HL Deb 26 March 1946 vol 140 cc342-60

3.5 p.m.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER rose to call attention to the serious situation which has arisen in regard to the handling of proceedings for divorce brought by Service men and women, with particular reference to the long delays which occur in disposing of these cases, and to the great hardship thereby imposed on the men and women concerned; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper today is one which I think is likely to gain the sympathy of all noble Lords, in whatever part of the House they may sit, who saw service in the last war. My question deals with a very human problem—namely, the need for securing quicker machinery for the disposal of cases of Service men and women who are suing (or divorce. I have been informed that since the war broke out the number of cases from the Services personnel alone has amounted to some- thing between 30,000 and 40,000. While I venture to think that that is probably a matter for the greatest anxiety, I do not wish to refer to it to-day, but only to deal with the unsatisfactory state of the existing machinery.

Some of your Lordships may recall that, in October, 1944, I proceeded to India to make a report on welfare arrangements for British troops, and on my journeys both to and from that country I passed through Naples, Cairo, Jerusalem and Bagdad. At all those military centres—for in those days they were indeed vast military centres—I was shown the machinery in operation for assisting Service personnel in disposing of cases of divorce which had unfortunately arisen. The staffs at those centres—and I shall refer to them again in the course of my remarks—were undoubtedly performing an excellent job of work, but I well remember being told that from the day any man began divorce proceedings, a considerable period of time must elapse before his case was finally concluded. I feel that there is no necessity for me to weary the House with the many reasons which lead to delay in the rapid disposal of these cases, but I think it is clear—and I shall endeavour to prove it beyond all manner of doubt—that the existing machinery is inadequate for its purpose. I have been told that where grounds for divorce arose as long ago as 1942, and the proceedings were started in the following year—that is, in 1943—many cases have not yet reached the stage at which they are ready for presentation to the Courts.

On my return from India, I made various suggestions for improvement, but at that time it was not found possible to implement them all. Frankly, I had always hoped, even at that time, that as soon as the war was ended, the speed of disposal of these cases would be greatly increased, and that, perhaps in the course of six months, certainly in a year, there would be very few left to be dealt with at all. Now unfortunately it appears that the organizations which have been set up to deal with these cases are completely snowed under by the large numbers which are still coming forward.

Let me take a typical example of a case which occurs—a somewhat sordid case, but, unhappily, one which is all too common, that in which a man receives a letter from a friend or relative at home informing him that his wife has had, or is about to have, a child by another man. I found typical cases such as this during my visit to India, and if it could be arranged that the man could return from overseas to his home, disaster to his marriage and to his domestic happiness might, possibly, be averted. But in the greater number of cases the damage was done, and it was in the interests of all concerned to bring that marriage to an end at the earliest possible moment. I am told that to-day there must be a gap of from three to five years between the break up of the marriage and its final legal end. I think your Lordships can picture, without any additional words from me, the terrible hardship and in-deed misery caused to any returning soldier who comes home in those circumstances.

It seems to me at any rate that it is particularly undesirable to learn that in the midst of our society there is a very large number of men and women who are bound together by no other tie than that of the legal pact of marriage. What happens? Both parties by that time will probably have gone their own way with disastrous consequences to themselves and to others, for are we not placing the innocent party in a situation where there is an irresistible temptation to the commission of sin? There must be any number of your Lordships who know as well as I do that a soldier's morale depends greatly upon freedom from worry or concern about anything that is happening at home, and so a demand arose in the Services that some facilities for legal aid advice should be set up and made available to the Armed Forces of the Crown. For that reason, special legal aid facilities were set up. They came under the Director of Army Welfare. These Service legal aid schemes, which are used by all Service personnel under the rank of sergeant, have been in operation some time and owe their existence to the foresight of my noble and learned friend Viscount Simon and to the three Service Ministers in the late Government.

