CRIMINAL PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) BILL (Hansard, 15 July 1965)

THE EARL OF SELKIRK
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is a short Bill dealing with a precise and small aspect of criminal procedure in Scotland. What it in fact does is to allow the two parties, the prosecutor and the accused, to agree on facts without their necessarily being proved in cases where they are in such agreement. I think the point which is of special interest to your Lordships' House is that this Bill follows directly from a recommendation made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, in the course of a debate last year which was introduced by my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross on law reform. The recommendation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, is, I think, fully carried out.
With your Lordships' permission I will read what he said on that occasion.
Take, then, the second topic I mentioned that there is no right to make an admission in a criminal trial; everything has to be proved 307 meticulously. Days and days of valuable time and an immense amount of money are wasted, and yet there is not the slightest reason that I can see why the reform should not go through. I have never understood why you can admit the whole crime by pleading guilty, but cannot admit any particular fact in the course of the trial if you plead not guilty. To my mind it makes no sense at all, but, again, for a century and a half nobody has done a thing about it because evidence and procedure have tended to be neglected. I put evidence and procedure first for this reason: nine-tenths of the litigation in this country is not concerned with law at all; it is concerned with the ascertainment of facts, in either civil or criminal proceedings."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 258, col. 1070, June 11, 1964.] I am glad to say that I think this Bill covers the point which the noble and learned Lord made in those statements.
If I may put it this way, under the 1933 Act documents could be agreed if both parties accepted that by Minute submitted to the court. This is an extension of that Act and is a consolidation of the two earlier provisions. By this Bill there may now be admission of fact, provided, again, that both parties agree, and provided that the accused is represented professionally. I think this is desirable. I believe that it will not only encourage shorter trials, but also put less of a burden on juries. The accused will certainly lose nothing, and I believe that in some complicated cases such as embezzlement it is to his advantage that the facts in dispute should be clear and not confused. On all these counts I think that this is a desirable step forward. I believe that the profession in Scotland welcome this Bill, and I hope that the Government will be able to do so, too.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS
My Lords, if I may from these Benches welcome the Bill that has been presented to your Lordships this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Selkirk, I think I need say only a very few words. The explanation which the noble Earl has given will be enough in itself, I think, to commend this measure to your Lordships, in that time, money and inconvenience will all be saved—in some cases a great deal of all of them. If it were not for the plain and obvious good sense of that, the recommendation and blessing which has been given to this particular reform by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, 308 should make quite certain that the matter is all in order.
I am glad that the noble Earl has taken the opportunity to bring together the two previous statutory provisions, which occur in subsection (4) of Clause 1 of this Bill, whereby documents could be agreed, and whereby, I think, in summary trials, but not in the case of indictable offences, single matters could also be agreed between the prosecution and the defence. There is now a full range in which facts and documents can be agreed in all criminal trials. This must be an admirable improvement in the law of Scotland, and to everyone's advantage. I therefore hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, will be able to give the same welcome to the Bill in this House as it received from the Government in another place.

§ THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD HUGHES)
My Lords, I wish to state the Government's attitude towards this Bill in a way that would commend itself to the noble Lord, Lord Egremont. It has been considered by the Lord Advocate and, on his advice, I can say that it makes a useful amendment to the law which the Government would be happy to see enacted.