COUNTY COURTS BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 18 November 1919)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BIRKENHEAD)
My Lords, in asking your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill a very few words of explanation are necessary. It is a Bill which has three distinct sources of origin. In the first place, a Bill was introduced in 1911 in this House extending the jurisdiction of the County Courts in accordance with the recommendations made by Lord Gorell's Committee. That Bill passed the Lords, but failed to pass the Commons. It was re-introduced in 1912 in the Commons, but again failed to pass. This Bill contained proposals that were of a highly controversial and far-reaching nature for the extension of the jurisdiction of County Courts as well as a number of minor technical amendments of the law. When the Bill failed to pass it was revised by the omission of what were supposed to be the controversial provisions, and the remainder —the non-controversial provisions—form the main subject-matter of the present Bill.
The second source upon which the present proposal is founded is as follows. The late Lord Chancellor, Lord Finlay, asked the Lord Chief Justice to appoint a Committee of High Court Judges. This Committee was duly appointed and made a number of recommendations for the consideration of Parliament. Those recommendations were mainly concerned with the question of remitter of actions from the High Court to the County Court. They are all highly technical. They form the second great source of origin of the Bill, and they are comprised in Clauses 1 to 4, which follow the recommendations of the Committee of High Court Judges on almost every important point. If it becomes necessary to deal with the clauses I will indicate to your Lordships the few points on which the recommendations of the High Court Judges have not been followed.
The third source from which the provisions of this Bill have been derived is as follows. When the Bill had been drawn so as to include the non-controversial parts of the Bill of 1911 and the recommendations already referred to of the High Court Judges, the question arose whether it should not be extended by including one or two other provisions of some considerable importance. The desirability of including 302 these further provisions was increased by the congestion of the business of the King's Bench and the consequent necessity for lightening the work of that Division of the High Court if some reasonable method could be discovered. The view has commended itself to those who are responsible in these matters that a large measure of further devolution of business of the County Courts may reasonably be effected.
With that object, provisions have been inserted in the Bill to the following effect. In the first place power is given to the High Court to remit actions in tort where the amount claimed does not exceed £100. In the second place a plaintiff in tort in the High Court who recovers less than £20 is at present only entitled to costs on the County Court scale. It is proposed by this Bill to raise this figure to £50. In the third place the plaintiff at present in contract in the High Court is entitled to no costs if he recovers less than £20. The Bill proposes to raise it to £40. The result of these proposals will add a powerful dissuasion to litigants from bringing actions in the High Court in which they will be hit in costs. I am happy to assure your Lordships that the standard of competence and experience in the County Courts is at present so high that no anxiety need be felt as to their complete adequacy for the discharge of these further duties.
I may add, in conclusion, that the work of revising the provisions of the Bill of 1911 and the preparation of the clauses to carry out the recommendations of the High Court Committee has been performed by a small drafting committee consisting of Sir Lucius Selfe (late Judge of the Marylebone County Court), Judge Sir Edward Bray, Master Thomas Chitty, the Parliamentary draftsman, and the Permanent Secretary to myself. All these proposals contained in the Bill have been submitted to the County Court Rule Committee, which consists of five County Court Judges, and has received their warm support.
I have thought it right to give this short explanation of the scope of these proposals because your Lordships will realise how important a part the County Courts play in the life of the people of this country, and how essential it is that their activities should be brought into line with the constant change in our social circumstances. I ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill having some reason to hope that, if it commends itself to your Lord- 303 ships, it may be happier than its predecessors in the fortunes which it may encounter in another place.

LORD BUCK MASTER
My Lords, with the general principles of this Bill I am in entire sympathy, but I have not had an opportunity of examining closely the detailed provisions of the measure, and I should be glad if the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack would satisfy my curiosity on one or two points. Up to the present it is well known that there has been no jurisdiction in the County Court either in actions of libel and slander or in actions of breach of promise. I myself have never been able to understand why their jurisdiction should be limited so as to exclude those suits. It appears to me, from a very cursory examination of this Bill, that it is not intended to preserve that limitation any further. I should be glad to know whether I am right in that, because it seems that the power to remit any actions of tort is entirely independent of the quality and character of the action in respect of which the tort is claimed.
It seems to me, again, that the same observation is applicable both to the provision with regard to costs (to which the noble and learned Lord referred) and to the section which provides that where the plaintiff is a person of no means the suit may be remitted in the same way. Speaking for myself, I raise no objection at all to such an extension of County Court jurisdiction. A very large number of libel and slander actions are trivial to the last degree —trivial to the pitch of being contemptible. They occupy the time of the Judges to the exclusion of more serious matters, and the next day fill the columns of the newspapers to the exclusion of material which it might be more profitable to read. The same, too, of breach of promise suits. There are very few actions which are more frequently associated with unfounded and worthless claims than actions for breach of promise. They involve no special matters of law; and I personally shall be glad to think that this Bill provides—if I am right in believing that it does provide—that these suits shall be tried in the County Courts. If it does not so provide, I suggest to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that it would be well to amend it so that they shall be included.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I am glad that the general provisions of this Bill, so far as my noble and learned friend has been able to study them, commend themselves to his very great experience in these matters. It is not, however, the case in my view that the provisions which bear upon the jurisdiction of the County Courts in these matters of tort alter the basis of the jurisdiction of those Courts even in the specific instances mentioned by him; and I do not think, as a matter of drafting, that actions for breach of promise, for libel, for slander, and so on, will be any more triable by the County Courts under the Bill for which I am at present asking a Second Reading than they are under the existing law. My noble and learned friend expresses the view that these matters might conveniently be tried in the County Courts. It was, indeed, upon this rock that some of the earlier proposals came to shipwreck, and I myself am disposed to think, having regard to the enormous volume of work at present thrown upon the County Courts and the certainty that this work would be increased by the present proposal, that it would not be advisable to add to their labours the tasks indicated by my noble and learned friend. However, if after studying the Bill—I will not put it down for the Committee stage for some days in order to give him the opportunity—my noble and learned friend is still of the opinion that this is a suggestion which might usefully be debated, perhaps for the purpose of eliciting particulars he will be good enough to put down Amendments.

§ LORD BUCKMASTER
I think my noble and learned friend ought to bear in mind that unless these actions are expressly excluded—I cannot find that they are excluded—they are already in the Bill.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
We will discuss that when the Bill goes into Committee.