§ 7.43 p.m.
§ Report of Amendments received (according to Order).
§ Clause 2 [Application for leave of court]:
§
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to add to subsection (1):
in relation to applications which are made after the commencement of a relevant action".
390
The noble Lord said: My Lords, at the end of the debate on the first Amendment the other day, at the Committee stage of this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, said that I was in an unconciliatory mood. I certainly was not intending to be in an unconciliatory mood, and I said that I would look at this point again; the point being that the Rules of Court which are providided for in this Bill should not be so used, or be so capable of being used, that the ex parte nature of the first application could be changed against the wishes of Parliament by allowing the defendant to come in.
§ At the time I said to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and to your Lordships, that the only sort of case I envisaged where an ex parte application would not be thought to be right would be where the application for leave under the Bill had to be made after the commencement of an action under subsection (3) of Clause 2. On reflection, I think that it would be right to provide that this power to make Rules of Court should be confined to that set of circumstances under subsection (3) of Clause 2. This Amendment is nut down in order to give effect to that restriction, and it will not, therefore, be possible by a Rule of Court to allow the defendant to come in on the first ex parte application before the action commences. I hope that the noble Lord will feel a little more satisfied with the Bill if this Amendment is inserted in it. There will, in any case, of course, be ordinary power under the existing legislation to make Rules of Court in the rest of the things which are there, but I do not think this will in any way affect the principle the noble Lord had in mind. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 39, at end insert the said words.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
§ LORD SILKINMy Lords, I am very glad indeed that the noble Viscount's reflections have borne some fruit in this Amendment. It completely meets the points I had in mind. The noble and learned Lord, the present Lord Chancellor, would never dream of doing such a thing, but it was surely open to succeeding Lord Chancellors completely to frustrate the purpose of the ex parte application. I am quite satisfied that 391 this Amendment does not do so. I am only sorry that the results of the noble Viscount's reflections have not led him to go a stage further and do away with the necessity to provide a prima facie case; but that matter does not arise here.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
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Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 29, leave out ("subsection") and insert ("section").—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.