Lords Sitting of 12 November 1968

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Coventry.

LONDON PROBATION SERVICE: CLERICAL ASSISTANTS' PAY
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government—
1. How many clerical assistants are permitted to be employed in the Inner London Probation Service;
2. How many are employed by the Inner London Probation Service and how many have to be obtained through private employment agencies;
3. The rate per hour paid to the private employment agencies;
4. When the principle to pay Inner London Probation Service clerical assistants the same rate as clerical assistants in the four other Greater London Probation areas will be implemented.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, the present establishment is for 158 clerical assistants. I understand that there are at present 80 full-time and 36 part-time clerical assistants in post and that an average of 45 to 50 shorthand-typists have to be engaged from employment agencies each week. The hourly rate paid to an agency for each person so engaged is between 12s. 3d. and 15s. 7d. In answer to the last part of the Question, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary hopes to be able to authorise the change next August.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for his reply, I should like to ask him one or
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two supplementary questions. Is my noble friend aware that between £50,000 and £60,000 a year goes in wages and salaries to clerical assistants employed from the agencies, and that in fact many of these clerical assistants employed from the agencies are receiving more per annum than many probation officers who have been in the service for some years?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I think the amount spent on these girls from agencies is somewhat less than my noble friend imagines. With regard to a comparison between the hourly rates paid to them and those to clerical assistants, comparison is not easy because of superannuation, National Health insurance, overheads, and so on. But, in the nature of things, I should have thought it was rather more costly, although the more senior established clerical assistants in post earn hourly rates strictly comparable to those that I mentioned.

ARMED FORCES PENSIONS
2.39 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order I Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is their intention, when considering legislation "to increase the pensions of retired members of the public services and their dependants" (as foreshadowed in the gracious Speech) also to increase the pensions of retired members of the Regular Forces and their dependants; and war pensions and allowances.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE, R.A.F. (LORD WINTERBOTTOM): My Lords, the Question deals with two classes of Armed Forces pensioners. So far as Service pensions for retired members of the Armed Forces and their dependants are concerned, your Lordships will recall that increases in Armed Forces pensions are made under the Royal Prerogative, whereas increases in public service pensions require legislation. We intend that, as in previous years, increases in pensions for the Armed Forces should follow whatever pattern is laid down for

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the rest of the public service in the legislation foreshadowed in the gracious Speech.
As to war pensions and allowances, increases are made separately under War Pensions Instruments and, as my noble friend Lord Bowles told the noble Lord on May 21, 1968, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister indicated that a further general uprating could not be undertaken before at least the autumn of 1969. I would remind the noble Lord that substantial increases were made a year ago, and I would add that the real value of benefits has increased 12–13 per cent. since the present Government took office in October, 1964.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, while acknowledging with thanks what has been done, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that the basic war pension is already at this date 6s. 10d. below what it might be expected to be if account had been taken of the cost-of-living rise; and that if the allowances which go to a great many of the men who are most severely disabled are also taken into account, then the deficiency is more like 12s. or 13s., or even 22s.? That being so, will he assure us that the Chancellor will make provision in his Budget so that during the forthcoming year these deficiencies may be made up?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Lord is of course quite correct in that the time for consideration is at Budget time next year. I have said that a general uprating could not be undertaken before at least the autumn of 1969, in the next Budget year. I will bear in mind what the noble Lord has said and will convey it to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
LORD THURLOW: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that widows' pensions and pensions of those officers who retired under the 1919 code are now very far behind, considering the great rise in the cost of living in the last two years? Can the Government give any assurance that they will give sympathetic attention to trying to get these pensions regulated more fairly in relation to the cost of living?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I think the noble Lord has made a very valid point. Again, I will convey that to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord this question? Are we to understand, both from his original reply and from my noble friend's supplementary, that even after a 13 per cent. rise in the basic cost of pensions those who receive them are still less well off, thanks to the drop in the value of money over the last two years?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: No, my Lords; I did not say that. In point of fact, the pensioners who receive this benefit have still had an absolute increase.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the Government to have regard to one case which I have found to be of great difficulty? A regular sailor who retired before 1914 came back and served in 1914 after having been maimed in civilian life. He also served during the recent war. Now on a quite exiguous pension, if anything goes wrong he is absolutely helpless because his injury prevents him from working. When approached the authorities say, "Ah, but his injury is not attributable to the war". Will Her Majesty's Government remember that you cannot approbate and reprobate the same document, and if you accept a maimed man you ought to accept the implications.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, if the noble Lord will write to me, I will study the case.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, the noble Lord said that there had been an absolute rise in war pensions. That is true. But there has not been a relative rise. That is the point.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that this is all special pleading? In the past we have always taken the pensions of those maimed and killed in war together with the other social benefits on the Statute Book, such as old age pensions and injuries benefit?

POST OFFICE MAIL DELIVERIES
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that legal business is under handicap because it is impossible to ensure that first-class mail posted one day in Lincoln's Inn Fields will reach the other side of Lincoln's Inn Fields the next day.]
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Postmaster General has received no complaints about delay in the delivery of first-class letters posted in Lincoln's Inn Fields for the other side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. They should be delivered on the day of posting or first post the next day, and this service is almost invariably being given.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, and admitting that the service has been somewhat better since I put down my Question, may I ask this further question? Are Her Majesty's Government aware that in Lincoln's Inn Fields the 5d. letters continue to dribble in throughout the whole day, and that the bulk of them arrive by the noon post, notwithstanding the fact that they may have been posted on the other side of the square or in any other part of London, or indeed elsewhere in the country? And will the Government endeavour to live up to their promises to see that mail posted on one side of the square reaches the other side by the first post the next morning, or indeed if it is posted anywhere in London?
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I think the House should know something about these things. The noble Lord's cousin gave this information. What happened was that when my right honourable friend the Postmaster General went round to see and to make inquiries, the noble Lord's relative refused to produce any evidence in support of his statement. So I do not propose to answer any further.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, can the noble Lord at least give an assurance that complaints posted to the Postmaster General reach him the next day?
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, if the noble Viscount has any inquiry perhaps he will be courteous enough to allow my right honourable friend to inquire fully into it.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm or deny that when complaints have been made to the local post office about the late delivery of the 5d. post, they say that it is inevitable because of the extra time taken to pick out the 5d. letters from the 4d. letters?
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, no complaint was made to the local head postmaster and I think the noble Lord will be serving his country a little better if he realises that the Questions he puts down cost the ratepayers £12 per Question.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may I draw the noble Lord's attention to the fact that this is the most extraordinary answer that I have ever heard in this House, and will he make certain in future that complaints made to counter clerks in post offices percolate as far as the head postmaster in that office?
LORD BOWLES: My Lords, I think that anybody who makes a complaint should ask to see the head postmaster, and he will, then be interviewed.

TRADE WITH FINLAND
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the present volume of exports from the United Kingdom to Finland; and whether they will give consideration to a British Trade Fair in Finland to increase our export potential.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD BROWN): My Lords, during the first nine months of 1968 exports from the United Kingdom to Finland were valued at £58·3 million. Consideration is being given to various ways in which British trade with Finland Can be further promoted, but I doubt whether an all-British Trade Fair will prove to be the most effective method.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. Is he aware that under the able leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, a British Parliamentary delegation went to Finland earlier this year? I had the honour of being one of its members. Would he be assured that the Finns themselves wish for much more trade between our two countries? Is he also aware that the Finns, particularly through Finn Focus, have been promoting a number of trade exhibitions in this country this year? Would he agree that any help given to British exporters should be given high priority, in view of the friendly relations existing between our two countries?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, we have under consideration at the moment a trade drive in Finland in 1970 which will involve a range of events. All-British trade promotions are usually reserved for countries where there is an insufficiency of the normal type of industrial exhibition. We have noted the great help given by the noble Lord, Lord Peddle, and others in their Parliamentary visit, and we are grateful to them.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that Finnish acceptance of the British tender for the erection of a nuclear reactor in Finland would do a great deal towards redressing the present adverse balance of trade? Would he also inform the House what progress has been made over recent months towards that end?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, the Finnish nuclear reactor would be a most useful addition to our national order book. As the Finnish Government have decided to put a decision on this matter in cold storage for the time being, I would hazard the opinion that all is not lost; but I can go no further than that.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, is it not a fact that another country has intervened to prevent the signing of this contract with us?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, I think it is well known that the Finnish Government has been in a somewhat difficult position on this matter. I think the less said for the moment the better.

AGRICULTURAL OBJECTIVES
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 I shall be repeating a Statement to be made by my right honourable friend in another place on agricultural objectives.
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report.

GENOCIDE BILL [H.L.]
2.50 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This year, 1968, is Human Rights Year, and it is fitting that we should be introducing legislation to enable this country to accede to one of the earliest and most fundamental of the United Nations Conventions: that relating to the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.
As the United Nations' own pamphlet on the Convention begins by reminding us, "genocide" is a modern word for an old crime—the deliberate destruction of national, racial, religious or ethnic groups. The history of the world is littered with these bloody episodes, generated by evil motive and justified by specious pretext. Thus we find genocide induced by fear and suspicion, as in Trajan's and Diocletian's persecutions of the Christians in the early centuries after Christ, when hundreds of thousands perished; genocide committed in sheer lust for power, as when Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes reduced China, India and the Ukraine to submission at the cost of millions of lives; and there was the greed, coated with a patina of religious fanaticism, which led to the destruction, by invaders, of the civilisation of the Incas. Other examples in the centuries before and since will, I am sure, readily occur to your Lordships.
It was, however, the appalling atrocities committed, in particular, on the Jews by the Nazi Government of Germany, that shocked the civilised world into outlawing this abominable crime. The price paid for the hatred and envy that gave

