HL Deb 27 June 1967 vol 284 cc82-91

2.42 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.—(Baroness Phillips.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]

Clause 1:

Use of Welsh in legal proceedings

1.—(1) In any legal proceeding in Wales or Monmouthshire the Welsh language may be spoken by any party, witness or other person who desires to use it, subject in the case of proceedings in a court other than a magistrates' court to such prior notice as may be required by rules of court; and any necessary provision for interpretation shall be made accordingly.

LORD ABERDARE moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "in the case of proceedings in a court other than a magistrates' court". The noble Lord said: Under the Bill as it stands at the moment, any person who so wishes may use the Welsh language in legal proceedings, but in all courts except magistrates' courts he has to give prior notice, as may be required by the rules of the court, so that proper arrangements may be made for interpretation. This Amendment seeks to include magistrates' courts in this provision so that notice would have to be given by a person who wished to speak the Welsh language in a magistrates' court. I raised this matter during the Second Reading debate, as it seemed to me that there might well be delays and difficulties if persons who wished to speak Welsh were not required to give prior notice that they were going to do so. It will certainly happen more often under the provisions of this Bill than in the past that people will wish to speak Welsh, because under the provisions of this Bill anybody may speak Welsh, whereas at present, they may do so only if it is a disadvantage to them to speak English.

What I am suggesting was recommended by Sir David Hughes Parry and his Committee, in paragraph 204 of their Report. Replying to the debate on Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, said: …hitherto in Welsh-speaking areas interpretation in magistrates' courts has not posed any problem… I fully agree with that. What worries me is what is going to happen in predominantly English-speaking areas in Wales, and particularly in Monmouthshire, if there is no requirement for people to give prior notice if they wish to be heard in Welsh.

The noble Baroness continued: and in any event the adjournment of a magistrates' court is not quite so inconvenient or expensive as would be the case with a higher court".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 1139; 15/6/67.] I agree with that also, but I do not think that Welsh-speaking Welshmen will be particularly pleased if every time they come to court and speak in Welsh the case is adjourned until an interpreter is found. So it seems to me that it would be better to leave in the provision that notice must be given in all cases, and depend on the rules of the court as to what the requirement is. In other words, in Welsh-speaking areas there may well be no need to specify that prior notice must be given, but in certain other areas, where the normal language is English, the rules of the court could specify that if a person wished to speak Welsh he should give notice. I believe that this would prove a more practical arrangement. If the Bill is left in its present form, whatever difficulties may arise in future can never be put right. A court could never require prior notice, unless there was an amendment to the law, whereas if what I suggest is done, courts could require notice but if they did not wish to do so it could be left out of the rules of the court. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 14, leave out ("in the case of proceedings in a court other than a magistrates' court").—(Lord Aberdare.)

LORD OGMORE

I hope that the Committee will not accept this Amendment but will leave the Bill as it is at the moment. There are advantages both ways, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, indicated, but I think that on balance it is better to leave the Bill as it is. The Bill seems to be more insistent on the rights of Welsh-speaking Welshmen than was the Hughes Parry Committee—plus royaliste que le roi. I believe that they were thinking more in terms of the county court or of the High Court than of the magistrates' court. If we insisted on this Amendment, I believe that litigants, witnesses, defendants or prosecutors would turn up without giving any prior notice, so that there would have to be an adjournment anyway.

I do not think that it would have any practical effect to leave in these words. In due course it would be well understood in English-speaking areas that if a man wanted to conduct a case in Welsh, then he must give the clerk notice. But the real reason I am against the Amendment is that it would spiritually defeat the object of the Bill. The object of the Bill is that the Welsh and English languages should be put on the same basis in Wales. If we are going to say that everybody who wants to speak Welsh has to give prior notice, the whole object of the Bill is gone. In areas where 75 per cent. of the people speak Welsh, it would be better if a person had to give notice that he wanted to speak English and had an English interpreter present. I accept that this is a matter of balance, and on balance I think that the Government are right and would ask the Committee not to accept this Amendment.

