§ 3.4 p.m.
§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
§ Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Chorley.)
404§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ House in Committee accordingly:
§ [The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair.]
§ Clause 1 agreed to.
§ Clause 2:
§ Functions of Commission under the Telegraph Acts.
§ 2.—(1) For Section four of the Telegraph Act, 1878 (which provides for the determination of differences relating to telegraphs on streets and public roads by a stipendiary magistrate or county court judge in England or Wales or Northern Ireland, or by the sheriff in Scotland, subject to a right of appeal to the Commission) there shall be substituted the following section:—
§ "Differences generally to be determined by a county court or the sheriff, subject to appeal to High Court or Court of Session.
§
4. Where—
(a) any difference arises under this Act or the Telegraph Act, 1863, between the Postmaster-General and any body or person having any power, jurisdiction or control over or relating to a street or public road, or having power under the last mentioned Act to give or withhold a consent to the placing of telegraphs and posts in, under, upon, along, over or across a street or public road; or
the difference shall be determined by a county court:
§ (3) In the application of this section to Northern Ireland, for the first reference to a county court there shall be substituted a reference to the county court having jurisdiction within the district in which the difference has arisen; for the reference to the Lord Chief Justice there shall be substituted a reference to the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland; and as respects any appeals to the High Court, provision may be made by rules of the Supreme Court under Section sixty-one of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Ireland), 1877, as amended by the Supreme Court of Judicature (Ireland) (No. 2) Act, 1897, for regulating the time within which appeals to the High Court may be made and the procedure and costs of such appeals."
§ LORD LLEWELLIN moved, in subsection (3) of the proposed new Section 4 of the Telegraph Act, 1878, to omit the words: "within the district in which the difference has arisen." The noble Lord said: Those of your Lordships who have a copy of the Bill in your hands will see that in the case of Northern Ireland the county court has to be the one "having jurisdiction within the district in which the difference has arisen." In the case of England and Wales, there are no such 405 words in the Bill. As I mentioned on Second Reading, I felt, as we all feel, that it is right for this House to see that Bills go out from it to another place in as perfect a condition as possible; and with that in view it occurred to me that if those words were not in the Bill in the case of England and Wales, someone might well ask why they appear in the case of Northern Ireland. There may be an adequate reason for it; but I think we are entitled to ask why the draftsmen have drafted the Bill in this particular form, distinguishing between the different parts of the United Kingdom. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 43, leave out from ("jurisdiction") to ("for") in line 44.—(Lord Llewellin.)
§ LORD CHORLEYI hope that the noble Lord will agree that the reason which I am going to give him why there should be this difference in the words as between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is a satisfactory one. These words have been inserted in the Bill at the express request of the Northern Ireland authorities. The reason for them is this. The jurisdiction of the county courts in Ireland is still a territorial one; that is to say, it is exclusive to the county in which the county court sits. That used to be the jurisdiction in this country, but the situation was changed by the County Courts Act, 1934. The rule-making authority now has power to make rules, and, as I understand it, has in fact made rules, by which the jurisdiction of the county court is dealt with by the rule-making authority; so that the situation now is quite different. If these words were not in the clause there would be difficulty in Northern Ireland; and if these words were put into the clause dealing with England and Wales, it would mean that the rule-making authority would not, in fact, be able to exercise its power so to organise the jurisdiction of the county courts as to get the elasticity which is the object of the Act of 1934. I hope that the noble Lord will appreciate that there is this difference between county court jurisdictions in this country and in Northern Ireland, and will agree that in these circumstances these words are necessary in the place in which they appear.
§ LORD LLEWELLINI am obliged to the noble Lord for his answer. I must 406 confess that I was ignorant that there was not this power in Northern Ireland, as there is in Great Britain, and that therefore there is a distinction between the bases of jurisdiction of the two courts. The noble Lord's explanation seems to me an adequate one and, in the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause 2 agreed to.
