HL Deb 15 July 1957 vol 204 cc1123-31

4.51 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, this Bill, the Second Reading of which I now have the honour to move, deals, as your Lordships will see, with the salaries of the Recorders of Liverpool and Manchester, county court judges and metropolitan magistrates. It is a subject upon which I have been under considerable pressure from many parts of your Lordships' House since the passing of the Bill which increased the jurisdiction of the county courts some two years ago. If I may, I will first deal with the position of the Recorders of Liverpool and Manchester.

Your Lordships will remember that the Criminal Justice Administration Act of least year, which set up the new Crown Courts at Liverpool and Manchester, on the lines of the Central Criminal Court in London, provided that the Recorders of those two great cities were to be full-time judicial officers comparable in status and dignity with the Recorder of London. The Act of 1956 fixed their salaries at £4,000 a year, because that was then the salary of the Recorder of London. The salaries of the Judges of the City of London, however, as well as those of the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of London Sessions, have recently been increased, and the Government consider that the time is now ripe for some small increase in the salaries of the Recorders of Liverpool and Manchester. Your Lordships will see that, by Clause 1 (1) (a) of the Bill, these salaries are increased from £4,000 to £4,500 a year. This necessitates an Amendment in the pensions provisions of the Act of 1956 dealing with the pensions of these two Recorders which are at present expressed in terms applicable to £4,000 a year. Clause 2 of the Bill accordingly relates the Recorders' pensions to whatever their salaries may be from time to time. Your Lordships will see that the pension scale set out in the First Schedule to the Bill is calculated on exactly the same basis as the existing pension rates, but, being expressed as a fraction of the Recorder's last annual salary, the new scale will enable account to be taken of any future changes in the salary.

I now come to the county court judges. I think your Lordships are well aware of the excellence of the work performed by the county court judges and of the very heavy burdens they carry—burdens which have recently been added to, as I have mentioned, by the increase in the jurisdiction of the county courts as a result of the Act passed in 1955. Quite apart from the increase in jurisdiction, Parliament is constantly laying fresh burdens on the judges of the county courts, and it has been evident for some time that, if the Lord Chancellor of the day is to continue to be able to attract men of the necessary calibre for this extremely important and responsible work, their salaries ought to be increased above the figure of £2,800, which was fixed in 1951. I hope your Lordships will agree that the new salary of £3,750 a year proposed by the Bill represents a substantial increase, and one which is broadly satisfactory.

I now come to the metropolitan magistrates. It needs no words from me to commend to your Lordships the admirable work which is done by the metropolitan magistrates who sit in London from day to day in the full glare of publicity. This Bill proposes that the salary of the Chief Magistrate should be increased from £2,800 to £3,750 a year, and that the salaries of the other magistrates should be increased from £2,500 to £3,400 a year. Broadly speaking, these figures preserve the existing relation between the salaries of the metropolitan magistrates and those of the county court judges. Your Lordships will see that it is proposed to make these increases of salary retrospective to April 18 this year, that being the date on which the Government's intention to introduce legislation was announced in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That follows broadly what was done after the decision to increase the salaries in 1951.

I ought specially to draw your Lordships' attention to Clause 1 (4) of the Bill, which provides that if it becomes necessary to make any further increases in the salaries of the recorders, the county court judges or the metropolitan magistrates, this may be done by order of the Lord Chancellor without the need for further legislation. Your Lordships are well aware, and have commented on the point many times, that the need to wait for a Bill before the salaries of these Judicial Officers can be increased has already led to much delay—and, indeed, much greater delay than I personally should have wished—in giving them the increases which I consider are their due. If your Lordships agree to what is proposed by subsection (4) it will be possible to avoid delay of this kind in future. At the same time (this should be noted; and I am sure your Lordships have noted it) a full measure of Parliamentary control will be preserved by the fact that any order made by the Lord Chancellor, with the consent of the Treasury, will require the approval of both Houses of Parliament before it becomes effective. Your Lordships will see that what I may call, in Parliamentary language, the strongest Affirmative Resolution method is being adopted. In this connection, I should perhaps remind your Lordships that it is already the case that no legislation is required for increases in the salaries of the lower Judiciary in Scotland or, indeed, of the official referees of the Supreme Court in England, who are, in effect, assistant High Court Judges and who have recently had a well-deserved increase in salary.