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rise to the loathsome racial dogma that spawned the concentration camps was 6 million lives, and even more broken bodies and broken minds. Small wonder that the world should cry: "Enough!"
One of the first steps taken by the General Assembly of the United Nations, during its first Session in 1946, was therefore to pass a resolution affirming genocide to be a crime under international law and that those guilty of it, whoever they were and for whatever reason they committed it, should be punished. It went on to ask the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations to undertake the necessary studies with a view to drawing up a draft Convention on the crime of genocide. In 1947, the Secretary General, at the request of the Economic and Social Council, prepared a first draft of the Convention and circulated it to member States for their comments. The following year the Economic and Social Council appointed an ad hoc committee of seven members to submit to it a revised draft. This done, the Council decided to transmit the draft to the General Assembly, which adopted it on December 9, 1948, as the Genocide Convention of the United Nations.
The Convection consists of 19 Articles, of which the following three are the most important. Article I confirms that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which the parties undertake to prevent and to punish. Article II, which is reproduced in the Schedule to the Bill, sets out the acts which are regarded as constituting the crime of genocide. Article VII requires genocide to be an extradition crime and that it shall not, in that context, be regarded as a political crime—one, I think, of the most important things in the Bill.
The Convention also provides, in Article VI, for genocide to be dealt with either in the State within whose territory it was committed or by an international penal tribunal. Although, however, the International Law Commission reported that an international criminal court was both possible and desirable, there is as yet no body exercising any international criminal jurisdiction to deal in practice with cases of this kind. In the circumstances, therefore, our legislation is restricted to what is necessary to provide for genocide. eo nomine, to be a crime
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under the laws of the United Kingdom and to be extraditable.
Genocide within the United Kingdom is in my view barely conceivable. I know that Boadicea's activities against the Roman colonists have been so described, but that was over 1,900 years ago and I do not mean to accept chat as a precedent. Moreover, all, or almost all, the acts defined in the Convention as constituting the offence are already offences under different descriptions under the laws of this country. It is therefore in the extradition field that such benefit as may accrue from this Bill is most likely to be felt. Here again, I should not wish to convey the impression that the passing of this legislation will be the starting gun to set in motion a series of extradition applications for fugitives accused of genocide who are already in our midst, but have hitherto been immune from extradition because genocide, as such, has not been an extradition crime in this country. So far as I know, we are harbouring no one in that category. This Bill will therefore be primarily an insurance for the future—that if this sickening crime should occur here, or be committed elsewhere by an offender who flees here, we shall be able to deal with him.
My Lords, I am aware of the doubts which Ministers of the previous Administration felt about the wisdom of the provision in the Convention that genocide should never, for extradition purposes, he regarded as a crime of political character. I am aware also of the extent to which, by acceding to that provision, we might be derogating from the traditional right of political asylum which this country offers, and on which it justly prides itself. If, however, it is accepted that there are some offences for which it would never be right to grant political asylum—and I recall the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, arguing this point with some force last year when we were considering the Fugitive Offenders Bill—then surely genocide is such a crime.
It may of course be argued that, for the most part, applications for extradition for genocide are likely to be made in the aftermath of conflict, when bitterness is rife, accusations are legion, and any trumped-up charge may be mounted in an attempt to secure the surrender of a fugitive. And in the absence of the

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political provision, one could ask what safeguard is there for the innocent man who is the subject of a purely vindictive application. The answer lies, I think, in the normal extradition machinery which operates in this country whereby before a person can be surrendered such evidence of his culpability has to be produced as would justify his committal for trial here. Even in the normal course, a substantial proportion of extradition applications fail to surmount this hurdle, and an unsubstantiated charge of genocide would, I am sure, stand little or no chance of success. The Government have therefore come to the view that, in common with the 71 other member countries of the United Nations who are already parties to the Genocide Convention, they need not baulk at accepting Article VII in its entirety.
There is one respect in which the Bill goes beyond the strict requirements of the Convention. That is, in providing that genocide shall be a returnable offence for extradition purposes, notwithstanding that it might not have been punishable under the law of the place where it was committed at the time when it was committed. It is no good turning a blind eye to the possibility, indeed the likelihood, that a Power—a country—which initiates the crime of genocide will have taken care to legitimate its actions under its own domestic law. It was the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal which first recognised that war criminals were not only those who had violated the customs of war but those who had carried out crimes against humanity, whether or not those crimes violated the domestic law of the country in which they took place. Later, Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in providing that no-one should be held guilty of any criminal offence which did not constitute an offence at the time of its commission, specifically excluded from the scope of that safeguard, acts which were
"criminal according to the general principles of law recognised by civilised nations".
That clearly applies to genocide, and since it would be so obviously wrong that justice should be rendered impotent by the expedient of legitimating this vile crime the Government have thought it right to follow the precedent of the Euro-
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pean Human Rights Convention and to provide for an act of genocide to be a returnable offence whatever its legal standing when and where it was committed.
Your Lordships may find it helpful if, following these general comments, I rapidly run through the individual provisions of the Bill. Clause 1 provides for acts falling within the definition of "genocide" in the United Nations Genocide Convention to be offences both under the domestic criminal laws and the military law of the United Kingdom and specifies the penalties. An offence of genocide involving killing will be punishable by the fixed penalty of life imprisonment. Other offences will be punishable by up to fourteen years' imprisonment. Clause 2 makes such offences returnable offences, for the purposes of extradition to both foreign and Commonwealth countries, and removes from them the safeguards applicable to offences of a political character. It also provides that, for the purpose of these offences, return shall not be dependent upon the act concerned having been an offence under the law of the other country when committed. Clause 3 extends the extradition provisions of the Bill to the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the dependencies, and enables the domestic provisions to be similarly extended by Order in Council.
The Schedule sets out the terms of Article II of the Genocide Convention, specifying the acts comprising the offence of genocide.
My Lords, as I said at the outset, this is Human Rights Year. The record of the United Kingdom in the field of human rights is an outstanding one. We played a full part in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed in 1948, and the United Nations Convenants which, after eighteen years, were opened for signature in December, 1966. These Covenants, which are designed to give international effect to the Universal Declaration, were signed by the United Kingdom on September 16 this year. The United Kingdom was also the first country to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights (in March 1951), and in January, 1966, we accepted the right of individual petition and the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court of Human Rights.

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Other international instruments which we have ratified include the Geneva Conventions, the Slavery Conventions, the Convention on the Political Rights of Women and a number of I.L.O. Conventions. I hope that your Lordships will agree that it is right and timely that we should now place ourselves in a position to add the Genocide Convention to that list. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Stonham.)
3.7 p.m.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, I should like to start by saying how glad we on these Benches are to see the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, back in his place and looking so fit and well.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD DENHAM: The noble Lord has returned to us in top form and has dealt so thoroughly with this Bill and the reasons behind it that there is little left for me to say. The Bill is necessary to carry out our international obligations. All I need add is that we on this side of the House welcome the Bill and wish it a speedy and easy passage through Parliament.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I should like from this side of the House to join with the noble Lord, Lord Denham, in welcoming back my noble friend Lord Stonham, and also to say how grateful we are to him for introducing this Bill. As my noble friend has said, this is the International Year for Human Rights and it seems particularly appropriate that a Bill of this kind should be introduced in 1968. Genocide must surely be one of the most terrible of all crimes, and one which, as my noble friend has reminded us has tragically occured throughout history; but during the lifetime of most of us it has been conducted on a scale of horror unknown in previous centuries. To my mind it is even worse than political persecution, since the victims are given no choice: they are doomed from birth, and for reasons beyond their control. Therefore it is only through international cooperation that, in the words of the Convention, mankind can be liberated from this odious scourge.
I welcome particularly Clause 2 which makes genocide an extraditable offence
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as required by Article VII of the Convention. I welcome also the fact that genocide is not to be treated as an offence of a political character by means of which a demand for extradition may be resisted. As my noble friend has said, this must be one of the most important parts of the Bill. I do not wish in principle to see any weakening of the extradition law, but nevertheless I think that the Government are absolutely right to make an exception in the case of genocide.
I am also glad to see the inclusion of subsection (3) of Clause 2, which makes genocide an extraditable offence even if the act was legal in the particular country at the time it was committed there. We are all familiar with examples from recent years where the most terrible crimes were committed and made legitimate by the domestic laws of the country concerned; but, my Lords, genocide, since that terrible and tragic period in history, which will for ever be a blot on the 20th century, has now been recognised as a crime against humanity and punishable under International Law. My Lords, I welcome this Bill. It is an important Bill, and I hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.
3.11 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, before we pass the Second Reading I should like very timidly to offer a word of caution, having been, with a very large number of friends whom I have lost, busily engaged in genocide, according to the definition of this Bill, between the years 1914 and 1918. Also having watched the same thing over twenty years ago, may I say that if trying to kill Germans is not genocide under the definition of the Bill, I do not know what is. We have to remember not only the six million people Hitler so barbarously executed but also the way in which our Russian allies stole countless children from occupied Germany, while we sat making no protest at all. We have to remember that when we handed over India we gave the opportunity for enormous mass genocide; I think it has been estimated that it involved two million persons there alone.
I think we have to watch very carefully what we are now doing. Moreover, I am bound to say that I do not think it is at all impossible that, by means of this Act, people will be able to pursue their enemies to this country, and they may manage to

