HL Deb 23 July 1928 vol 71 cc1227-32

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Duke of Sutherland.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly:

[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]

Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.

Clause 4:

Office of Deputy Clerk Register to cease.

4. The present vacancy in the office of Deputy Clerk Register shall not be supplied, and that office shall cease to exist.

VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE moved to leave out Clause 4. The noble Viscount said: My intention in moving this Amendment is to ascertain what real principles are involved in the determination not any longer to appoint a Deputy Clerk Register. The information I have is of a character which leads me to ask the question. It comes from the Faculty in Glasgow who seem to regard this as a very serious step in connection with the registration of property in Scotland. The system there is supposed to be extremely good and they seem to think a great alteration is proposed in the dropping of the Deputy Clerk Register, who is the head of the whole thing, as I understand it, and who was the custodian of the Registers and not the person responsible for the formation of those Registers. They seem to think it a very important thing that the man who forms the Registers should be a different person altogether from the person who controls them. I do not doubt at all that the noble Duke will be able to give me an answer.

Amendment moved— Leave out Clause 4.—(Viscount Younger of Leckie.)

VISCOUNT NOVAR

I should like to support what my noble friend has said. This Bill in many ways is a most admirable Bill. It disposes of a number of paid boards in Scotland which have been the bane of local administration there, but this particular matter, of which I have had some experience, is, I know, a very delicate one. I think we should have a full explanation of what this clause really means.

THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND

The fact that the position of the Deputy Clerk Register will disappear does not mean that his work will not be most carefully carried out under a new head. There will be a Chairman of this Department, who will do exactly the same work as the Deputy Clerk Register did before. There will be very close touch with the Secretary of State for Scotland, who will see that this work is carried out in exactly the same way as it has been before.

VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE

Is there not a great deal of difference between one person having a combination of offices to administer, and two persons discharging its responsibilities?

VISCOUNT NOVAR

Is there any qualification attaching to an appointment to this post? After all, to be in constant touch with the Secretary of State for Scotland means little or nothing in respect to this business. It is not the kind of matter in regard to which the Secretary of State would have much to do but a great deal depends upon the man put in charge of it.

VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE

I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Clause 5:

Keeper of the Registers and Records of Scotland.

5.—(1) It shall be lawful for the Secretary of State after consultation with the Lord President of the Court of Session to appoint a Keeper of the Registers and Records of Scotland, who shall receive out of moneys to be provided by Parliament such salary as the Treasury may fix, and on such appointment being made there shall be transferred to and vested in such Keeper the whole powers and duties of the Deputy Clerk Register, and the whole powers and duties of the Keeper of the General Register of Sasines, the Register of Hornings, the Register of Inhibitions and Adjudications and the Register of Entails (hereinafter referred to as the Keeper of the General Register of Sasines), and of the Keeper of the Register of Deeds.

VISCOUNT DUNEDIN moved, in subsection (1), to omit "after consultation with," and to insert "with the consent of." The noble and learned Viscount said: It is not possible to explain this Amendment without some preliminary remarks. If in those preliminary remarks I use language which is little likely to be understood by most of your Lordships I can only beg pardon. The truth is that this part of the Bill, dealing with the Register House, is not absolutely popular in Scotland. There is a great feeling against it, especially in the West of Scotland, and I have no doubt that the two noble Lords who spoke on the last clause are really reflecting that feeling.

The history of the matter is this. The Lord Clerk Register in old days was a very great person. He was a great officer of State and he was a working officer of State. In 1819 they turned the Lord Clerk Register into a decorative nobleman but he remained, of course, if not actually a great officer of State, one of those who had been a great officer of State. The only reminiscence of the great officers of State that still lasts until the present day is that, although they do not exist any more as great officers of State, yet those persons who were great officers of State have a position in the table of social precedence in Scotland so that those who occupy those positions and go out to dinner in Scotland can trip out in front of that moderate degree in your Lordships' hierarchy known as the Viscount. As a matter of fact, not only were they working people in the old days but the work was so great that it was found that they could not altogether do it. There was a celebrated Lord Frederick Campbell who did a great deal of the work; but it was found necessary to appoint a Deputy Keeper, and that is the office to which my noble friend who has just spoken referred. A great Deputy Keeper was Thomas Thomson. I have no doubt that it would make Thomas Thomson turn in his grave if he saw the present Bill, because he would find that his office had been destroyed and that his great canon was infringed—namely, that those who made the Records should have the custody of the Records. That canon is, no doubt, infringed by the Bill. The work of Thomas Thomson is known to everyone. I had the pleasure of presenting to your Lordships' Library Thomas Thomson's monumental work of seven folio volumes on the old Acts of Scotland. The present Bill abolishes the office of Deputy Keeper and makes a new office and this new man is to be really head of the whole office.

