LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 30 July 1963)

§ LORD CARRINGTON
My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree to the Commons Amendments to one of the Lords' Amendments. Your Lordships may recall that at the Report stage of this Bill the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, moved the insertion of a new clause concerning protection for local authorities' inspectors. I accepted his Amendment on behalf of the Government. The new clause as set out on the Order Paper contains two subsections. Subsection (1) provides that a local authority inspector shall not be personally liable for an act done by him in the execution or purported execution of the Bill and within the scope of his employment if he honestly believed he was required or entitled to do it under the Bill. Subsection (2) authorises a local authority to indemnify an inspector who may have been sued for damages in respect of an act by him which he honestly believed to be in the execution of the Act but which was, in fact, outside the scope of his employment.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, mentioned that he based his Amendment on an almost identical provision of the Shops Bill, 1957; and there are, in fact, other precedents in the Food and Drugs Act, 1955, and in public health legislation. When our Amendments were discussed in another place last week it was argued by one of the friends of the noble Lord in another place that the principle of equality before the law made it desirable 1039 that all public officials, whether local authority inspectors or otherwise, should not be relieved of any personal liability for tortious acts. The view was expressed that, despite the precedents, this principle should not be infringed even where an inspector acts within the scope of his employment and in good faith. An Amendment was therefore moved to leave out subsection (1) of the new clause. My right honourable friend the Minister of Labour, in the light of further legal advice he received on this point, decided to recommend acceptance of this Amendment. No change was proposed in the content of subsection (2) of the clause other than the Amendment in line 10, which is consequential on the deletion of subsection (1).
I am sure that the House will recognise the importance of preventing any further erosion of the principle of equality before the law. In practice, if a local inspector commits a tortious act within the scope of his employment the employing authority is equally liable and no doubt will stand behind him if he is sued for damages. I think I owe the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, an apology for having to change my mind on his Amendment—for having accepted it and now having to ask the House to take a contrary view. But, for the reasons I have given, I recommend to your Lordships that the Amendments made in another place to the new clause should be accepted. I beg to move.

§ LORD SHEPHERD
My Lords, I rise just to say that I have had consultations with my honourable friends in another place and also with the Attorney General and, following those discussions, I am happy to recommend to the House that these Amendments be accepted. The purpose of moving the original new clause was to give protection to the inspectors who would be called upon to perform an onerous and, in some cases, difficult task. It was when looking through previous legislation that I came across this particular clause. I thought that it was admirable and that it met many of the fears that have been expressed to me. For that reason I placed 1040 the Amendment before the House on Report stage.
Subsection (2), to which I—and, I think, the House—attach very considerable importance remains. But in regard to subsection (1) we have a clash of opinion. My honourable friends and the Government now take the view that it is wrong for an official—or, for that matter, any person, whether he be Prime Minister, Archbishop or the sanitary inspector—to be above the law: that all should be equal in the law. That is not the case, however, so far as the Food and Drugs Act, 1955, is concerned, where these very words are included. Therefore, though the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, says he feels that he owes me an apology, I would say that he does not, because when he and his Ministry made that decision they had firm precedents on which to base their judgment. It is now argued that these words are bad law; and I think I agree. But it would be interesting to know what the Government propose to do about all the other legislation which is on the Statute Book but is now accepted by the Government as bad law; whether it is their intention, now or at an early date, to make the necessary Amendments to make the bad law good law. With those words, I support the Amendments.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, spoke about people being equal "in the law"; I have more usually heard it referred to as being equal "before the law". It is true that, as a general proposition, that is correct; but there are, on occasions, exceptions to it. For instance, I would remind the noble Lord of diplomatic immunity and matters of that sort. I am not familiar with the reasons why this special provision was put into the earlier Act. There may have been good reasons for it; but I think that in every case where it is proposed to depart from the general rule a very strong case requires to be made out. I am sorry that the noble Lord should have got into a little argument with a friend in another place about whether that case was made out in this particular instance. Personally, I do not think it was; but I do think (and I hope I have the noble Lord with me in this) that before we give any special protection in the law to any individual, whoever he may be, a special case requires to be 1041 made out. Having said that, I could not at this moment go so far as to agree with the noble Lord in saying that no special case was made out in relation to the earlier legislation.