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convince a court, quite falsely, that by means of extradition their victim must be handed back to them. I have heard what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said about the Bill, and I have read the Bill, but I think we should be rather careful what we are doing now because we may, out of the goodness of our hearts, be doing something that may be found to be very unwise in the future.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I certainly shall not delay beyond a moment this Bill's Second Reading, but I should regard it as unfortunate if a Bill with this Title received a Second Reading without anybody making a protest against the illiteracy of the word "genocide". I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stonham—whose return to the House we all so much welcome—that there is nothing that we can do about it. It is the name that has been given to the crime in the Convention, but it does not prevent it from being wholly illiterate. I think in the brief allusion the noble Lord made to the word he said it was invented for the purpose; he did not saddle with infamy whoever had in fact invented it, but I believe it was not, in fact, an Englishman.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies I wonder whether he could answer one or two questions. Perhaps I missed the answers in his speech. How does this particular Bill apply in respect of rebellions? Secondly, who has signed this particular Convention and who has passed the necessary legislation to implement it? So far as I can see, virtually all the warfare at the moment and in the last few years, in Nigeria and in Africa in general, would appear to come under the heading of "genocide", because inter-tribal warfare involving the Watutsi, the Sudan, Nigeria, the Congo, and indeed in India the war against the Nagas, is a kind of genocide. Have all these people signed the Convention and do they claim to implement it by legislation?
3.15 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I had hoped that this debate might well have concluded with the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Denham, and my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, because that would have left me with the simple task of thanking
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them and congratulating them on striking what I thought was not only the right but the only possible note. Naturally I am grateful for the characteristic contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Conesford. This is a collective responsibility. Seventy-one nations—if this Bill becomes law, 72 nations—will have accepted not only the principle embodied in the Convention but, with it, the word. Therefore there is a collective responsibility; and if the noble Lord proceeded against them, then I think he would be guilty of the crime which this Bill describes, even though his action was taken in the very worthy name of literacy.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord does not imagine that these other countries do not contain hundreds of thousands of people who have the same objection to this illiteracy as I have. After all, knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages is not confined to this country.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I was not suggesting that it was, nor indeed that it was confined to the noble Lord. I was merely following up his remark about the infamy of the word "genocide" and the fact that he who invented it—presumably that was one person—should be one of the first victims. I can only take that as a characteristic contribution from the noble Lord which we all welcome.
The noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, referred to his own activities. The same applies to other noble Lords in this House, and millions of other honest men in two world wars. He used the expression that if that was not genocide he did not know what is. My Lords, I could not disagree with him more flatly or more completely. The crime of genocide, by whatever title he called it, the crime which we are here trying to prevent or, if we cannot prevent it, to punish, means the deliberate destruction of national, racial, religious, or ethnic groups. If the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, is suggesting that either in the last war or the First World War any one of us in this country set out to do any of those things, then I utterly reject his suggestion. I hope we shall never do such things. War is horrible, and sometimes—in fact always, I suppose—if we have to defend ourselves it involves slaughter on an awful scale; but there is

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a difference between that and deliberately setting out to destroy a race for any of the reasons in the definition.
The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, asked me about the 71 countries. The present position, as I have said, is that 71 countries are party to the Convention; 38 have ratified it. I have the names of the 38 here. I do not know whether your Lordships wish me to read them out.
LORD HAWKE: No. Could the noble Lord just say whether it contains the Sudan?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the Sudan is not among the 38 who have ratified. The United Arab Republic is among the 38 who have ratified. There are also 33 who have acceded to the Convention, and this again does not include the Sudan.
I am grateful for the contributions which have been made. I feel that your Lordships will join with me in hoping that we shall never in the future history of this country have to have recourse to this Bill, when it becomes an Act, in respect of any act of genocide by a British citizen.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
3.20 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill is a fairly long Bill dealing with a large number of quite different points affecting the administration of justice. Therefore, I am on Second Reading between the Scylla of not explaining particular provisions sufficiently to the House and the Charybdis of taking too long, and I shall do my best to steer between them.
Part I of the Bill deals with the jurisdiction of the county court and makes various amendments to the County Courts Act. Speaking in general, the jurisdiction of the county court has always depended on the amount in dispute or on the value of the thing in dispute. In 1846 this was £20; in 1903, it was £100; in 1938, it was £200; in
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1955, it was £400; and in 1965, it was £500. I think that we have slipped a little in lowering the jurisdiction since the war. I am told that to-day the equivalent of £200 in 1938 is £742. Therefore, this Bill, in seeking to increase the jurisdiction to £750, is doing no more than restoring the jurisdiction of the county court to what it was in 1938. One of the reasons for doing this at once is the fact that a Committee reported in July. This was a Committee which I appointed between two and three years ago, of which Lord Justice Winn was chairman, on terms of reference which in substance asked them to see whether personal injury actions, which form the bulk of the work of the Queen's Bench Division, could not be tried in the county court, or perhaps in a traffic court, or some other court, more quickly and more simply.
We live in days when it has become fashionable to attack lawyers, particularly for their lack of reforming zeal. In fact, most law reform comes from lawyers, and I should like to say that I have never known a case of a judge or a barrister or a solicitor who has been asked 10 give up a great deal of his spare time, without any reward, on some law reform committee, and who has declined to do so. I am extremely grateful to Lord Justice Winn and to all the members of his Committee for the trouble which they have taken in this matter.
Their Report is one of considerable substance, making a number of recommendations designed to secure that personal injury actions can be tried more simply and more quickly. Many, if not most of them, do not require legislation; they can be dealt with either administratively or by rules of court. One of the recommendations which the Committee make is that the jurisdiction of the county court to hear these cases should be increased to £1,000, with power to increase it later to £1,500. But they hope that before that is done one or two things should happen; namely, that on each circuit there should be some large central court; that court buildings should be improved, and some perhaps built; that tape recorders should be installed; and that there should be reasonable remuneration for the lawyers in any cases under the extended jurisdiction.
One of the difficulties in catching up with the fall in the value of money in

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relation to the jurisdiction of the county court has always been that when the time has come to make an increase the Lord Chancellor has to consult his colleagues and try to persuade them to let him have sufficient Parliamentary time to produce an Act of Parliament. I have always felt that this situation ought to be more flexible. It is partly a practical question. Either the High Court Judges can do no more, or the county court judges have some room to do something, and it is, as I have said, a practical question to see what one can do. That is why, in a later clause in the Bill, provision is made for these questions of jurisdiction to be determined in future by a Statutory Instrument to be laid before Parliament and not to come into effect unless it has been approved affirmatively by both Houses of Parliament.
The points which Lord Justice Winn's Committee have recommended should be attended to first are already very much in my mind. In fact, I had already asked seven county courts on the periphery of London to let everybody know that anyone with an action involving over £200 could have it tape-recorded if he so wished. At the moment nobody has applied for it at all, and I am busy considering what the real demand for it is. To have one central tape-recorded court on each circuit would cost £40,000, so I have to consider that; but I have no doubt that in the meantime we should increase the jurisdiction to £750 and see how that goes. That would be no more than restoring the jurisdiction to what it used to be before the war. Accordingly, for actions of contract, tort or debt Clause 1 increases the jurisdiction from £500 to £750, and Clause 2 makes that alteration wherever £500 appears in different sections of the Act.
Clauses 3 and 4 deal with transfers from the High Court to the county court, or vice versa, and with the question of what is to happen when somebody brings an action in the High Court which, as the result shows, could have been started in the county court. The Bill follows the present practice of providing that if the plaintiff does not recover more than a certain amount he will get only county court costs; and if he recovers a small sum he will get none, because it was an action which ought to have been brought in the county court.
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Clause 5 increases the equity jurisdiction from £500 to £5,000. That may seem a very large increase, but first it is a jurisdiction which has not been increased for 103 years; and secondly, when we have considered cognate questions recently, Parliament has taken the view that in that sort of case £5,000 would not be unreasonable. Your Lordships may remember that two years ago we passed the Family Provision Act, and considered then the fact that no application to the county court could be made under the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act 1938. The change arose because a High Court Judge, hearing such a case, had said: "What a pity that so much in the case of small estates is swallowed up in costs! Surely up to £5,000 it ought to be possible to bring such a case to the county court." Parliament approved of that. Moreover, the county court now hears disputes of title to land to a rateable value of £400—which is just about the £5,000 house.
Clause 6 gives to the county court ancillary jurisdiction such as the High Court already has, mainly in order to enable an urgent injunction to be obtained even before an action is started. It may, in the case of trespass, or in other cases, be necessary to have an immediate injunction, and this clause will enable a county court to do what the High Court can already do.
Clause 7 relates to two distinct questions affecting the right of audience. Under the County Courts Act (this goes back to the Act of 1852) a county court can hear the party, if he is acting in person, or his barrister or his solicitor, or anyone else, by leave of the judge, but not a solicitor advocate; so that the client's solicitor cannot get another solicito appear as an advocate for him if the case is in a neighbouring town to which he cannot get. This raises a delicate question of demarcation disputes and restrictive practices.
Some years ago, in 1949, this matter was considered by the Committee on County Court Procedure, of which Mr. Justice Austin Jones was Chairman. It was a Committee which included representatives of the Bar, including Sir Milner Holland, as he now is. You could not really defend this practice in, for example, a judgment summons which takes a

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couple of minutes. You could not reasonably say that if the solicitor could not get there himself, because the case was in the next town, he should not be allowed to get a solicitor from that town to take it, but had to put the client to all the expense of briefing a barrister. That was plainly indefensible. Moreover, a solicitor could always get round that section of the Act by getting the client to serve a notice on the other side that he had changed his solicitor. That made everything all right. So that this has not, in practice, worked for years.
I remember that we considered this matter when I was Chairman of the Bar Council. We all took the view that it could not be defended so far as small cases or undefended cases were concerned, and we wondered whether we should try to get the section altered to apply it only to larger cases. But we came to the conclusion that that would be a dangerous thing to do, because Parliament would be more likely to remove the restriction altogether. So that this has always been a sore point with solicitors. The barristers—I am not blaming them—have hung on to it as long as they could.
But an Amendment was moved in the other place on the recent Matrimonial Causes Bill to say that in undefended divorce cases solicitors ought to be able to get another solicitor to take the case for them. That was resisted by my right honourable friend the Attorney General, with my full approval, on the ground that if one was going to deal with this at all, it was a general point to be applied to all actions and the divorce cases should not be treated separately. But now, with this Administration of Justice Bill, I am bound to tell the House that I think it is a restrictive practice which simply cannot be defended any longer. I do not believe that it will really make tuppence-worth of difference to the Bar, simply because, as I have said, a solicitor can always get round the section by serving a notice of change.
The second point as to rights of audience arises because there is an Act called the Small Tenements Recovery Act 1838, which enables actions for rent and recovery of small premises to be brought in what, when I was young, was called a police court. Of course, apart from domestic proceedings, the magistrates'
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court is a criminal court, and it is quite anomalous that these actions about very small tenements should be brought in a criminal court. Accordingly, this provision will enable such actions to be brought in the county court. But the local authorities say, "Well, that is all very well, but we are used to the magistrates' court. We just send one of our officers along and these cases are not usually disputed. They are very small cases. If we went to the county court, how should we know that the county court judge would hear us? And we do not want to be put to all the expense of employing solicitors." Your Lordships may think that that is perfectly reasonable and, accordingly, in these actions for recovery of very small tenements local authorities will be enabled to appear by their officers.
I now come to Clause 8—Assessors. Until not long ago, if barristers or solicitors disputed the extent to which their fees had been cut down on taxation by an officer of the court, called a taxing officer, they had no right of appeal unless they could satisfy a judge that the officer had erred in principle. If it was merely that he had given them half of what would have been a reasonable sum to charge, that was no ground of appeal. Some years ago in the High Court it was provided that there should be a right of appeal on quantum to a High Court Judge who would sit with two assessors, one a taxing master and the other a barrister or solicitor, according to whose fees were in question. What Clause 8 does is to provide a similar right of appeal in the county court to the county court judge, assisted by a registrar and a barrister or solicitor, as the case might be. There have, in fact, been very few of these appeals in the High Court, but it would seem reasonable that the right to appeal should be there.
Clause 9 will enable county court rules to be made, first, to increase the jurisdiction of the registrar. The registrar of the court has always been able to hear small cases, particularly undefended ones, involving sums up to £30 and this provision increases his jurisdiction to £75. The Winn Committee suggested £100, but they were going to increase the judge's jurisdiction to £1,000. A figure of £100 would have been 10 per cent. of £1,000, and £75, which is in any case thought to be