Let me see if I can explain how the scheme works. The scheme which is operated in the Army and in the Air Force—and I understand that the Navy follow a somewhat similar scheme—is like this. A man receives information telling him of trouble at home. He at once consults his welfare officer. There is really no excuse if he does not consult his welfare officer because all men in the Army, and I should imagine in the other Services as well, are advised to get into consultation with their welfare officers immediately. At this very early stage of the proceedings steps are taken to see if it is possible to reconcile the parties and if there is the remotest chance of saving the marriage. Everything possible is done through the welfare officer and through the welfare organizations such as the Soldiers' Sailors' and Airmen's Families Association, who, indeed, have done noble work during the war. Right up to the time when the parties go into the Courts continuous efforts are made to effect a reconciliation and at that stage, of course, the efforts are made by the legal aid section. Some people may say that that in itself tends to delay the proceedings but on the contrary the proceedings for divorce are steadily followed up while at the same time continual suggestions are made to the man or woman concerned that a reconciliation might be possible. So I do not believe that there is any sound ground for saying that at this stage the procedure is liable to lead to delay.

If the attempted reconciliation fails in its early stages the next step is for the man to go to his nearest Army Command legal aid section, which is an organization set up in every Command at home and overseas. Here let me say at once that I saw these legal aid sections in operation in India and many commanding officers were perfectly prepared to send their men for many hundreds of miles in order that they might receive the legal aid given by these sections. This body is staffed by officers or men who practised as barristers or solicitors in civilian life and therefore have full knowledge of the law. Their duty it is to consider all the circumstances of the case, to examine the man or woman generally, to take statements from any witnesses and to collect other evidence generally. From there the papers are sent to the Poor Persons Committee of the Law Society in London and there the case is examined by a subcommittee which in due course issues a poor person's certificate which enables the individual, subject to a very small charge, to have his case heard in the Courts. From there the papers travel to the Services Divorce Department of the Law Society where a solicitor completes the legal preliminaries for presentation of the case to the Court where in the end the man obtains his divorce.

I do not doubt that your Lordships will say that this is a very long and complicated process and that even at the end of it the man, in the English Court certainly, only obtains a decree nisi and has to wait a further six months before his divorce is made absolute. It is true it is a long journey from the day on which the man receives information of his wife's unfaithfulness to the day when his decree is made absolute and his marriage is legally terminated. I have been told that the Courts could take many more cases than they are taking at present, and, if that is so, a speeding up of the slow process of preparation seems to be all that is necessary. In another place it was stated some time ago that the main delay occurs at the Law Society, who at the present moment have more cases than they can handle, but I do not want your Lordships to think that I am criticizing or attacking the Law Society in any way whatever. They have done extraordinarily fine work with really insuperable difficulties facing them.

What I would ask is whether it is intended to expand this organization within the Law Society, and whether His Majesty's Government can say how it will be done. It is, I think your Lordships will agree, a little disheartening for the legal aid sections to know that no case which they prepare can get into the Courts for trial under a period of eighteen months. I have seen these legal aid sections at work, and although unfortunately the divorce oases form a very large proportion of the 100,000 or more cases which they have already dealt with they have nevertheless done an admirable job of work. It is true that at the beginning there was a serious shortage of staff, but I believe those difficulties have been overcome to-day. There are many people either in the Services or now out-side the Services who express their greatest gratitude to those legal aid sections for the work that they have accomplished on their behalf, and from information which has been given to me by senior officers of the Services with whom I have consulted I have no doubt whatever that these sections have made a vast contribution to welfare in general.

There must be in your Lordships' House many noble Lords who know far more than I do about the legal and technical points of the divorce law, but I feel quite certain they will not quarrel with my plea that divorce proceedings for Service men should be speeded up. I have not asked that the present reason-able law of divorce, which I believe is based upon human needs, should be relaxed. All I have asked is for a speeding up of the present machinery which is a necessary preliminary for the presentation to Courts of divorce cases. I repeat again that great harm can be done, and done permanently, to the characters of all Service men and women if their cases for divorce are held up for long and unending periods. It is for these reasons that I have thought fit to move the Motion which stands in my name and I sincerely hope that it will receive the support and the sympathy of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack.