§ Clauses 3 and 4 agreed to.
§ Clause 5 [Repeal of s. 1 of Metropolis Water Act. 1897]:
§
LORD LLEWELLIN moved to omit Clause 5. The noble Lord said: As your Lordships will see, Clause 5 repeals Section 1 of the Metropolis Water Act of 1897, as amended by the Metropolis Water Act, 1902. The Metropolis Water Act of 1897 says:
Any water consumer or any local authority may complain to the Railway and Canal Commission that any of the Metropolitan Water Companies has failed to perform, some statutory duty of the Company, and the Commission may hear and determine that complaint, and if satisfied of such failure, order the Company within the time limited by the Order, to fulfil the duty, and may, if they think fit, by any such Order, impose any penalty for such failure which can be imposed under any Act. …
In this Bill, although every other part of the jurisdiction of the Railway and Canal Commission (which this Bill will abolish) has been transferred to the High Court, this particular part, so far as I can understand, will be abolished altogether if we pass Clause 5.
§ As I said on Second Reading, it may well be that these provisions have fallen completely into disuse, and that there is no real reason for keeping them and transferring them to the High Court—perhaps, for instance, other methods have been adopted than that of going to the Railway and Canal Commission where any grievance exists. It is because the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, replying to the debate in his charming manner the other day, largely confined himself to references (which we all appreciated very much) to the noble Lords, Lord Ashfield and Lord Maenan, and did not really discuss the Bill, that I put down this Amendment. I hope that now I may have an explanation of why it is sought to repeal this old provision, which gave 407 members of the community a right to go to some tribunal to complain that they had a grievance. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 5.—(Lord Llewellin.)
§ LORD CHORLEYI am very glad to be able to give the noble Lord the explanation for which he is asking. I hope that he will be satisfied with it. When he said that he suspected that this clause had perhaps fallen into disuse, his unerring instinct was right. The clause has, in fact, fallen into disuse. It was last used in 1901, which was probably the only occasion upon which it was ever used. That is not the whole reason, however. It may well be that no citizen has availed himself of a statutory right for a very long period but it might nevertheless be necessary to retain it for him. The reason why we are inserting this clause to do away with this right is that it has really become obsolete. In the Water Act of 1945 there is a general provision under which an aggrieved customer, not only in the Metropolis but anywhere throughout the Kingdom, can apply to the Minister of Health and state his grievance to him, and the Minister of Health can then order an inquiry into the problem. Therefore it seems unnecessary to have this particular right preserved simply within the Metropolis. There is this much more general method of remedying the grievance which can be used all over the country.
I should, of course—and your Lordships would expect me to—be quite frank and point out that in fact the right under the Water Act of 1945 is a discretionary right in the Minister, whereas this is a statutory right under the Metropolis Water Act, 1902. There is this to be said, in addition: that there is always a right in a citizen who feels a grievance that some statutory duty has been inadequately carried through by an authority, to bring proceedings in the High Court. That right is not in any way interfered with under this Bill. In those circumstances, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment.
§ LORD LLEWELLINIf I may say so, I think that that explanation is perfectly satisfactory. It was an extremely good Government that brought in the Water Bill.
§ LORD LLEWELLINI think that all members of the Government were concerned. The Bill was introduced in another place by Mr. Willink, who was then Minister of Health. We all joined, without any divergence of opinion, to get that excellent Bill on the Statute Book. Let us not too soon get up and say that it is inadequate for this purpose. That Bill does give this right, and of course, as the noble Lord has said, the citizen also has a right to go to the High Court in exceptional cases if he feels very much aggrieved because some authority is not performing the functions that it should. If we leave this clause in the Bill, the only right that he would have against the Metropolitan Water Board would be to go to the High Court. In view of the noble Lord's explanation, for which I am grateful, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause 5 agreed to.
§ Remaining clauses and Schedule agreed to.
§ Bill reported without amendment.