HL Deb 30 January 1958 vol 207 cc298-304

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.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The LORD TERRINGTON in the Chair]

Clause 1 [General responsibility of the Lord Chancellor for public records]: (2) There shall be an Advisory Council on Public Records to advise the Lord Chancellor on matters concerning public records in general and, in particular, on those aspects of the work of the Public Record Office which affect members of the public who make use of the facilities provided by the Public Record Office. The Master of the Rolls shall be chairman of the said Council and the remaining members of the Council shall be appointed by the Lord Chancellor on such terms as he may specify.

LORD CLITHEROE moved, in the second paragraph of subsection (2), after "the said Council" to insert ", the Keeper of Public Records shall be its vice-chairman". The noble Lord said: Unfortunately I was not able to be in the House when this Bill was debated on Second Reading, and therefore I have taken the liberty of putting down an Amendment on Clause 1 which I will briefly explain. As your Lordships will realise, an Advisory Council on Public Records is being appointed under this clause to advise the Lord Chancellor on matters concerning him. It has occurred to me that there would be great advantage if the Keeper of the Public Records, who is referred to in Clause 2, were to be a member—and I suggest vice-chairman—of this Council.

It is possible, I think, that if he is not a member the Lord Chancellor may receive conflicting evidence from his Council and from the Keeper, unless there is some machinery by which they keep in close touch. There is an analogy which I may quote from Scotland, where the Keeper of the Records of Scotland, Sir James Fergusson, is also the Chairman of the Advisory Council. I think that if the Keeper were to be appointed vice-chairman that would strengthen his authority, and that, I think, is desirable, because it is quite possible that successive Masters of the Rolls may not always be able to preside over this body. I do not know whether the Government are inclined to accept my Amendment. The only ground on which I conceive it might reasonably be rejected would be the suggestion that this Council is to be rather a consumers' council, as it were, so that the less official membership there is on it, the better. On balance, however, I think there would be advantage in the Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 16, after ("Council") insert ("the Keeper of Public Records shall be its vice-chairman").—(Lord Clitheroe.)

LORD EVERSHED

May I invite your Lordships on this occasion not to accept the noble Lord's proposal? A vice-chairman, I conceive, may be simply someone who takes the chair in the absence of the chairman, in which case I should have thought the Council might have elected its own vice-chairman, or he is someone invested with a particular status. I suggest to the Committee in this case that it is neither necessary or desirable that the Keeper should be given a particular status on this Council.

Perhaps it will suffice if I remind the Committee of the proposal of the Grigg Committee, which it is the purpose of this Bill to implement. In paragraph 144 of the Grigg Report it was suggested that it would be desirable to retain the ancient connection between the holders of my Office and Records, and that for that purpose the Master of the Rolls should be Chairman of this Council. The Council is suggested to be a Council with members drawn from the Judiciary, the legal profession and the universities, and its purpose is regarded as analogous to that of the Consultative Committee on Publications—in other words, as the noble Lord pointed out, one of its main purposes will be, in substance, to give the views of the consumer. The Bill as before the Committee allows the Lord Chancellor to appoint such persons to the Council as he thinks proper, and I submit that it should be left to him to decide whether or not the Keeper should be a member of the Council, and for the Council thereafter to decide who might be its vice-chairman.

I would only add that from some experience as Chairman of the Historical Manuscripts Commission I have always been in the closest and most cordial relations with the Deputy Keeper of the Records, and I have no doubt that a Master of the Rolls, if sensible, would have similar relations with the Keeper of the Records hereafter. May I add, in conclusion, that after discussing it with the officers of the Public Record Office, the present Deputy Keeper shares the view that I am now submitting to the Committee.

LORD SILKIN

I should have thought that the statement of the Master of the Rolls on this point was absolutely conclusive. There is just one sentence I should like to add, and that is that in my view it is, in general practice, undesirable to name a specific person as a vice-chairman of a committee that is about to be set up. I would have said that it is undesirable even to name a specific person as chairman. But in this particular case, of course, there are good historical reasons for naming the Master of the Rolls—I accept that entirely. I think it would be contrary to general practice to name a particular person as an ex officio vice-chairman and therefore, while associating myself with all the remarks of the noble and learned Lord the Master of the Rolls, I think that is an additional case for not accepting the Amendment.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR)

After what my noble and learned friend the Master of the Rolls has said, and the additional remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, there is little that I need add in order to ask the Committee not to accept this Amendment. Indeed, I would rather put it differently and ask my noble friend Lord Clitheroe not to press it. I want to assure my noble friend, and anyone who may be interested, that the fact that I ask him not to press this Amendment does not in any way detract from the importance which I attach to the office of Keeper of the Public Records. Indeed, I feel that it might on certain occasions be rather embarrassing for the Keeper of the Public Records if he were forced into the position of taking the chair when there were present other people whom he would desire to preside over the meeting before himself. But I think the general principle which has been expressed by the two noble Lords I have mentioned is that the Council ought to be free to select its own vice-chairman. With regard to the composition of the Council, it will, I hope, include eminent men, and it may be that some of those who accept my invitation might be specially suitable for this purpose. But it is, I think, a matter essentially for the Council to look into, and I hope that in those circumstances, and on my assurance of the great importance I attach to the position of the Keeper, my noble friend will not press his Amendment this afternoon.