3.25 p.m.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I very much welcome the debate on this important subject which has been initiated this afternoon by the noble Earl, Lord Munster, in an interesting and, if I may say so, a well-informed speech, more particularly because he has had an opportunity of seeing at first hand the working of the machinery which is under discussion. I may say at once that the noble Earl is substantially accurate in his facts, and he in no way whatever exaggerated the gravity of the situation. There are an enormous number of Service divorce cases; there is great delay, and there is consequently great hardship. But unfortunately there have been, and still are, almost insuperable difficulties in handling the cases with the expedition which the men and women concerned are entitled to expect and which we are striving our utmost to achieve. I tell your Lordships quite frankly that since I assumed office as Lord Chancellor there has been no subject, of the many subjects with which the Lord Chancellor has to deal, to which I have given more attention and which has given me more acute anxiety than the problem of these Service divorce cases. That anxiety I am quite sure was shared by my predecessor, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon. I am in frequent consultation with the President of the Divorce Division, whom I am glad to see sitting with us to-day, and with the President and the officials of the Law Society, about the situation. They certainly share my anxiety and I can assure your Lordships that that anxiety is fully shared by my colleagues in the Government, who recognize the need of taking every possible step to put matters right.

I am anxious that your Lordships and the public should understand how matters stand at present and what steps we are taking. That is why I welcome the opportunity of this debate in order that I may give as full a picture as I can of the situation. I hope your Lordships will bear with me whilst I review the past, and deal with the present. It is a very grave situation. The noble Earl has already described to you the existing machinery for enabling men and women in the Forces to get a divorce. I will not go over that part of the ground again. It is sufficient to say that the Services legal aid schemes were introduced in the latter half of 1942. At that time there was no special machinery available for giving advice and assistance to members of the forces. A man serving in the Army who wanted to pursue his remedy in the Courts had to avail him-self of the ordinary poor persons procedure. The man applied for a poor person's certificate to the Law Society or the provincial Law Society and had to satisfy a somewhat rigid means test. Furthermore, at that time (the war having been on for some time), the Poor Persons Committees were in a sorry plight. There was a great drain on the man-power of the profession, on the solicitors, caused by the demands of the Services and other forms of service, which had reduced the number of solicitors available to take poor persons' cases almost to vanishing point. In the case of some provincial Law Societies, every single member of the Poor Persons Committee was away on national service, with the result that the Committee themselves were simply unable to function.

It is no exaggeration to say that by the end of 1941 the system which existed in this country in peacetime for giving legal aid to poor persons had largely broken down. At the same time, as the noble Lord has pointed out, a demand had arisen for some facilities for legal advice and assistance in the Services themselves. Indeed the President of the Law Society had already, in September, 1941, drawn the attention of the Lord Chancellor to the unfortunate result to men and women serving in the Forces which was being occasioned by delays in the poor persons' procedure. I must tell your Lordships, as indeed I am glad to do, that the initiative in this matter came from the Law Society, who themselves offered to set up a special Services Divorce Department if the three Service Departments would form an organization to help the troops by giving legal advice at first hand, and if special procedure adapted to Service requirements could be introduced. The Law Society in fact set up their Services Divorce Department in January, 1942. It was in those circumstances that the Services legal aid schemes were conceived—schemes providing free legal advice and very cheap legal assistance in the conduct of certain kinds of litigation, and, in particular, divorce cases.

So far as the schemes provide for litigation, they were, and are now, an adaptation of the ordinary poor persons' procedure to Service requirements. For instance, the rigid means test was abolished in favour of a test by rank, with the result that all Service men and women whose Service rank is not above that of Sergeant, Flight-Sergeant or Petty Officer, are entitled to the benefit of the Service scheme with the exception of the rare case where the man or woman concerned happens to have some substantial private means. I may observe here that demobilization from the Forces does not mean that the demobilized man or woman who has applied for assistance under the scheme while in the Forces has to start again. If proceedings were started while the petitioner was in the Forces, he or she continues to get the benefit of the scheme notwithstanding demobilization.