My Lords, no-one is more aware than I am of the dangers presented by the mournful spectacle of one increase after another in salaries and wages after increases in prices, but I ask your Lordships to believe that I have considered these increases most carefully. In one case, when a deputation of the persons concerned came to see me, they told me that some of their number were getting a smaller net sum—that is, after the deduction of tax—than they were getting before the war. In these circumstances, I hope that your Lordships will think it right that I should suggest these increases. I hope that the increases proposed in the Bill, which I now commend to your Lordships, will be recognised as no more than are properly due to those on whom the high standard of English justice depends just as much as it does on the Judges of the High Court. I hope that I may rely on your Lordships to give this Bill an early passage into law. I beg to move that it be now read a second time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.).

5.2 p.m.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, I should like to give a welcome to this Bill which, in my opinion, is very much overdue. The noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor referred to the pressure to which he had been subjected from different parts of your Lordships' House, and I plead guilty to having exercised a certain amount of that pressure, particularly in connection with the salaries of county court judges—not that I am suggesting that the other members of the Judiciary dealt with in this Bill are in any way less deserving. I should like to say a word about county court judges, partly because they are the most numerous of the classes dealt with in the Bill and partly because I happen to know most about them, and I think that they are typical.

The salary of county court judges was first fixed when the county courts were set up, in 1888, at £1,500 a year. It remained at that figure until 1937, when it became £2,000. In 1888, a salary of £1,500 was not an unreasonable one. It enabled people to live in a fair amount of comfort and to educate their children in the way in which they desired. It attracted the right type of person to the Bench, and there was no complaint. In 1937, their salary was increased to £2,000, and even then it was still possible to attract a very good class of person to the county court Bench. There was no further increase until 1951 when, as the noble and learned Viscount has explained, the salary was increased to £2,800. In my view, that was a wholly inadequate increase. I do not know whether it was the Government formed by my own Party or the present Government who were responsible, and I do not care: I made my views heard at that time. I said that it was wholly inadequate and a good many others said so, too.

Now, in 1957, there is this belated act of justice—and only bare justice—in increasing their remuneration to £3,750 a year. Whether or not this figure is adequate only time will show. Whether it is capable of attracting the right kind of person to the Bench, I am not sure. It is vitally important that in this matter of getting the right people on the Bench, both as magistrates and as county court judges, we should not be cheeseparing. We should render a very ill-service to British justice if we tried to save a few pounds and, as a result, got the wrong quality of persons on the Bench. Yesterday I happened to meet a lawyer from New York who occupies the position of a county court judge. Without my cross-examining him about his salary, he volunteered the information that he gets the equivalent of £10,000 a year. Of course, I recognise that the cost of living in New York is higher than it is here, but, even making every allowance for that, £10,000 a year enables a much higher standard of living to be secured in New York than £3,750 does in this country.

I feel that we ought to keep this matter under review, and if the noble and learned Viscount, or his successor, at any time finds that he is not able to secure the right kind of person for the Bench or the magistracy, I hope that he will have no hesitation in making use of the new regulation which is incorporated in this Bill and will come to the House and ask for a review. And I hope that your Lordships will be very ready to review the remuneration in these circumstances. The only other comment I would make is that we are not being very generous in making the increase retrospective only to last April, when the proposal was announced. The injustice has continued over a far longer period. The noble and learned Viscount will remember that, as he himself said, he has been under pressure for two years. Therefore, it would not have been unreasonable or unfair to date this increase back to the same date as was adopted in the Bill just before your Lordships' House—namely, to 1956. It may be a little too late in the day to do that, but if it were at all possible, I am sure that we should be doing the right thing in treating county court judges and magistrates, and the other people dealt with in this Bill, in the same way as we dealt with the Comptroller and Auditor General in the previous Bill. Subject to these remarks, I welcome the Bill and assure the noble and learned Viscount that we shall put no difficulties in the way of its passage into law.

5.9 p.m.

EARL JOWITT

My Lords, I should like to add a few words, because I was concerned with the history of this matter. I say at once that I am entirely in favour of this Bill. I agree with the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor that this is not a particularly auspicious moment in which to introduce it. It is rather unpleasant that we have to increase all these salaries, in view of the undoubted fact that there is a rise in the cost of living; but I believe, with my noble friend Lord Silkin, that, altogether apart from the cost of living, the county court judges are getting too little.