LORD CLITHEROE

In view of what the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls have said, I certainly shall not press this Amendment, but I should be clad to learn in due course that the Keeper will, in fact, be a member of this Committee, even if he is not to be vice-chairman. I think that the liaison between the Keeper and the Council is something which is of great importance, and I hope that it will always be preserved.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2

The Public Record Office

(4) The Keeper of Public Records shall have power to do all such things as appear to him necessary or expedient for maintaining the utility of the Public Record Office and may in particular—

THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, in subsection (4), after paragraph (d) to insert: (e) accept responsibility for the safe keeping of records other than public records; The noble and learned Viscount said: On Second Reading I said that I thought paragraph (g) as it stood would enable the Public Record Office to accept, for example, the records of the Duchy of Lancaster, if they were offered—and I instanced those records because they were excluded, by paragraph 2 (2) (c) of the First Schedule, from the definition of public records. On consideration I feel that paragraph (g) to which I then referred is particularly apt for private and semi-private records, such as the Carlton Papers of which President Eisenhower made a gift to Her Majesty and which are of great interest, but in order to make quite sure that there is power to deal with records such as the Duchy Records I would ask your Lordships to include this further paragraph. That is the purpose of the Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 21, at end, insert the said new paragraph.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 3 to 5 agreed to.

Clause 6 [Destruction of public records in Public Record Office or other place of deposit]:

On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?

LORD CLITHEROE

There is one very small point I should like to make on the Motion that Clause 6 stand part of the Bill. I observe that by the final words of the clause power is given to the Lord Chancellor to dispose of these documents "in any other way." I do not want to put down an Amendment to these words, but I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount whether he will be extremely discriminating in making use of that power. It seems to me that if these documents are not worth preserving in their essential context, it is very doubtful whether they are worth preserving at all. There is a great tendency on the part of local Public Record Offices to accumulate a great deal of stuff with which they really cannot cope and which they have no funds to look after. I hope that the powers which are given in the last sentence of Clause 6 will be very rarely used.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I willingly give my noble friend that assurance. Obviously he has done me the honour of looking once at the remarks which I made on Second Reading, and if he will look again he will see that the importance of the aspect which he has mentioned is in my own mind, as it was in the mind of the Grigg Committee; and of course it constitutes a problem for all Departments. I certainly give him that undertaking, and I shall not only follow it myself but leave a note bringing it to the attention of my successors.

Clause 6 agreed to.

Clause 7 agreed to.

Clause 8 [Court records]:

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment corrects a mistake which had arisen owing to various enactments. Section 199 of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1925, re-enacted Section 66 of the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857, under which the Home Secretary was empowered to require records of matrimonial proceedings before 1858 in any ecclesiastical court in England or the Isle of Man to be transferred by the person having control of them to a place in "London or Westminster". This power was never exercised in relation to the Isle of Man records and it will never be needed. The Isle of Man authorities have pointed out that the jurisdiction of their ecclesiastical court in probate and divorce matters was unaffected by the English legislation of 1857 but continued until it was abolished by an Act of Tynwald in 1884. Your Lordships will observe that the Bill does not apply generally to records of the Isle of Man, and it would be anomalous if it applied to records of ecclesiastical courts there. In consequence, it is necessary to delete the words shown in the Amendment in brackets in subsection (5). There is a consequential Amendment to the First Schedule. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 7, line 14, leave out ("(including any held in the Isle of Man)").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.

First Schedule [Definition of Public Records]:

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment is to insert the words "Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation." Your Lordships may observe that in Part II of the Table to the First Schedule the National Coal Board is listed among the "fringe" establishments and organisations whose records are declared to be public records. The Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation is an independent body incorporated under the Companies Act which has responsibilities in relation to miners' welfare. Under the Miners' Welfare Act, 1952, a number of additional functions were conferred upon it, and by Section 9 the records of the Miners' Welfare Commission, which it superseded, were transferred to the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation while remaining under the charge and superintendence of the Master of the Rolls in pursuance of the Public Record Acts. In these circumstances it seems appropriate, as well as convenient for historians, that the records of this body should be treated in the same way as those of the National Coal Board and declared public records. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 10, line 49, at end insert ("Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation.").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 12, line 12, leave out ("(including courts in the Isle of Man)").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

First Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Remaining Schedules agreed to.

House resumed.