The noble Earl has described to your Lordships the steps which have to be taken by the serving soldier who wants a divorce. He has characterized the proceedings as complicated. Well, perhaps they are. You begin with the Army authorities, the legal aid sections, then the Law Society's two organizations, the Poor Persons Committee and the Services Divorce Department, and finally you reach the Courts. The reasons for this seemingly complex procedure are twofold. In the first place, the men and women proceeding under the schemes are serving all over the world under Service conditions. They have to be informed where they are serving, and this can only be done by serving officers and their assistants on the spot. If the first contact between the would-be petitioner and his legal adviser had to be conducted by correspondence, the delays would be far greater than they are under the present conditions. Secondly, when the case gets to the Courts, the whole machinery of justice is set in motion for the benefit of the soldier petitioner, at practically no cost to himself. As in the case of all parties proceeding as poor persons, the State and the legal profession bear the entire burden. This burden is not normally undertaken without a proper inquiry being made, on the application for a poor person's certificate, to see whether a petitioner has got a prima facie case and has not got the means to employ his own solicitor.

It is quite plain from the figures quoted that the Service legal aid schemes have supplied a service the magnitude of which was far beyond the contemplation of those who set them up. From July, 1942, to the end of last year, about 48,500 applications for assistance in divorce proceedings alone had been accepted by the Command legal aid sections at home and overseas. They had come to the conclusion that there was a prima facie case. As I am dealing with divorce, I will not give the figures for legal advice and litigation in fields other than divorce, but I can assure your Lordships that they are also very substantial. This large number of applications for divorce is a tragic but symptomatic feature of the disastrous disturbances brought about by the war in the field of family relationship. I realize that many of your Lordships must share the anxiety which those who have had to investigate these figures felt about this whole problem. But, my Lords, the melancholy fact is this—I do not seek to conceal it—that in all these 48,500 divorce cases brought by serving men and women, not more than 5,198 decrees nisi had been obtained by the end of 1945, and of these 5,000, some 3,000 were not then finally finished on account of questions of custody or costs or something.

It is the fact, as the noble Earl has said, that in a very large number of cases the proceedings were initiated at the legal aid sections so long ago as the spring of 1943. I do not say in every single case there has been a long delay. Cases have been quoted to me in which it was vital for many special reasons that the case should be disposed of rapidly, and I believe that the record is something like six weeks from start to finish. But in the vast majority of cases the normal period which elapses from the date on which an application is made to the legal aid section and the date on which the decree is made absolute, and the parties are free to marry again, is now of the order of three to three-and-a-half years. I am not saying that in cases of particular difficulty the time may not be even longer.

Why has this situation developed, and what are the causes of delay? The first thing I wish to emphasize is that as the noble Earl has said, and as has recently been stated in another place, the delay is not at the Courts but in the preparatory stages. The President of the Divorce Division has made it his constant care to see that these Service cases have not been held up by delays of the Courts. He and his Puisne Judges have gone out of their way to ensure that everything possible is done to facilitate the hearing of the Service cases. Affidavit evidence is allowed when the petitioner is serving in distant theatres of operations. Service cases are given preferential treatment in fixing the date of trial. Special machinery has been set up for photographing petitions and affidavits so as to avoid delay, and in particular the divorce Judges have taken it in turn to sit continuously throughout the Long Vacation so that no Service case may be held up. The result of all these measures is that Service cases have been disposed of in a very short period.

Turning to the preparatory stage, as I have already said, the number of cases coming forward is far in excess of those originally contemplated when the Legal Aid Society set up a special organization known as the Services Divorce Department. The creation by the Law Society of this department was a part, and a vital part, of the arrangements made in 1942 for tackling Service divorce cases. Its creation, as I have already mentioned, was due to the initiation and foresight of the Law Society. Here I would like to tell your Lordships that the Government recognize the debt of gratitude owed to the Law Society for the part which they have played and are playing in this matter. No blame attaches to the Law Society for the present state of affairs. On the contrary, they have done their utmost, with inadequate staff and inadequate accommodation, to cope with a hopeless flood of work. All through the war when accommodation and staff were at a premium, it was unfortunately impossible for the Government to assist them with either, with the result that the Services Divorce Department had to wage a constant struggle to carry on at all, and even at the present time the staffs of the Department are working in quarters and accommodation which are well nigh intolerable. The comparatively small number of cases which have been finally disposed of so far gives no indication at all of the magnitude of the efforts which have been made by the Law Society and the able officials who work under them. Although during the war some members of the solicitors' profession, despite shortage of staff and the difficult times, managed to conduct quite a substantial number of civilian poor-person cases—for which great credit is due to them—from 1942 until quite recently the paid whole-time solicitors of the Services Divorce Department were almost the only solicitors in the country who were regularly conducting proceedings on behalf of Service men and women, but their numbers and their staff were, and still are, very limited.