Before I deal with my own Amendment which has to do with him, I might say that there is a certain amount of disappointment that this Bill does not deal with the Search Sheet. I am sure the noble Duke in charge of the Bill is fully alive to the Search Sheet. He will know that having been originally begun by a mere suggestion of somebody, it was then reported on by a Commission of two Judges of the Court of Session who said that it could not be done without legislation and that in spite of that it then sprung like Venus from the sea, engendered by a Treasury Minute. It is, I think, a pity that something should not have been said about it. I should like here and now to express my opinion that it is absolutely within the competency of the Court of Session, under the Act of Sederunt, to deal with the Search Sheet. I am very glad that at the end of the Schedule there is a clause saving the power of the Court of Session to deal with such matters. I say that because I think that some of the parties who inspired the noble Lord who spoke have rather an exaggerated fear of the Search Sheet. They think that the Search Sheet is an evil device by which, in an underhand way, registration of titles against registration of deeds is to be carried out.

There was a Commission some years ago, of which I had the honour to be President, which reported on registration of title and I have no doubt that the reason of these fears was that one member of that Commission, who at the time was Keeper of the Sasines and who, if I may say so without offence, was rather inclined to magnify his office, suggested that the Search Sheet might be utilised as the means to a system of registration of title. With very great deference to him—I am sorry that he is dead, because I would sooner have said it while he was alive—he never understood what the system of registration of title was. It is perfectly impossible to make the Search Sheet into a system of registration of title and, there fore, these fears at the worst are ill-founded. I have said enough to show that, after all, if you are not going to have the old Deputy Clerk Register it is absolutely necessary that the man you are going to have, this new officer, should be a person who is up to his work. The one Department which above all others is that in which it is necessary to have a trained man is the Sasines.

I will explain the Amendment I have to propose. Clause 5 (1) as it stands says— It shall be lawful for the Secretary of State after consultation with the Lord President of the Court of Session to appoint a Keeper of the Registers and Records. … who is to be practically head of the whole office. I desire to alter the words "after consultation with" into "with the consent of," because I think that the Lord President of the Court of Session should have an absolute veto on the appointment. That would prevent the appointment of a thoroughly unqualified man, as might actually happen, from a Department in London, and I think it would make it secure that the Sasines, which after all are the foundation of our whole land rights but are a very complicated system, should be presided over by a special man who is able to deal with them. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 4, line 32, leave out ("after consultation with") and insert ("with the consent of").—(Viscount Dunedin.)

THE DUKE OF SUTHERLAND

His Majesty's Government accept this Amendment with pleasure. They wish to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Dunedin, very much for his cordial assistance in this direction. Your Lordships all know the great experience and wealth of knowledge regarding these particular matters that he possesses, and it is for that reason particularly that His Majesty's Government are grateful to him for coming to their assistance and aiding them, as they consider, in strengthening the Bill. I hope the noble Viscount's Amendment will meet the points raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger.

LORD MUIR MACKENZIE

When I had the honour of taking charge of a Bill of this kind four years ago, I thought, as I informed your Lordships two days ago, that I had succeeded in meeting every suggestion made by my noble and learned friend who had been Lord President but occupied at that time the office he now holds. Amongst the Amendments I thought we had accepted that very one. If it was not contained in the Bill as it finally left the House, I can only say that I am sorry to hear it because I was certainly convinced at the time that it was the right thing to do.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.