LORD MAELOR

Let me say at the outset that I regard the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in high esteem. Indeed, he is an excellent example of an English-speaking Welshman. But I hope that I am not using too strong an adjective to describe his Amendment when I say that it is simply preposterous. Think of the situation—a man in his own country, speaking the language of that country, has to ask permission of the court to be allowed to speak that language. If that Welshman committed a crime in England —rarely done, by the way—one could understand him giving notice to the English court that he cannot speak and understand English, and therefore gives due notice that he will be asking for an interpreter. But for a man in his own country, who speaks Welsh habitually, to be asked to give due notice that he will be speaking his own language, I say again is simply preposterous. I hope that my adjective is not too strong. Indeed, it will whittle away the whole idea of the Bill of giving the same validity to the Welsh language in Wales as is now given to the English language. I hope that your Lordships will reject this Amendment. But first I would appeal to the noble Lord to withdraw it.

LORD ARWYN

I was not present on the Second Reading of this Bill, much to my misfortune, and I should like to join with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Maelor in my respect for the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. There are few Peers in Wales who have done so much work as he. The situation with regard to the status of the Welsh language stems from the Act of Union of 1536. Anyone interested in the results of the machinations of Thomas Cromwell, who was responsible for that Act, can see something of it in the film which is now in London. It shows the character of the man. We had to suffer for 400 years because of that man's machinations. A lot of this was due to the lack of virility among the Welsh nobility of those days.

LORD SHEPHERD

Would my noble friend permit me to interrupt him? I gather that he wishes to commend the Bill to your Lordships. We have in front of us an Amendment, which is of a very narrow scope, and a considerable amount of business which I am sure is of interest to all quarters. I wonder whether my noble friend would agree that his commendation of the Bill could be given on Third Reading, when I assure him that he would have a proper basis for so doing. I think that it would be wrong for us to go too wide on what is a pretty narrow issue, particularly in view of the long list of business that is now before us.

LORD ARWYN

I accept my noble friend's suggestion and apologise to your Lordships. It was not my intention to make such a long speech as the bundle in my hand might suggest. At the same time, I wanted to say that there is a wave of self-respect coming up from Wales. I think that the noble Lord's Amendment may cause some repercussions which he himself does not realise, and if it could be withdrawn that would help us very much indeed.

BARONESS PHILLIPS

I am wondering why the Welsh seem to react to these matters more passionately than the Scots or the Irish. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for the comments he made in introducing the Amendment, and perhaps any words that I say may seem rather inadequate after the comments of the noble Lords, Lord Maelor and Lord Ogmore. The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, referred to the spiritual policy of the Bill and I should like to underline that this is one of the most important reasons why the Government do not wish to accept this Amendment.

As the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, will be aware, the present position, under the 1942 Act, is that a person who wishes to speak Welsh in a magistrates' court does not have to give notice. To say that he should now have to give notice would be to derogate from the rights that he already has. I accept the noble Lord's point that there may be more people who may ask to use Welsh in magistrates' courts, but I hope that he will accept the evidence of the Hughes Parry Committee that a considerable use of Welsh is already made in Welsh-speaking areas and that outside these areas requests for evidence in Welsh are rare. I repeat that we are in a little doubt about what the position will be in future, but it is clear that adjourning a case in a magistrates' court—and I speak here as one with some magisterial experience—is not uncommon or difficult. People attending almost invariably live locally and little inconvenience is caused by an adjournment. But basically it is important that the Bill itself, as the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, said, should be one which gives the Welshman the right to speak Welsh without prior notice in a court of this kind. I hope that the noble Lord will accept this and withdraw the Amendment.

LORD ABERDARE

I am grateful for what the noble Lady has said. My only concern was to avoid any difficulties, and it struck me that if every time somebody came and spoke Welsh in a predominantly English-speaking court, and if every time the case had to be adjourned, there might well be more ruction than peace. But I am certainly swayed by what has been said by my fellow Welshman, for whom I have a high regard. However, I do not think I am being preposterous. If I am being preposterous, so is the requirement that a Welshman has to give notice in other courts; and so is the Hughes Parry Report preposterous. However, with those few remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 [Welsh Versions of statutory forms etc.]:

On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?