There are, of course, peculiar features in Service divorce cases which tend to make for delay: for example, the fact that the parties and their witnesses are serving overseas, often in remote places where communication is impossible or difficult. Sometimes divorce papers have been lost in transit, through enemy action. But, and I would emphasize the fact, the main cause of delay in the preparation of the cases lies at present in the inability of the Services Divorce Department to handle the cases fast enough. I repeat that the Department is grossly understaffed and, notwithstanding every possible effort which has been made during the last twelve months, it is only now that the staff can be gradually in- creased and accommodation found to enable the Department to be expanded to a size adequate to the demands made upon it.

The Department is divided into a number of units, as they are called, each of which is presided over by a solicitor who has, or ought to have, a number of clerks and shorthand and copy-typists under him. Each unit is organized rather like an ordinary solicitor's office. When the cases come into the Department they are immediately allocated to one of the units, and the solicitor in charge of that unit then becomes the solicitor in the case and sees it through the Courts. At the present moment there are six units. At the beginning of May there will be nine if—and I stress the word "if"—we can find the staff, and particularly the typing staff, which is required.

At the beginning of this year the Services Divorce Department had about 10,300 cases in hand, of which some 3,000 were cases in which the decree nisi had been pronounced, but which had not been finally disposed of. On the same date the Poor Persons Committee, the organization which feeds the cases to the Services Divorce Department, had more than 3,000 cases waiting to be passed to that Department and a further 14,000 cases waiting for the issue of a poor person's certificate. As many noble Lords know, the Poor Persons Committee consists of solicitors in general practice who do the work of examining the cases entirely voluntarily and gratuitously. The London Committee sits three or four days a week, and the mass of cases throws a very heavy burden on the gentlemen concerned. On January 1, 1946—all my figures are based on January 1, 1946, and the position has been getting worse since then—there were more than 24,000 Service cases pending in the two organizations of the Law Society: that is to say, cases passed to the Law Society through the legal aid sections but in which decrees nisi had not then been pronounced. To complete the picture, I ought to add that on the same date there were still some 19.000 cases pending in the Services legal aid sections at home and overseas.

The position to-day is that cases are still coming into the legal aid sections faster than they are being got rid of by the Services Divorce Department. The delay in the Poor Persons Committee has not seriously affected the position because that Committee has an accumulated mass of cases in which the poor person's certificates have been issued, but which at: present cannot be absorbed by the Services Divorce Department. In due time it is proposed to abolish the need for the issue of poor person's certificates in Service cases altogether, with the result: that the cases will be sent straight from the Legal Aid Department to the Services Divorce Department, and one of the drags on the wheel will be removed.

The experienced officers who control the legal aid sections tell me that the flood of Service cases now shows some sign of diminishing, and I hope the peak has been reached. I say nothing of the ordinary civilian cases, which, as your Lordships know, are coming forward in unprecedented numbers. The problem now is how to dispose, as fast as is humanly possible, of the accumulated mass of Service cases which reach a total of some 43,000. When I tell your Lordships that out of the total of 20,000 divorce cases disposed of by the Judges in. 1945 only some 3,000 odd were Service cases, because those were the only Service cases ready for trial, the magnitude of the task of disposing of 43,000 can be appreciated.

My noble friend asked what steps the Government are taking to deal with the situation, and I am glad to tell him what we are trying to do. It may, I think, be fairly said that the machinery for handling these cases has broken down. It was on that assumption that I reviewed the situation very recently in consultation with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Merriman, and with the President of the Law Society. There seemed to us all to be two possible courses. One was to start an entirely new system for handling the cases, and the other was to take the existing organization and do everything possible to make it capable of dealing with the situation which had arisen. The Law Society pointed out that it had not hitherto been possible for the Government to help by finding the accommodation or staff, but they said that, given Government aid in finance, accommodation and staff, their organization could be expanded to a capacity capable of disposing of the mass of cases within two years from the date on which the expansion became effective, which means disposing of the cases at the rate of 20,000 per annum. In the circumstances, the Government considered that the only practical and proper course was to accept the offer of the Law Society, and that offer has been accepted on the terms mentioned. My right honourable friend the Minister of Works has agreed to find the necessary accommodation and has already done much in that direction. My right honourable friend the Minister of Labour has promised to do his best with the even more difficult matter of staff, and the Treasury have agreed to finance the proposals as suggested by the Law Society.

