with assurances given by the present Lord Chancellor outside Parliament and by my hon. Friend in Committee that such a direction will be given as will ensure that there will be supplied within Lancashire, in future, a court or courts which will dispense justice equivalent to that hitherto given by the Lancashire Chancery Court—which, within Lancashire, was the same as the Chancery Division of the High Court in London.
Assurances are never as satisfactory as statutory provisions, because they do not bind future holders of office. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) said that he had been in the House long enough not to be very optimistic. Since I came to the House I, too, have learned to be less optimistic in some respects than I was when I first arrived. If my right hon. and learned Friend is not prepared to accept these Amendments, I ask him to repeat the assurances already given, accompanied by some practical details.
It is a contradiction in terms to have a court exercising all the powers of the High Court in Chancery matters but with a judge whose position and standing is that of an ordinary circuit judge, except that for purposes of precedence he ranks above other circuit judges. It is not just a question of pay; it is a question of power.
If the future court presided over the Vice-Chancellor of the County Palatine of Lancaster is to have equivalent jurisdiction to the Lancashire Palatine Court, with only an extension of its territorial limits, it requires a High Court judge to preside over it. The Vice-Chancellor has never in the past been the equivalent of a county court judge. He has been in everything, except the terms of his employment and pay, a High Court judge. Because, under the Bill, he ceases to be employed by the Duchy of Lancaster and becomes employed by the Government his status should not be downgraded. If it is, the people of Lancashire will have to accept something less than they have had previously.
There are two practical difficulties in connection with the way in which this new court—a branch of the High Court, exercising Chancery jurisdiction in Lancashire—is to work. Is the court to continue sitting in Manchester, Liverpool 575 and Preston, as previously, or will other directions be given? Will special rules be made for this court? At the moment, the Palatine Court has its own rules which, while similar to the rules of the Supreme Court in respect of Chancery work, are not quite the same, since the Registrar, who is a member of the Bar, sits in chambers as deputy of the Vice-Chancellor in cases which, in the Chancery Division of the High Court, are normally taken by a judge in chambers. This is necessary, because all the work is not dealt with in one place, as is the case in London.
No court exercising Chancery jurisdiction in the provinces can operate without machinery for dealing with interlocutory applications and preparing the work for the judge. The district registries of the High Court of Lancashire are not equipped to do this work. The district registrars of Manchester and Liverpool lack knowledge and experience, and on the few occasions when I have had to appear in the district registry in Manchester the abysmal lack of knowledge of the district registrar of Chancery law and procedure has made him utterly dependent, for guidance, upon the advocate appearing before him.
This problem does not appear to have exercised, or, perhaps, even to have occurred to, the mind of my right hon. and learned Friend or the Lord Chancellor's Department.