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the right figure at the moment, is 10 per cent. of £750. The clause also deals with transfers between courts, and makes provisions in relation to solicitors of the same nature as in the High Court. Clause 10, to which I have already, referred, will enable future changes to be made by a Statutory Instrument, provided that it has been laid in draft before Parliament and affirmatively approved by both Houses.
Clause 11 deals with two or three miscellaneous matters in this field. It provides that a judge can sit at a court even if there is no office there. It repeals Section 46 of the principal Act, with which I do not think I need trouble your Lordships. The Winn Committee rightly found that it was a section which was a dead letter. Subsections (3) and (4) increase the amount of fines laid down in the Act which may be imposed on a juryman who does not appear, on witnesses who do not appear, or on officers of the court who misbehave. No change in the amount of fines has been made for 34 years. Some of them are £5, which are now being increased to £20, and some of them are £10, which are increased to £50. These are in line with the increases in tines made in the recent Criminal Justice Act.
Part II of the Bill relates to a project known among lawyers as "leapfrog". Sometimes, even soon after an Act is passed, doubts arise about its true construction; and the same thing can, of course, happen in subsidiary legislation. Conflicting decisions are given, and it becomes of public importance that an authoritative decision as to the true construction should be obtained as soon as possible. Then again there are cases where, when you go to a lawyer, he says, "Well, there is an enormous amount of money involved, but I am bound to tell you that the law as laid down by the Court of Appeal is against you, and as the Court of Appeal is bound by its own previous decisions you could not succeed in the court of first instance, and you could not succeed in the Court of Appeal. My opinion is that the Court of Appeal was wrong and that the House of Lords would say so. But I must make it quite plain that it is no good your starting an action, unless you are prepared to go to the House of Lords, because only the
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House of Lords can decide in your favour".
On those classes of case a Committee, of which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Evershed, was Chairman some 15 years ago, observed that there is an enormous amount of litigant's costs involved, and they thought that in such cases the litigant, after trial and decision by the trial judge, should be able to go straight to the House of Lords, by-passing the Court of Appeal. The sort of case which one not infrequently gets is the Revenue case, involving a great deal of money and an important point of tax law. This has to he heard and argued out before the general or special commissioners of income tax, from whom an appeal lies to a single judge. He usually accepts the finding of fact already made by the Commissioners. He hears the legal point and he has to give his decision. From him, an appeal lies to the Court of Appeal; and, it may be, from the Court of Appeal to the House of Lords.
Now this is the sort of case in which it seems quite unreasonable to say to the litigant, "Not only must you have all the facts found by the commissioners, but you must then go to a judge, with more briefs to counsel, more solicitors' costs, although you are going to tell the judge when you have explained the whole thing to him and read him the decision of the Court of Appeal, 'I am asking you to decide this in my favour, but I know you cannot because I know you are bound by this decision of the Court of Appeal'. Then you must go off to the Court of Appeal, with more briefs to counsel and more costs to solicitors, and there the same thing happens again. You must go into all the facts with them, you must read the judge's judgment to them, you must read to them their previous decision, but at the end of it all you must say, 'Although I am appealing and am asking you to reverse the finding of the judge. I realise you are bound by your previous decision and that you cannot; but I have to come to you because I am on my way to the House of Lords'".
So this Committee (which was a large Committee of 24, 12 lawyers and 12 laymen; some of them Members of your Lordships' House now, even if they were not then) unanimously recommended what in substance is now set out in the

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Bill, and that is this. If, first, there is involved in a case a point of law of general public importance; if, secondly, either it involves the construction of an Act or of a Statutory Instrument or there is a decision of the Court of Appeal on the point; if, thirdly, all parties agree; and if, fourthly, the trial judge is of the opinion that it is expedient that it should go from him to the House of Lords, then he will have power so to certify. The Evershed Committee did not recommend one of those limitations, and that is that all parties should consent. I have put that in on the representations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid. He is apprehensive that the House of Lords, with quite enough to do already, might have too many of these cases. But I put this forward as a sensible suggestion.
It was not carried out at the time, I understand, because although all the Lords Justices supported the Evershed Committee the then noble and learned Lords of Appeal did not agree to it. The position to-day, I believe, is that the noble and learned Lords of Appeal agree but I think the Lords Justices, or the majority of them, do not. It is one of the facts of life which every Lord Chancellor has to consider, that 70 or 80 highly independent minds do not always agree. I think a suggestion is going to be made that, instead of getting this certificate from the trial judge, after the judge you should go to the House of Lords to ask them whether they agree. But, of course, the difficulty about this is obvious. If you send the House of Lords the papers, as I think is suggested, nobody is going to agree to something being decided against him without his being heard. He is going to insist on a hearing; and if you have to go to the House of Lords, with more briefs to counsel and more costs to solicitors, to ask them as a preliminary matter whether they agree to the Court of Appeal's being by-passed, you might just as well go to the Court of Appeal and the whole object of the exercise would be lost.
My Lords, I know many of your Lordships are interested in agricultural objectives, which is the subject of a Statement to be made. I assume that my noble friend Lord Beswick, as I have still a good deal of ground to cover, will give me some signal if and when he would like to interrupt me.
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Part III of the Bill deals with a matter on which, frankly, I am not an expert, but this Part would give power to the court to make a will for a mentally disordered person. As I go round the Departments for which I am responsible I am always struck by the high morale in the offices of the Court of Protection and the Official Solicitor. The reason, I think, is this. The Court of Protection is a court which looks after the financial affairs and property of those who are incapable of looking after them themselves. These people are not, in the main, the insane; they are not necessarily mentally disordered in the sense in which perhaps your Lordships and I would understand it. Many of them are simply senile: they are just too old to follow these things. A receiver is appointed to do the administrative work under the court's direction. He may be a relative or, if not, the Official Solicitor. I attribute the high morale in these offices very largely to the fact that they know these people. They call in to see the clerks of the Court of Protection; they call in to see a member of the staff of the Official Solicitor. They get to know them. They may take up a lot of their time; they may talk a good deal, as old people tend to do; but they get very attached to them.
The Court of Protection has power, under the Mental Health Act 1959, to make a setttlement of all the property of these people. This does not arise very often, but there may be a case in which some old lady has a great deal of money and a great many assets—much more than she can possibly need for the rest of her life—and in which, if she were capable of dealing with her own affairs and were told it would save her family tax to make a settlement, she would make a settlement. Of course, anybody concerned who might benefit is always heard, and these orders are usually made only by consent. But there is no power to make a will, although there are cases in which, if a person was of sound mind he would be told by his lawyer, "If you want to save your family tax, you would do better to make a will in these circumstances than to make a settlement".
The Treasury have been consulted, and they say they see no reason why, merely because people are no longer capable of looking after their own affairs, those affairs should not be administered

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with the same eye on tax matters as everybody else has. Of course, no will would be made by the court on behalf of such a person without medical evidence that he had not got testamentary capacity. To have testamentary capacity you must have a fair idea of what your property is; you must be capable of remembering people who may ordinarily have some claim to your estate; and, generally speaking, you must know what you are doing. Of course, if there was a lucid interval, then the patient would be entitled to revoke any will which the court had made and to make a will himself.
Clause 19 is an implementation of a recommendation of the Winn Committee. This would enable interim payments to be made in personal injury cases. It is very often at the start that the need for money and the financial hardship is greatest. Yet neither the High Court nor the county court has any power to order interim payments to be made. What has been suggested by the Committee is that the court should have such a power where liability is admitted and the only dispute is as to the injuries and damage, or where the plaintiff has already obtained an interlocutory judgment for damages to be assessed, or where the plaintiff is bound to succeed—for instance, a passenger in a car which has been in collision with another motor car. Why should that passenger have to wait a year or two while the question which driver was to blame, or whether they were both to blame and, if so, in what proportions, has been sorted out by the courts? So this clause would give the court power to make interim payments in those cases.
The Winn Committee's terms of reference were limited to personal injury cases, but the Committee themselves say that they hope that a number of their recommendations will be generally applied; and there would seem to be no reason why this same power for the court to order interim payments should not be made in other classes of cases, too. So this clause gives power to make rules, High Court or county court, to implement this recommendation.
Clause 20 provides for the exercise of certain powers before the commencement of an action. This arises because the
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Committee say that there are cases in which it is very urgent that something should be inspected at the earliest possible date—if necessary even before an action has been begun. Take, for instance, a factory accident case. If justice is to be done, it may be necessary that the plaintiff's engineer should be able to inspect the machine which it is said has not been guarded before the machine is taken away or before it is altered. In the same way, if, in a case where there has been a smash-up, the plaintiff thinks the accident was due to the fact that the defendant's brakes were worn out, it may be very important that the brakes should be inspected before the car is repaired. Otherwise, no evidence on the point will ever be able to be called. Although this was not recommended by the Committee, because it did not apply to their kind of cases, I thought it right to add the powers also for the taking of samples. This clause, therefore, would enable either the High Court or the county court, under Rules, to apply by an originating summons before a writ has been issued for matters of that kind to be done.
Clause 21 is really a recommendation of the Latey Committee; and your Lordships will shortly be considering a Bill based on the Report of that Committee. But this clause relates to the administration of justice and it was therefore thought convenient to take it here; it is that it should be possible for the Lord Chancellor to assign a class of business to more than one Division. The Latey Committee pointed out that while we have a Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, wardship cases and guardianship cases and adoption are heard in the Chancery Division. They rather look forward to the time when we might have a "Family Division" and all this work could be confined to a Family Division. But they thought that meanwhile the Divorce Division ought to have concurrent jurisdiction with the Chancery Division; and that is what this clause provides. I am only awaiting the Report of the Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions. I do not doubt that some day we shall have to consider the reconstitution of the High Court of Justice.
The Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division—what an extraordinary mixture