The proposals are these. Plans have been laid and are already in process of being carried out for expanding the Services Divorce Department to nearly four times its present establishment of units. There will be thirty-five units, of which seventeen will operate in London, where the bulk of the cases fall to be heard, and the other eighteen units will be stationed in the large provincial centres. The work will thus be decentralized, which in itself should make for speed and efficiency. We have already secured suitable buildings in London, and offices in the provinces are being found. The Law Society tell me that at the present stage of demobilization they expect little difficulty in finding solicitors to take charge of the numerous new units. The requisite number of managing clerks is also available. The most difficult problem will be in finding shorthand-and copy-typists. If I were asked to specify one single cause rather than another for the present lamentable state of affairs I should be inclined to point to the current shortage of typists. During the war and in recent months it has been almost impossible to find typing staff, with the result that the Law Society are to-day short of some fifty typists for their existing establishment. The expansion of the department which I have indicated will mean that they will require some 300 additional typists. I have been most carefully into the matter myself in all its aspects; I have suggested the introduction of every possible improvisation and expedient, mechanical and otherwise, for meeting the situation, but the fact remains that this vital work requires a great deal of typing and there are not sufficient typists to do it. My right honourable friend the Minister of Labour is doing his utmost to help me find the girls, but they are slow in coming forward. If there are any available shorthand-typists or copy-typists who would be prepared to play a part either in London or in the provinces to help these poor men and women of the Forces to get a fresh start in life after all the stress and turmoil of the war years, I earnestly hope that they will get into touch with the Secretary of the Law Society at once.

Subject to the vital question of typists, we hope to get the Services Divorce Department expanded to half the target figure by July, when it should be handling cases at the rate of 10,000 a year, and fully expanded by the end of the year. I can assure your Lordships that anything that I or my colleagues can do to get the whole machine working at top pressure will not be left undone, but it must be remembered that the new staff will have to be trained in the work and that disappointments and setbacks will undoubtedly occur. I therefore make no promise beyond that we will do our best.

If I may trouble your Lordships for a few moments longer, there is a further aspect of the matter which I must mention. It will have occurred to many of your Lordships that it is of little use to expand enormously the rate at which the cases are prepared if the only result is to create a bottleneck where no bottleneck exists at present, that is to say at the Courts. If the whole process is to operate smoothly and rapidly the judicial machinery must be capable of disposing of the cases at whatever rate we can make them ready for hearing. Therefore we must see, and we shall see, that the Divorce Registry in London and the other District Registries are provided with adequate staff and accommodation to absorb the cases and that the judicial strength is adequate to meet the very heavy demands which will be made upon it. Steps have already been taken to expand the Divorce Registries.

As to the increase in Judge-power which will be necessary, one course would be to create additional Judges; but there is, I think, objection to the creation of a number of new permanent Judges to deal with a situation which is in reality—at least, so I hope and pray—of a temporary nature. The existing Judges are already capable of disposing of more than 20,000 divorce cases of all types every year—they are disposed of in London and on the Circuits in about equal proportions—but if Service cases alone were to reach the Courts at the rate of 20,000 per annum the judicial machinery would be swamped. After much consideration and consultation with the Lord Chief Justice and the President of the Divorce Division we have decided that the best course, as a short-term policy to supplement the existing Judge-power, is to appoint a number of Commissioners who will sit in London and in the provinces under a special Commission made in pursuance of the powers granted by Section 70 of the Judicature Act, 1925.