BARONESS PHILLIPS

I ought, in connection with Clause 2 of the Bill, to draw special attention to the position of forms used for the purpose of legal proceedings. How the powers conferred by Clause 2 will in fact be exercised is, of course, a matter for the Ministers concerned, but I think I can say that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary will probably wish to take advantage of the provisions of Clause 2 so as to make available in appropriate cases Welsh versions of the forms most commonly used in criminal proceedings and in some proceedings in juvenile courts relating to children who are in need of care and control or who fail to attend school. Thus, I think it is very likely that there will be available—as I believe there is already available on an unofficial basis—a Welsh version of the form of summons used in a magistrates' court.

But forms used in civil proceedings in the High Court and the county courts stand on a rather different footing, as the Hughes Parry Committee recognised in paragraphs 206 and 207 of their Report. As the Committee said, summonses and other documents used in criminal proceedings normally emanate from the court itself, and there may well be little difficulty in ascertaining whether the defendant to whom the document is addressed would expect to be addressed in Welsh. Moreover, criminal proceedings have a territorial association with the defendant which may be altogether lacking in civil proceedings between private individuals. In civil proceedings the court has little control over documents passing between one party and another, and it would plainly be quite wrong for one side to send the other a document in Welsh which the other party might be quite incapable of understanding.

It is doubtful whether there is really any demand for documents used in such proceedings to be in the Welsh language at all, and it would certainly be a waste of time and money to produce Welsh translations of the very large number of forms used in civil proceedings in the county courts in the absence of clear evidence of a need for them. This is a matter on which the decision must rest with the Lord Chancellor, but I think it quite likely that he will not wish to prescribe Welsh versions of forms of this kind unless it could be shown that they would really serve a useful purpose. Where a Welsh version of a form is used in court proceedings an English version will have to be made available, as well. This will be particularly necessary where the forms are needed in a court outside Wales at a later stage in the proceedings, in the event, for instance, of an appeal. It is obviously essential that anyone into whose hands any form may come should be able to understand everything in it. It will be possible to provide for this, as well as for the possibility of any discrepancy between the Welsh and English versions of a completed form, by means of any order that may be made under Clause 2 of the Bill.

LORD OGMORE

On the Second Reading of the Bill I raised the question of forms, and particularly the language used in them, and I then suggested to the noble Baroness that we might follow the example of Switzerland and Canada—where forms are printed, in the case of Canada, in French and English, and in the case of Switzerland in two or even three languages—and print them in Welsh and English. I am wondering whether in the speech which she has just made this point is covered in full. There will be a great waste of Government money if all Government offices throughout Wales have to keep two sets of every form. One can imagine that in English-speaking areas, such as Radnorshire, where Welsh is not spoken greatly, if every Government office has to keep a duplicate set of forms in case a Welsh form is asked for one a year, it will be a great waste. That is why I suggested the noble Baroness might look into this question.

On the wider question the noble Baroness has raised, there again I suggest that one will have to be guided by experience. It may be that in certain areas where 75 per cent. of the population speak Welsh there will be a call to provide civil litigation forms in Welsh. This may sound very difficult, but I practised for years in Malaya, where we had not only one language, but five or six languages. Commonly we had English, which very few people spoke, anyway; we had Malay; we had Tamil; we had Urdu and several dialects in Chinese. Bearing in mind that sort of situation, one realises that it is not so difficult to deal with just English and Welsh. I suggest to the noble Baroness that the Government should not close their minds on this question of civil proceedings. I do not think it will be found to be anything like so difficult as it seems. At first sight, it may be that we shall have to print in Welsh and in English some civil litigation forms.