The fixation of their salary at £2,800 was done in our time, and I had a battle—I think I may say a battle royal—with my Chancellor of the Exchequer to get that increase, as I have no doubt the noble and learned Viscount has had. After all, it is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to put up a resistance to every form of claim made upon him. My complaint was that he did not always differentiate and was apt to put up strong resistance where judicial salaries were concerned. However, there it was; I was able to get only £2,800 for the county court judges, and I confess that I was disappointed. I agree with all that Lord Silkin has said. I thought then, and I have thought ever since, that the salary of £2,800 was too little to attract the right class of man.

I understand (I shall be corrected if I am wrong), that the increase of salary now proposed does count for pension, and that supposing the county court judge has done twelve, thirteen or fourteen years (I think he has to do fifteen years for the full time) on the old salary, and retires on the new salary, his pension will be calcultaed on the new salary. If that is so, I think it is a wise step. I think we have made a mistake in regard to the salaries of High Court Judges. We have increased the salary of the High Court Judge from the £5,000, which it had been for a very long time, up to £8,000 but we have not increased the pension. From the public point of view, I believe that to be a most undesirable state of affairs. It is bound to have the tendency of inducing people to stay on and not to retire, because if they do retire they will get a wholly inadequate pension having regard to the salary which they enjoy. I do not think that is in the public interest—I will not say more about it than that. I rejoice, therefore, to find that under this Bill county court judges wil be able from now on to calculate their pension on the appropriate rate based on the new salary. In that way we differentiate them from High Court Judges.

I speak with some diffidence about this next matter, because it concerns me personally, but if the day ever comes (for many reasons I hope that it will not come for a long time, but for other reasons I should not mind if it came earlier) when the present Lord Chancellor himself is going to live on his pension, he will find that his pension was fixed in the year 1834 by an Act of King William IV: it was then expressed to be the sum of £5,000, which was to be "free of any tax or deduction whatsoever". In 1834 a pound was a pound; it was a golden sovereign. And it was thought, and I am sure all your Lordships will agree quite properly thought, that a man who had held the position of Lord Chancellor should be able to retire in relative affluence.

When the day comes that the present Lord Chancellor seeks to get his pension, he will find that an Act of Parliament of the year 1919 (I think it was) laid it down that, whereas the Act of 1834 said the pension was to be "free of any tax or deduction whatsoever", that did not mean free of income tax or surtax. That was the first blow, which occurred in the year 1919; and successive blows have come ever since. So the poor old ex-Lord Chancellor has to manage on what remains of the very handsome pension provided by the Act of His Majesty King William IV in the year 1834. The Lord Chancellor's salary has now, very properly, having regard to the work he has to do and the entertaining he has to do, been increased, but not his pension. There again, I believe that to be a wrong principle, though I forbear saying more about it because it concerns me personally.

I think it is right that the county court judges' salaries should be increased and that the pensions which they have should be based on the increased salary. That has been done. I confess that I do not think the increase in salary has been at all excessive. Indeed, if £2,800 was right in the year 1951—and I think it was too small—I doubt whether £3,750 can be right to-day. However, I am not a mathematician, and I should have to consult my noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence to find out what the equivalent of £2,800 in 1951 would be to-day. Having had battles about this in the past, I rejoice that the Lord Chancellor has been able to bring this about. Quite seriously, I believe it is foolish of us to think that we can get the right men to administer justice unless we pay them an appropriate and proper salary, which makes a man with a practice at the Bar willing to abandon that practice and take on judicial work. I welcome this Bill, and congratulate the Lord Chancellor on it.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I think all I need do is to thank the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, for the welcome they have given to the Bill. In order to preserve the perfect amity which has hitherto prevailed, I would just add a footnote to what the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt said. It is true that his Government arrived at the determination of the salaries in July, 1951, but the succeeding Government, of which I was a member, brought in the Bill. So we are in equal credit, or otherwise, according to the view that one takes.

I am glad that both noble Lords have stressed the need for securing really good men to do the difficult tasks that we set them, and I hope that this Bill will have that result. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, raised the question of the retrospectivity of the Bill. As I said, that goes back to the announcement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It follows the precedent of a few years ago, when the date was put back to the announcement made by the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, at that time. It is difficult if one makes retrospectivity go further back. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has in mind the position of the Comptroller and Auditor General when he was being brought into line with the Civil Service, who had already had their increases fixed at that earlier date; but the Judiciary are in a different position. Apart from that, I do not think there is anything between us on the Bill. I once again thank your Lordships for your reception of the Bill and hope that you will now help it on its way.

On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.

Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.