As your Lordships know, a Commissioner when sitting has all the power and authority of a High Court Judge: his sitting is a sitting of the High Court. There is, therefore, no suggestion that any less degree of authority will be brought to bear upon the trial of Service divorce cases than is brought to bear upon any other type of divorce case. That is important because there can, I think, be no excuse whatever for treating Service divorce cases any differently from any others. The law to be applied is the same, and the standard of care and skill should be no less. What we have to do is to see that the machinery of preparation for the trial is adequate to meet the demands made upon it. Your Lordships may be assured that no chance will be lost of making improvements wherever possible as, for example, in the deletion of unnecessary technical steps and the speeding up of the process at every stage.

I am sorry to have troubled your Lordships at such length. Believe me, I feel this is a matter of vital importance. It may not be so sensational or arresting as, for instance, the shortage of bricks or the shortage of timber, but if you are going to have a system which prevents a very large body of men and women—who have deserved well of us, if any men and women have—having the benefit of starting a new family life, and if you are going to expose them to a system which makes the contraction of irregular unions almost inevitable, you will be doing something which may in the long run do this country more injury than any shortage of physical materials can possibly do.

3.58 p.m.

VISCOUNT SIMON

My Lords, I hope I may be allowed to occupy three or four minutes. Speaking for myself, and I think for the great majority of your Lord-ships, perhaps I may say that the Lord Chancellor has no reason to apologize for occupying the time which he did occupy. He has given to many of us a much more complete understanding of this problem than was previously held. What gives particular satisfaction to those of us who have really looked into it closely is that he made at the end some practical proposals which I hope with all my heart will produce a real improvement. I am very glad that in the time of a former Government we took our courage in both hands and insisted upon a new system to help the man who was serving and who had bad news from home. There was no such special system before that. If we are going to mention those who took a special part in it there is one name I would venture to mention which has not been mentioned in this debate, and that is the name of the present Lord Schuster. It was a Committee over which he presided in the Lord Chancellor's Department, assisted by very good servants of the Crown in that Department, which did so much to get this thing into shape.

It was not the easiest thing in the world to persuade the heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force in the midst of the pinch of war to develop a system not immediately connected with fighting the enemy but which none the less was of very great importance to maintain morale and to do justice. I should be glad also if I might be allowed to join the Lord Chancellor in paying a most sincere tribute to the part which the Law Society has taken in this, both in its origin and in its carrying out. Very few people know how much we really owe to the self-sacrificing work done by a comparatively limited body of solicitors, not able themselves to serve, over-burdened in many cases with the business of their own particular practice, with their partners absent, with the loss, very often, of their managing clerk, and in addition, as the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, has just said, without the ordinary means by which letters can be rapidly taken down, typed and dealt with. It is proof of the public spirit of the profession that its members should have shouldered this task with such courage and such devotion and such success, for what would have happened if they had not played their part in this matter almost boggles the imagination. I would, therefore, for my part, like to assure the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, that the proposals he has outlined will receive our most sympathetic support. I cannot attempt to discuss the methods suggested, but it is absolutely necessary that something should be done because otherwise we shall go from bad to worse. A very united effort will be needed in order to remove one of the greatest objections to legal proceedings, and that is what Hamlet called the law's delay.

4.1 p.m.

LORD BELSTEAD

My Lords, I should like to add one word. The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, has explained to us how, after consultation with the noble Lord the President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, and the Secretary of the Law Society, he has taken practical steps to expedite the hearing of these Service cases. He has further told us how he has intervened—I imagine successfully—with his ministerial colleagues, and he mentioned some of them, namely, the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Works, and also the Treasury, to see that it is in fact possible to carry these improvements into being. What I do want to ask is whether he has completed, or if he has not whether he will complete, that excellent work by going to the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Secretary of State for War, and the Secretary of State for Air, to see how many competent clerical staff and how many excellent typists—particularly female typists—are at the present time still retained in the Fighting Services.

4.3 p.m.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER

My Lords, I must express to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack my gratitude to him for the friendly manner in which he has replied to the question on the Paper. Before I withdraw my Motion, I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord whether in endeavouring to find the three hundred or more typists who are required, he will see that his request that the Law Society should obtain the services of these girls receives full publicity. I would also ask that he should consider whether he, or perhaps someone from the Law Society on his behalf, could make some broadcast at a suitable hour and on a suitable day as a means of attracting girls to this essential and useful work. I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.