As to the pleadings, it may be that if you put the pleadings in one language you will have to supply a translation yourself. So far as I recall, in Malaya (it is some years since I practised there) the court used to provide a translation. At any rate, a translation was always provided. But although the court provided a translation, I rather think that the recipient had to provide his own translation outside the court. In other words, when it came to the judge, he was provided with a translation, but the parties were responsible for providing their own translation of whatever document was required if it was in a language other than their own.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER)

As I suppose I shall have to decide this matter, it may be helpful if I say a word or two now. May I say that my mind is not at all closed on the question which has been raised? I must bear in mind, I think, that the Hughes Parry Committee was an all-Welsh Committee. It is none the worse for that, but one has to read its report in that light. The Committee, in paragraphs 75 and 76 of the Report, dealing with county courts, said: Precise statistics as to the number of cases where evidence has been tendered in Welsh are not available. Such cases often occur in north-west Wales, less frequently in Cardiganshire and Caernarvonshire, and rarely in other parts of Wales. In south-west Wales, including the County Borough of Swansea, the number of persons who expressed a desire to give evidence in Welsh during the last few years showed a tendency to diminish. In a period of six years there were only two cases at Swansea where Welsh was used; and in the Pontypridd County Court evidence was given in Welsh twice in a year. There is virtually no demand for the use of the Welsh language in the County Courts of Breconshire, Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire. In the six North Wales Counties no practical difficulties are experienced if a witness or party desires to give evidence in Welsh. The judge or his registrar is able to translate for the benefit of non-Welsh advocates or witnesses. In the South Wales courts, in the rare cases where it is required, there is someone present in the Courts who can act as an interpreter or the services of an interpreter can be obtained. In dealing with documents the Report says: We agree with the views expressed to us by the officers of the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary"— this is after dealing with criminal courts— that different considerations apply to civil proceedings in the High Court and the county courts from those which apply to criminal proceedings. In the case of the latter, summonses and other documents normally emanate from the court itself and there may well be little difficulty in ascertaining whether the defendant or other person to whom the document is addressed would expect to be addressed in Welsh. Moreover, criminal proceedings have a territorial association with the defendant which may be altogether lacking in civil proceedings, between the two parties. The position is quite different in civil proceedings. Not only are there many more forms in use in the civil courts—there are, for example, no less than 389 prescribed forms in the county courts—but in civil proceedings, pleadings, notices and other documents are commonly exchanged between the parties, and the court has little control over the issue of documents of this kind. For these reasons we think that it is inexpedient to make any changes in the present practice in the case of civil proceedings other than to allow any party or witness to give his evidence in Welsh if he so desires and to ensure that evidence in English should be interpreted for the benefit of Welsh-speaking parties who request it. My mind is not at all closed about this, though the difficulties of providing 389 bilingual forms for practically nobody who wants them might be considerable. But it may not be unfair if I say that I shall start out with a slight feeling that I do not really need to be more Welsh-minded than the Hughes Parry Committee.

LORD OGMORE

I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. I think, as I said before, that it is a matter in which experience will guide him and others. I would suggest that he does not close his mind for some little time to come—not at the end of these proceedings here—and sees how it goes on. It may be that the præcipe in the county court, or something of that kind, might be in Welsh. I would point out that we are not dealing very much here, certainly in pleadings, with practical matters. As the noble Baroness said, I agree that it is largely a spiritual or psychological matter that we are dealing with; and I think that if the noble and learned Lord can go as far as possible in this field he will give a lot of pleasure to many people.

LORD MAELOR

I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, in the appeal he has made for having the two languages on the same form. During the Second Reading debate he asked about this matter so far as cheques are concerned. I have brought my cheque book here to-day, for all it is worth. The Midland Bank already have the two languages, English and Welsh, on cheque books, and I find it extremely convenient.

BARONESS PHILLIPS

I can add nothing more to that, other than perhaps to hope that the noble Lord is not a director of the aforesaid bank. But I would take this opportunity of telling not only the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, but the noble Lords, Lord Maelor and Lord Moyle, and various others who took part in the discussion, that if they have not had replies from me on the various points raised—the bilingual form was one, and the question of Monmouthshire was another—these will be forthcoming.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.

House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.