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—arose only because at that time, the time of the Judicature Acts, the law in those three fields was the subject of study by a different group of lawyers who dealt with those three fields. But it is a very long time since that applied; and there is now no reason why these three should be together. It may seem sensible to transfer to that Division anything to do with children which at present is dealt with by the Chancery Division and to transfer from that Division probate, because the proving of wills, you might think, ought to be done by the Chancery Division which does the construction of wills. There is a case to be made for forming a fourth Division of admiralty and commercial cases which would leave the present Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division as a true family court dealing with all family matters.
My Lords, we now approach slightly more "Alice in Wonderland" matters. Clause 22 will enable the clerks to registrars of the Chancery Division to be called assistant registrars. They are in fact solicitors, and do not like being called clerks; and I do not see why they should be so called. I agree that they should be called assistant registrars. The clause also abolishes the limitation that they cannot be appointed unless they are solicitors of two years' standing. We live in days when you cannot get lawyers for anything from anywhere. The only effect of this two-year limitation is to reduce the number we can get, because by the time a solicitor has been called for two years he has probably gone off and done something else. We should be happier without that limitation.
So far as Clause 23 is concerned, I do not think I need go into any vast detail. Most of those employed in my Department are established civil servants. Four thousand or five thousand of them are in the service of the county courts throughout the country—and I include the Official Solicitor's Department and his staff, and, of course, a great many at the Law Courts, in the Strand. Most of these are appointed, nominally, by the Lord Chancellor, but in fact by a committee on which the Lord Chancellor is represented, the head of the Department and, of course, the Civil Service Commissioners. But there is an old law under which the Clerks of the Central Office are supposed to be appointed alternately by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief
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Justice and the Master of the Rolls. I need hardly say that this has not in practice been carried out for about 40 years. They are, in fact, appointed by a committee of the kind that I have described if they want to be established civil servants. This clause will bring the law in line with what has been the practice for some time.
Clause 24 deals with the records of grants of probate and administration. This really is to save a waste of money. The present law is that calendars have to be printed of all grants in every part of the country, showing the date, the registry, the name, the place and time of death, the description of the executors and the value of the estates. Copies of these, when they are printed, must be sent to every district probate registry and also to Edinburgh and Belfast. They are kept for ever; and you can get a copy for 1s. The defect is that it is very expensive to have these calendars printed and distributed on this scale; it is very time-consuming, and in practice it takes about two years before each calendar is printed. If people want to know about grants, they invariably want to know well within two years. So what they do is to go to Somerset House where they can see everything: they pay a shilling and satisfy themselves there. Clause 24 provides that all this can always be done at Somerset House—in fact most of it is done by post. The old calendars will go to the Public Record Office, where they can be examined, and the President can give directions as to precisely what the contents should be.
My Lords, Clause 25 again is "Alice in Wonderland". It deals with public notaries. Some of your Lordships may be surprised to hear that we have public notaries. But we have. They are useful for bills of exchange, promissory notes; and there are foreigners resident here who are used to the public notary system and may need to have a certificate from the public notary for their own purposes in their own countries. I said "Alice in Wonderland" because I appoint 500 clergy to livings and the Archbishop of Canterbury appoints the public notaries. He does this through his Master of the Faculties. Perhaps we might do an exchange some day. The whole question of public notaries deserves some examination. Meanwhile all the Bill does is this.

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Everywhere outside London there is a five-year apprenticeship for public notaries, but in London the period has been seven years. The London ones, quite reasonably, want this reduced to five years like the others. They say that there is no reason why it should be any longer.
Clause 26 is not quite so "Alice in Wonderland", but rather. If I want to promote a chairman of one of the London quarter sessions to be an additional Judge at the Central Criminal Court, he may say "I am sorry, but I cannot afford it, because I should have to leave ten years' worth of pension behind". This is because the chairmen of quarter sessions are remunerated and pensioned by the Greater London Council and there are no transfer arrangements. Exactly the same thing would happen if I wanted to promote an additional Judge of the Central Criminal Court to be Recorder of Manchester or Recorder of Liverpool, because his remuneration and pension at the Central Criminal Court comes from the City of London. It is ridiculous in these days that these pensions rights should not be transferable. They are already transferable between the High Court and the county courts. The county court judge who is appointed a High Court Judge is covered because there are suitable arrangements for the transfer of pensions. I hope your Lordships will think it only sensible that the same thing should happen in relation to the sort of judicial officers to whom I have referred.
Clause 27 deals with other pension rights. It gives the registrar and assistant registrar of criminal appeals the same rights that others in that sort of position have for pensions for widows and children. It provides that if you already have a pension from a previous position and are appointed to another post, you cannot get the remuneration for your new position and your pension as well. The one is deductible from the other. This applies to most whole-time judicial appointments, including, for example, a chairman of quarter sessions like the whole-time Chairman of the Kent Quarter Sessions. But Kent Quarter Sessions are now so busy that they have had to appoint a whole-time Deputy Chair
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man of Quarter Sessions. This clause brings him within the general scheme.
My Lords, Clause 28 is "Alice in Wonderland" again. There is a court called the Court of County Palatine of Durham, of which the Judge is called "the Chancellor". Usually he is a senior Queen's Counsel. He has a jurisdiction for the area around Durham, to hear Chancery cases which ordinarily are heard only in the Chancery Division in London. The Church Commissioners contribute to the remuneration of the Chancellor the sum of £427 7s. 4d. a year. Of this money 14s. is for white wax. It is a matter of grave dispute whether the white wax is for the candles or whether it is for the seals, but, whichever it is, the Church Commissioners are "fed up" with having to pay £427 7s. 4d. to the Chancellor; and I do not blame them. As they, very sportingly, offered that I should buy this from them and they will pay me fifteen years' purchase, this seems to me a very reasonable transaction, which the Bill reflects.
Clause 29 extends the legislative powers of the Parliament of Northern Ireland in relation to two matters. First, it will enable them to abolish grand juries at assizes. They abolished grand juries at quarter sessions years ago. We abolished grand juries at assizes 35 years ago, so it seems only fair to let them do so too. They also want to make a change in their law with regard to indictments. There is nothing to this at all. As your Lordships know, in both countries a criminal case gets to trial at assizes by the magistrates finding that there is a case for trial. The indictment is then prepared. Here the indictment is sent to the clerk of the assize; in Northern Ireland it is sent to the Judge. If the clerk of assize sees it is in order, he signs it and it becomes an indictment. In Northern Ireland the Judge wishes to have the power, on reading the depositions and looking at the indictment, to mark it "No bill" if he thinks that the case ought not to proceed. Your Lordships will no doubt think that that is a matter which may properly be left to Northern Ireland.
Clause 30 refers to applications to the Crown and provisions as to orders. Clause 31 and Schedules 1 and 2 deal with "Minor consequential amendments and repeals". Clause 32 is the "Short Title,

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extent and commencement." My Lords, I commend this Bill to your Lordships as being one which, while rather varied in character, does a good many sensible things in the field of the administration of justice; and I am glad not further to have to detain my noble friend, Lord Beswick, from his agricultural objectives. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

AGRICULTURAL OBJECTIVES
4.4 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am greatly obliged for the courtesy of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack. With permission, I will now read the Statement which has been made in another place by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
"The Government have carefully reviewed the contribution made by agriculture to the national economy over past years. This review has amply vindicated the industry as one which has made efficient use of the resources devoted to it. Productivity has continued to rise. Output has increased. There has been a valuable saving in imports. All this has been achieved without a significant increase in support costs and consistently with our international obligations. The industry has given good value for money to the British people, both as consumers and tax payers.
"Against this background the Government have decided that the selective expansion of agriculture should continue, provided that this is based upon the maintenance of the rate of increase in the industry's productivity. The programme announced in 1965 took us forward to 1970. Now we are going to project it to 1972–73. We shall of course continue to take stock from year to year as we go along.
"We have had a valuable report from the Economic Development Committee for Agriculture on the import saving possibilities of agriculture to 1972–73. The Government have examined the Committee's technical assessment. In addition, we have had to take into account the likely consequences on the use of resources and
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support costs and our international obligations.
"The Economic Development Committee, in looking at cereals production for the next four years, believed that it would be possible to overcome the husbandry and disease problems to achieve increasing average yields. We consider that, taking into account the quality of the additional land which would have to be brought into production, the objective set by the Economic Development Committee may prove to have been a little optimistic. This year's difficult harvest underlines some of the uncertainties which cereal growers can face.
"For pigmeat the Economic Development Committee proposed a very large increase indeed. Much of the expanded production would have to go for bacon. The Committee assumed that it would be possible to obtain a rapid expansion in the production of British bacon of the right quality and at the right price. There are some difficult technical and marketing problems in doing this. But we are looking to the curing industry to increase its share of the market by improving its productivity and competitiveness.
"Subject to these points, we welcome and endorse in broad terms the Economic Development Committee's assessment.
"Our broad objectives over the next four years will be as follows. I have sounded a note of caution about the practical pace of advance in cereals production. Our objective, however, for cereals is clear. We aim to expand production as much as is technically possible and consistent with reasonable resource use and support cost. With this objective goes an expansion of the appropriate break and fodder crops. For sugar beet we shall maintain the acreage against a level of consumption of sugar which is, at best, static. We shall continue to aim at meeting the demand for main crop potatoes for human consumption. We shall encourage the output of the right quality potatoes for the processing industries.
"It remains important that we should make significantly better use of our grassland. The Economic Development Committee considered that, on

