ESTABLISHMENT OF STANDING CIVILIAN COURTS (Hansard, 14 October 1976)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force (Mr. James Wellbeloved)
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Mr. Speaker
With this amendment we shall also discuss Lords Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
This group of amendments, and indeed all the other amendments that will be considered during this debate, are of a technical and drafting nature. They are designed to clarify and to make explicit the way in which the various parts of the necessary machinery will work in order to give effect to these proposals.
Hon. Members will be aware that the major innovations in the Bill are the provisions in Clauses 6 to 9 with Schedules 3. 4 and 9, whereby powers are introduced so that civilians accompanying the Services overseas may be dealt with in a way as far as possible similar to that in the United Kingdom. It has therefore been necessary to dovetail some new provisions into the existing structure of the Service Discipline Acts. Further work on this, and on the consequential subordinate legislation, has been proceeding since the Bill was read a Third time in this House.
One result has been to reveal a few areas where improvements to clarify the Bill's drafting are desirable, and the amendments moved in another place—all of a technical, and I believe, uncontentious nature—are designed to effect this. Apart from those concerned with the commencement of the various provisions and a couple of other very minor points, all relate only to those parts of the Bill affecting civilians.
742 I also appreciate that initially the number of these amendments—there are over 60—may appear daunting, but I hope that since many of them are related and may be grouped together, and since none of them effects changes of substance, not to consume too much of the House's time.
In moving Amendments Nos. 1 to 4, I should mention that all concern the jurisdiction in the standing civilian courts of assessors and lay members. They are designed to make it clear that an assessor or lay member may sit only in juvenile cases. In this way practice in these courts will be broadly in line with that of civil courts in England and Wales.
I commend the amendments to the House.

§ Mr. Ronald Bell (Beaconsfield)
I agree that Amendments Nos. 2 and 4 are fairly normal and self-explanatory. However, I should be grateful if the Minister would explain what is meant by the first amendment which inserts at the end of line 40 the words "under subsection (12) below". It appears that there are two types of person who may be assessors at a trial. The first is appointed under subsection (12) and the other under subsection (13). In the first case one has to look back to subsection (6) and in the second case back to subsection (8). The difference is not clear.
9.15 p.m.
I studied the report of the Committee stage in another place and found that Lord Winterbottom had no idea what this all meant. He said he hoped to be able to explain it on Third Reading because he had not had time to study the matter previously.
As is often the case, quite an interval elapsed between Committee and Third Reading when there was virtually no one in another place. Lord Winterbottom was able to rattle through his speech and none of the people who asked questions in Committee was there for Third Reading. I finished reading the report not much wiser than when I had started.
However, I did not worry too much because I knew that the Minister would be able to tell me tonight what it means. Will he elucidate the first amendment by telling me what sort of people the Lord Chancellor may put on a list under 743 subsection (8)? They will be the people referred to in subsection (13). Subsection (12) does not apply to those cases to which subsection (13) applies and it is almost impossible to understand the first amendment unless one understands subsections (6), (8), (12) and (13).
On the third amendment, I understand that the advantage of the standing civilian courts is automatically available in appropriate circumstances, but that if someone brought before them claims the right to court martial, he may have it. What will happen if some of the people jointly charged are juveniles and others are not? It seems a little odd to me.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
I do not have the great attribute of being a lawyer and we all suffer from time to time from the difficulty of interpreting statutes. The purpose of the amendments which the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell) has queried is to allow the magistrates in the standing civilian courts, when trying juveniles, to have the option of being assisted by an assessor, who would not have a vote, or members who would be more highly qualified and would have a vote in that court.