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this basis, a continuing growth of beef production was possible. We should like to see an increase in suitable calf retentions. We should also like to see any increase in the dairy herd for beef production related to cheaper milk production, for example from summer grass. We accept that we should continue an expansion of beef from the beef and dairy herds. This means that for these important commodities, beef and milk, we are aiming for increased output similar to that suggested by the Economic Development Committee up to 1972–73. We recognise the importance of sheep and aim at a continued shift of the flock towards the hills and uplands.
"For those commodities where we are already virtually self-sufficient; namely poultry, eggs and pork, we shall aim to increase production to meet rising demands. We shall encourage the bacon curing industry to improve further its productivity so as to produce more bacon of a quality and at a price which will attract the consumer.
"We also wish to see the encouraging expansion of the horticultural industry continuing on the basis of its competitive efficiency.
"I have tried to set out clearly the broad aims of a balanced programme for the whole industry. It goes a long way towards the import saving objectives of the Economic Development Committee. Although for the reasons I have set out the full import saving envisaged by the Committee would not be reached by 1972–73, nevertheless by that time we should achieve a net saving of about £160 million a year.
"I should emphasise that, in the context of the programme, the Government are well aware of the need for stability in our markets. This stability contains support costs and gives confidence to the industry. Measures to promote such stability already exist for many commodities, such as cereals, butter, bacon and potatoes. Further measures for other commodities may be required. This is under consideration by the Government.
"We believe that it is within the capacity of the British industry to achieve the objectives of selective
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expansion which I have outlined. Much must depend, however, on the ability of the industry to go on improving its technological standards; on the extent to which its rising productivity can help to hold down support costs; and on the attention which it pays to marketing. We believe that, if this progress can be made, the selective expansion can be achieved with an economic use of resources and consistently with our international obligations. The development of the programme, its cost, the resources required and the market situation will clearly have to be examined with the industry at each Annual Review.
"I believe that the industry and the country will welcome the guide lines that we are laying down for the years ahead. I am sure that farmers and growers will do their part. They can be sure that the Government believe in them and in their potential for making a further major contribution to our economic prosperity."
4.11 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for giving us this very important Statement on agricultural policy, and may I join with him in the tribute to the farmers and farmworkers for the production they have been giving the country up till now. I should like to give a general welcome to the Statement. The target figure of £160 million per annum of import saving by 1972–73 is less than the "Neddy" estimate of £220 million. Would I be right in thinking that this is because a period of only four years is taken into account, instead of the five years in the "Neddy" Report?
I have three questions that I should like to ask the noble Lord on this important Statement. First, could the noble Lord be more explicit on poultry meat? The Statement is silent, but the "Neddy" estimate gave an increase of 170 million tons per annum by 1972–73—that is, of broiler meat and turkeys—with a net import saving of £36½ million per annum. These are substantial figures. Do the Government accept this as part of their target? It could be implied in the Statement that the noble Lord has made.
My second question concerns the sugar beet acreage. The Statement says that

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it is the Government's intention to maintain the existing acreage. Is the noble Lord aware that the present Commonwealth Sugar Agreement ends in 1974? Will he therefore undertake to consider, on re-negotiating the Agreement, enlarging the home produced sugar quota from one-third of our total consumption, as it now stands, to include the production of another sugar beet factory, equivalent to 45,000 acres of sugar beet, in view of the increasing acreage of cereal crops and the great importance for crop husbandry of an additional sugar beet acreage in the rotation?
Thirdly, on finance, is the noble Lord aware that in recent years the earnings of both farmers and farmworkers have been falling further and further behind those of the rest of the community? One serious consequence of that is referred to in the "Neddy" Report, which estimates that no fewer than 113,000 further agricultural workers will leave the industry in the current five years. Would the noble Lord tell us what action the Government intend to take to check this growing disparity of incomes and to provide the extra cash needed for the expansion postulated in the Statement? Is the noble Lord aware that we shall not get the potential extra production of food unless both the chaps and the money are there to produce it?
4.16 p.m.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, may I welcome this encouraging and important Statement, in which the Government reaffirm the broad outline of the expansion of the industry which they proposed two years ago and in which they have gone a long way to accepting the Report of "Neddy". The Government have gone much further than I expected. I say this with particular pleasure, because I was getting cold feet about this. I was wondering whether the Government were going to reject or put on one side the "Neddy" Report, and I am glad that they have not done so.
I welcome the fact that the Government have gone out of their way to say about the industry in general that they have given good value for money to the British people, both as consumers and as taxpayers. If the Government really mean to go so far towards meeting the "Neddy" recommendations, it will cost
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a lot of money and we have to bear this in mind. But I am sure that the agricultural industry will carry on doing what the Government have congratulated them upon.
I cannot think of any specific questions to put to the Government as to their intentions. The sort of questions I might ask are so bound up with what is contained in the next Annual Review that it is only when we see it that we shall know whether the Government really mean business. It seems to me from this Statement that they really do mean business. But when I look at the last couple of paragraphs I notice that there are a good many escape clauses. I hope that these will not have to be used. For instance, the Government draw attention to the fact that this will work only if the industry plays its part. They also draw attention to our international commitments and so on. Nevertheless, I do not think that we should look a gift horse too closely in the mouth. I hope that when we see the Annual Price Review I shall be on my feet, still saying the same things.
4.17 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, may I first of all thank the noble Lords, Lord Nugent of Guildford and Lord Henley, for the welcome that they have given to the Statement. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, that his feet were not the only ones that at times got a little cool, but I am glad that it has worked out all right. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, that the difference is not really between this £160 million and the £220 million in the Report of the Agricultural "Neddy", since if he looks at the summary of conclusions he will see that £220 million a year is a saving which would accrue on completion of the expansion programme. Some import savings will not accrue until after the expansion year 1972–73.
On the specific question about poultry meat, I am glad to confirm that the increase in production is included in the anticipated savings. On the Sugar Agreement, I am aware that the C.S.A. comes to an end in 1974. This Statement takes us up to only 1972, and up to that time the anticipated increase in production from the present acreage will be taken

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care of, we hope, by improved efficiency of the present factories. After 1972 it will be necessary to look again at any additional provision of factory accommodation. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, had some relevant and cogent remarks to make about earnings. I have no doubt that this very delicate question will be one around which a good deal of discussion will take place when we come to the Annual Review.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I should like also to join with my noble friend in welcoming this Statement, because whatever else may be the subject of Party politics and great controversy, the greatest blessing that can be given perhaps to the agricultural industry in this country would be an assurance that there would be continuity of policy and security, whatever Party is in power. I should like to put this question to the noble Lord. I welcome the policy as it has been outlined, but one of the essential factors is that we should get efficiency on our farms. Will it be part of the continuing policy, which has been very sensibly instituted I think by this Government, that every possible encouragement should be given to make farms into economic units? Will all practical encouragement be given to small and inefficient farmers, who will never really be able to make a living, to give up, in order that larger farms and economic units may be introduced? That is what I should like to ask.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am again grateful to the noble Earl for his welcome to this Statement. He can rest assured that the policy which this Government have pursued up to now, to try to get the most efficient unit, will continue to be followed. Grants for merging and amalgamating small farms into larger units are of course available.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I welcome the noble Lord's reference to the import-saving ability of this industry? In the past, farmers have always thought that Governments of all complexions have been very reluctant to refer to the import-saving quality of this industry. May I say, too, that I hope it will not be long before Governments freely pay regard to its exporting ability, not just of agricultural products straight, but also of
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agricultural machinery and the products of other industries which service our agriculture. I have one last point on one commodity. The noble Lord mentioned a certain increase in the production of milk, which I think he intended to be read as going hand in hand with an increase in beef, and not for milk on its own. May I say that farmers would be much heartened if the Government could take an early opportunity to say that they have under control this question of imports of milk powder and other dairy products from Europe at prices which we all agree are absurd.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Lord has said that this Government have been reluctant to pay tribute—
LORD INGLEWOOD: All Governments, I said.
LORD BESWICK: I am speaking for this Government only. As I say, I am surprised that the noble Lord says we have been reluctant to pay tribute to the import-saving possibilities of this industry. In fact, one of the criticisms I have heard is that we have been too ready to pay tribute without coming forward with this kind of Statement. I hope that action will go hand in hand with promise. The noble Lord asked me about milk production, and I know there is the problem of disposal of processed milk. As the noble Lord possibly knows, my right honourable friend has endeavoured to get a voluntary limitation on imports of cheese. It has not been possible to get agreement for this year, but he is now working hard in the hope of getting a voluntary limitation on cheese over a period up to the end of 1970. That should go a long way to meet the problem the noble Lord has in mind. As for the exporting of agricultural produce, I am sure he has in mind the efforts that have already been made by the Council of which my noble friend Lady Plummer is a member, and I hope there will be results from their efforts.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, regarding voluntary agreements with a specific country on the import of a specific food, in the event of negotiations failing to come to a happy conclusion, will the Government be prepared to put a physical control on imports of that commodity from that country?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, who has great experience in international affairs, would not expect my right honourable friend to engage in negotiations with friendly countries holding out the sort of threat he has in mind.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, may I, without delaying your Lordships too much from the Administration of Justice Bill, follow up one or two points which have already been raised? Specifically I should like to ask my noble friend whether, in addition to paying tribute to the important import-saving function of agriculture, specific encouragement may not be given to the export of agricultural products. As my noble friend knows, in normal years our exports of barley from this country have been very substantial indeed. I would ask my noble friend whether he does not agree that there is great scope there for an increase and therefore an improvement in our balance-of-payments position.
The second question I should like to ask him concerns the encouragement of beef production. Undoubtedly we all agree that that can be done and should be done. But the cost of our livestock production in general is unnaturally augmented by the minimum import prices which have been agreed for cereals which are largely used for feeding livestock. Would not my noble friend agree, not only that one of the greatest incentives to increased production of livestock at a relatively low price lies in providing the farmer with good grass from home production and with good home-produced cereals at a low price adjusted with the deficiency payments, but that the imported feedingstuffs necessary for livestock should be allowed to come into this country at as low a price as possible?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think, in answer to my noble friend's point about export of agricultural products, that I have already indicated that there is scope there. Whether it is as great as some people think, I do not know, but there is scope; and certainly those people who are endeavouring to export agricultural products are receiving some encouragement from the Government. My noble friend then went on to ask me a question about which I think I had better be very careful indeed, because, as I see
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it, there seems to be some contradiction in what he asks. I cannot really see how, on the one hand, we can encourage the production of beef by the importation of cheap grain without, on the other, doing something to discourage those who are trying to get a living from growing cereals. I should have thought there was a balance to be achieved here, and I have no doubt that my noble friend would agree with me if we had an opportunity of going into this matter further.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, will the noble Lord give me some assurance that in the oncoming Price Review prices will be materially raised so that we can pay the farm worker more money? We cannot get this increase in agricultural production without labour; and I hope the Government will keep this point in mind when they are fixing prices in the Price Review.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, one object of this Statement is to lay down guidelines for the discussions which will take place during the Annual Review, and all these matters will have to be taken into account.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
4.28 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, the Statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has led to an unusual but extremely interesting debate. I do not think I can ever remember an occasion when such a Statement has led to speeches of such interest following upon it. But may I now bring back the attention of the House to the Bill which is the subject of our consideration? The interesting debate we have just had may have made noble Lords forget the speech made by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor in dealing with the Administration of Justice Bill. I have been asked to take the place of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross at the moment, because he was unavoidably absent during part of the speech of the Lord Chancellor.
I am sure the whole House is grateful to the Lord Chancellor for his clear exposition of the provisions of this Bill.

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I should like to thank him for that. He was unusually uncontroversial and, if I may say so to him, I do not think that this Bill (this may give him some comfort) offers any such scope for controversy as did the Theft Bill. He began his speech with a tribute to laywers who spend so much time in formulating proposals for reform. I was very glad to hear him pay that tribute, with which I should like to associate myself. It is a fact, of which I think the public are singularly unaware, that many, many distinguished lawyers, judges, and practising barristers and solicitors, devote long hours and much of their leisure time to putting forward proposals for changes in our law. This is yet another of the Bills which come about and come before Parliament as a result of the active and unpaid work that these men have done.
Having said that, I should like to comment upon one or two points in this Bill, but I propose to leave until the end of my speech the part which I think is perhaps the only controversial part contained in the Bill: I refer to Part II, which deals with what we lawyers call the "leapfrog" proposals. I am sorry that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor considers that the time has come to increase the jurisdiction of the county courts to £750. I am not prepared to challenge the necessity for that increase, but I am sorry that it has had to take place; because it seems to me that in my lifetime county courts have changed remarkably in their character.
They used to be the poor man's court, dealing with the cases of people of no great means, and minor disputes; and as the years have gone on we have seen the jurisdiction continually increased. Now, as a result of this Bill, county court judges will be required to hear cases which I think even ten or fifteen years ago no one would have contemplated including within their jurisdiction. I wonder whether we are not putting too great a burden on county court judges. I would say that they have improved in quality and ability tremendously over the days of long ago. At the same time, the county court judges do a tremendous amount of work—and not only civil work. Many of them spend many days administering criminal justice, and I must
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say that I have some fears lest, in the hope of relieving the load on the High Court, we are transferring too much of a load on to the shoulders of the county court judges. I know that they will do their utmost to discharge it, but we have only recently transferred to them the jurisdiction of dealing with undefended divorce cases; and we seem to be asking them continually to do more and more.
I agree with what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said about its not being necessary to have an Act of Parliament every time the adjustment of jurisdiction is required. I think perhaps the reason why in the past we have always had an Act of Parliament is because of the keen desire in many quarters to try to preserve the ancient character of the county court as the poor man's court. I hope that it will not prove that the courts' responsibility for dealing with these bigger cases will substantially delay the hearing of the smaller disputes. In my view it is a sound provision to provide for the adjustment of the limits of jurisdiction by Order in Council. That will give some degree of flexibility and will save a great deal of time. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that the Order in Council would be subject to Affirmative Resolution. I may have missed it, but at the moment I cannot detect provision for this in the Bill. If it is not already in the Bill I am sure that, in the light of what he said, the noble and learned Lord will move the necessary Amendment. I, too, was struck by the tremendous increase in jurisdiction provided for in Clause 5, but in the light of the explanation given by the noble and learned Lord I do not propose to be in any way critical of that.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor dealt at some length with Clause 7. He said that it dealt with a demarcation dispute, and I agree with him that for a solicitor not to be able to instruct another solicitor to conduct a judgment summons, or a small case in the county court, because he himself could not get there—a case that did not warrant the employment of counsel—is really indefensible. But I am not at all sure whether it is right to extend this power and permit solicitors to be briefed

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over the whole range of what will now be the enlarged county court jurisdiction. It will now be possible for one solicitor to brief another solicitor to conduct an undefended divorce case. It will be possible also for one solicitor to brief another solicitor to conduct any of those cases which are now just being brought within the jurisdiction of the county courts. I am not sure that this is altogether a good thing. I am never in favour of demarcation disputes, and I do not want to raise any issues that will lead to controversy between the two sides of the legal profession. But, as I say, I am not altogether sure that this change over the whole area will be beneficial to the administration of justice.
Coming to Part III of the Bill I think that in Committee we ought to pay close attention to what it provides. It is not a subject with which I am very familiar, but at first sight it seems odd to give any other body a power to make a will for a mentally disordered person, when the whole basis of the exercise of that power is that the mentally disordered person is incapable of making a will. It may be absolutely all right but I think it is a matter to which we should give considerable attention when we come to the Committee stage.
With regard to interim payments, I think that what is proposed is thoroughly sound. Indeed, one wishes that it could go a little further than it has gone. I have recently had contact with a case of the most distressing character, in which it is quite clear that three out of the four passengers in the vehicle cannot fail to succeed when the action comes on for trial, and the fourth—the driver of the vehicle—is almost certain to do so. The injuries are extremely grave, and the financial consequences of the accident for that family have been quite disastrous. Yet it is not until judgment can be obtained (and it may be as long as two years before it is obtained) that the wife, who is now trying to maintain the family, will get any compensation from those negligent. I welcome this Part of the Bill, but here again I think we ought to look at it closely in Committee.
Now I come to what will be perhaps the most hotly contested part of this Bill, and that is what is called the "leapfrog" proposals. I must confess that
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when I was at the Bar I thought there was a great deal to be said in favour of these proposals, the power to go straight to the House of Lords. I believe many at the Bar think there is great force in that contention, but I must admit that now I feel that this right should be exercisable only in a limited category of cases.
I think the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be prepared to admit that I can claim now to have had some experience of sitting judicially in the House of Lords on various types of case, including Revenue cases. Revenue cases were one of the examples that he gave where this power to go straight to the House of Lords might be given. In my view, when a case comes before the House of Lords it is of the greatest value to have the views of the Court of Appeal set out in their judgment. And one finds, curiously enough, that as a case progresses the points become crystallised, and the point that finally emerges is one that may be thought to have had minor importance at the actual moment of trial.
I can conceive that there are a few Revenue cases where this power to go straight to the House of Lords would be useful. I remember one case in which I was appearing for the Revenue, and in the court of first instance I was able to persuade the judge that the case was covered by a Court of Appeal decision. I did that with some difficulty, and his judgment was on the lines that if he had not been bound by the Court of Appeal he would have found against the Revenue. Encouraged by that, my opponents went to the Court of Appeal, and they had in the Court of Appeal some of the judges who had sat at the hearing which had given the previous decision. There the Revenue again succeeded. It was fully argued on that occasion, and there again the Court of Appeal said, in substance, "If We were not bound by our previous decision we would have decided the other way". My opponents then went to the House of Lords, full of confidence, and the House of Lords had the benefit of the earlier judgments. Justice was done in the House of Lords, the Revenue succeeded and the House of Lords held that the first decision of the Court of Appeal was entirely right. That may be criticised

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as an unnecessarily long procedure. I think that to get the right answer in the Lords itself it was a useful procedure.
I do not deny that in some cases—and I think they will be very few—this power might be an advantage where the question is the construction of a Statute or a statutory instrument or regulation. But I think it ought to be confined to that, or to the case where it is absolutely clear beyond doubt that the decision of the Court of Appeal in fact covers the case before the trial judge. In the latter case, not infrequently it is thought to do so when the case starts, but some evidence is given, something happens, and it is not I think unknown for the Court of Appeal to say, "As a matter of fact, although some may have thought that this case was covered by our previous decision, it is not so covered," and the Court of Appeal decides it. In such a case, where it is not covered, then in my view there is no case for the "leapfrog" procedure. The Bill, as I see it, goes further than to provide just for an appeal on the determination of the meaning of a statutory provision, because it gives power to use this procedure where there is a point of law that
"relates wholly or mainly to the construction of an enactment or of a statutory instrument …".
The insertion of those words "wholly or mainly" enlarges the scope of this procedure tremendously, and I think those words should come out.
It is provided in the Bill, and it is an important fact, that this procedure cannot be used unless all the parties to the litigation agree to its use. I think that is a good procedure to start off with, but one thing that I find wrong is that it should be left to the trial judge to decide finally whether or not this procedure should be operated. Your Lordships will bear in mind that the application for this procedure to be used will be made to the trial judge with the consent of all parties to the litigation, and that if they do not consent the application is bound to fail. So the trial judge will be faced by this application, backed by all parties, to go straight to the House of Lords without going to the Court of Appeal. He will not hear the contrary arguments, which may be powerful, and it may be
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that the trial judge, as is the case with so many of them nowadays, has not himself very much experience of the practice or procedure of this House when sitting judicially. I fear that if this provision remains as it is you may get a number of cases going direct to the House of Lords which ought not to go there, which, ought to go to the Court of Appeal, and which, if they went to the Court of Appeal, might terminate there.
I think the right method of obtaining leave to go straight to the House of Lords would be that an application should be made to the Appeal Committee of this House for leave to follow this procedure. I do not follow the argument that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor advanced, that if you provide that you are going to provide something that is costly and would amount to a minor hearing. Nowadays the Appeal Corn, mittee hears applications for leave to appeal in cases that do not involve great expense, nor do they involve anything in the nature of a trial. All that one is concerned to see—and these applications come when the Court of Appeal have refused leave—is that it is a fit case to come before the House of Lords to determine as a judicial matter. I cannot see why the procedure should not be equally simple when it is desired to follow this "leapfrog" procedure.
After the trial before the judge all parties may get together and they all may consent to the application being made to this House to be able to come direct to this House. It seems to me right that those who are in charge of the judicial business in this House should themselves be able to determine whether the case is one in which the "leapfrog" procedure should be followed. I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor does not have a closed mind on this. I regard it as a matter of great importance (although it is very technical) in the administration of justice, and I hope that after further thought the noble and learned Lord will regard such a change as beneficial.
When one comes to Clause 14, I must say that I am a little puzzled by subsection (2). Perhaps it is my fault. Bearing in mind the recommendations of the Evershed Committee, which are

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carried out in subsection (3) of Clause 12, I was a little astonished to read that:
"No certificate shall be granted under section 12 of this Act in respect of a decision of the trial judge where—
(a) the decision is in proceedings other than proceedings under the Matrimonial Causes Act …"
It would seem to me that some word must have been left out somewhere. I hope that there is no intention of confining this procedure to proceedings under the Matrimonial Causes Act. I cannot believe that there is, but as it stands the Bill would seem to me to have that effect. There is also paragraph (b). I may have misread it, but I will not spend any more time on that.
I have now said all I wish to say with regard to the Bill. We ought to consider these "leapfrog" proposals very carefully in Committee. I apologise to the House for touching on what one might call Committee points, and I will refrain from making any observations upon what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor called the "Alice in Wonderland" part until we get to the Committee stage.
4.50 p.m.
LORD REID: My Lords, I shall restrict my remarks to Part II of the Bill because I do not think I have anything useful to say on the rest of the Bill. Part II originates, of course, from the proposals of the Committee which was headed by the late Lord Evershed. Ever since their Report was published, about fifteen years ago, this particular proposal has always created very sharp differences of opinion. I am glad to see that there is in the Bill a new feature, to which my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor alluded: the fact that there must be consent before an application can be made to adopt this new procedure. If that had not been put in I should undoubtedly have opposed the whole scheme; and for this reason. It is going to raise the most impossible problems if you start trying to force an unwilling respondent, who may be a man of quite moderate means, to come straight to the House of Lords. At present, I think rightly, in allowing an application for an appeal to be brought here we often impose conditions as to costs. I personally think that that could be extended, but it would be extremely difficult to safeguard a respondent of
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moderate means if there were any proposal that he should be brought here against his will.
There are plenty of cases which, obviously, will come here if leave can be obtained after the Court of Appeal decision, and where leave almost certainly will be given. You have an important point of law; you have two sides well able financially to fight to the last Court of Appeal, and it is highly desirable in the public interest that they should be allowed to spend their money, in order that the public interest may be served by this House having an opportunity to give a final decision on the meaning of some troublesome enactment. Therefore, I look at the Bill as it stands to see what are the possible or probable advantages and disadvantages.
The only advantage that has yet been claimed, or that I can see, is that delay and expense will be saved to the parties to that litigation. That is a most important advantage. A great deal of law reform is taken up with trying to save time and money without having to abandon the vital safeguards for the proper administration of justice. Of course, the disadvantages are, first, the possibility that one of these safeguards may have to be abandoned—I refer to the matter of our losing the advantage of having before us the judgments in the Court of Appeal. That is a serious loss, and one must balance that loss against the advantage to the public interest in saving delay and expense in the prosecution of cases.
But there is another matter which I think has not yet been referred to. If a case comes here directly from the trial judge it is likely to take longer, and not a shorter time than if it had gone through the usual channels, because the Court of Appeal generally sort out the issues, and the appellant here is caused to realise that a good deal of what he has said to the Court of Appeal is now not worth saying here. Although I am sorry to say that many cases which come before your Lordships' House take a long time when they need perhaps take a shorter time, I think they will take a longer time still if the Court of Appeal have not had their say.
But it is essentially a matter of balancing opposing public interests. I have always taken the view that when you

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have balancing arguments it is a cardinal rule of common sense that you try to experiment, instead of going on arguing as the Mediaeval school men used to do, and their argument would have come to an end if they had tried experiments. But of course you must experiment under conditions which make it possible to go back to where you were if the experiment does not succeed. I look at this as a purely experimental proposal. If in three or four years it is found that, on balance, this new procedure is doing more harm than good, then it ought to be repealed, or at least substantially amended. If, on the other hand, it is found that the disadvantages are not so great as had been thought, or that the advantages are greater, then it can be continued and, if necessary, expanded. But I do not see why we should go on arguing interminably when we can put the matter to the test quite easily. That is why I support this proposal.
There is one other matter to which I feel I must refer because it too would, to my mind, have been a vital bar to the introduction of this proposal if I had not reason to suppose that this objection is going to be removed by action taken in the immediate future. If you allow "jumping the gun" (if I may use a popular expression); if you allow one case, which is probably a long case, to get in front of the others that have gone through the ordinary procedure of going through the Court of Appeal in order to avoid delay, it means that that case will take its place further up the queue than it would have done had it come through the ordinary channels, and thereby you will prejudice other litigants whose cases will not be considered until a later day. We are at present suffering serious delays. There are few cases, apart from criminal cases where we do give priority, which are decided within one year of the date of the decision in the Court of Appeal: often it is nearer two years. That is far too long, and if there were any risk that the additional cases that come to this House under this scheme would increase that delay still further, I should oppose this proposal with all the power that I may have.
The reason why there is this congestion is quite simply that there has been an immense increase in the judicial work
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of the House in the last 15 years. I can remember some 15 years ago that once, or I think twice, we came to the end of our list about the week before the term came to an end, so that we had an extra week's holiday. It is unthinkable that that should happen to-day. There are two reasons for this. By reason of the change in legislation we have a great many more criminal cases than hitherto. This is all to the good, because I think this House has done good work in tidying up—perhaps I should put it stronger than that; but I do not want to claim things that might come better from others, if they said that we had done good work. The same applies with regard to legal aid. New types of cases have come up here. It is a good thing that they should do so, because they are ventilated and we have a chance of dealing with chapters of the law which have hardly ever before been dealt with in this House.
We have done what we can to avoid this congestion. For example, we save three weeks in every year by not reading out our Opinions in this House but handing out printed copies. Some years ago this House authorised the appointment of a second Appellate Committee, so that two Committees might deal with appeals at the same time. This has been much of a dead letter because there was not enough manpower. Now we have power to have still another Lord of Appeal, and the result is that it will be possible for two Committees to sit simultaneously for a substantial part of the year. I think that if we can do that we shall be able to absorb the extra cases which may come up by reason of the operation of this scheme, and I should hope that we can also reduce the present delay. And I hope that, before I die, I shall see the general rule that cases coming up here are decided within one year, at most, of the date of the decision below. I hope that, instead of that being the exception, as it is to-day, that will become the rule. Therefore, on the footing that we are now able to sit, and that we shall sit, in two divisions for a substantial part of the year, I think that any criticism that this scheme will overload the House is not very serious. But, even so, we must watch that we are not swamped.
I should have liked to see more detailed provisions in the Bill about the class of case that can come here, but I

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fully realise the difficulty in drafting these, and I think that my noble and learned friend has been quite right in leaving this matter rather vague, because we shall learn only by experience, and if we try to define the scheme more closely we shall probably do more harm than good.
With regard to the point raised by my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne, I do not take any very strong view as between the Appeal Committee here and the trial judge giving leave. After all, this is experimental, and if it turns out that the trial judges are giving leave in cases where they obviously should not, that can be put right. But if the House thinks it would be better to put on to the Appeal Committee here the extra work of considering these cases before leave is given, I do not think anything serious would happen. I approach all these questions having firmly in mind that all this is highly experimental, and that it is no good trying to lay down to-day any sort of firm lines to which this scheme must conform for decades to come.
There is just one other matter that I would mention. There is provision in the Bill for including Northern Ireland. I ask my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor whether Northern Ireland have asked to be put into the Bill. If they have, we cannot possibly say "No" to them. But, if they have not, I would ask: have they been consulted? Because it may well be that the Northern Ireland authorities do not want this new provision, and I think that in this matter we should go by what they want. My Lords, you will see that my support for the Bill is hardly enthusiastic, but nevertheless it is firm support. I think it is worth making this experiment because the alternative is that we shall go on arguing until Domesday.
5.4 p.m.
LORD DENNING: My Lords, in most of this Bill there is little to object to. I would support what my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne said about the county courts. There is a danger that we may put too heavy cases upon them. At the moment the judges may sit in one town on one day, and then after a case is adjourned they cannot take it for another two months. They cannot sit from day to day, as most of our other
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courts can. Therefore we do not want to load them with heavy cases. So far as possible, it should be kept a poor persons' court, as it always has been. I see the Master of the Rolls and the Lord Chief Justice are losing their jurisdiction to appoint some clerks in the Central Office. Well, as they have not done it for many, many years, they are not losing anything by this tiny amendment.
Our real anxiety, however, is about Part II of the Bill dealing with the "leapfrog" proposals. They were made in the first instance by my predecessor, Lord Greene, who suggested that there were some cases—and particularly he had in mind Revenue cases—which could jump over the Court of Appeal and which were obviously fit to go straight to the House of Lords, there to be decided. As my noble and learned friend Lord Reid has said, that was in very different days; it was in the days when this House had time to spare and could take cases in that way. Furthermore, it was in the days when most of the people who came to this House were rich people. Now we have legal aid, the work of the Home has increased a great deal, and the situation is such that the recommendations made in 1953 by Lord Evershed's Committee are not applicable to-day. If I may say so, those proposals were not implemented at that time because I think the great majority of the Members of the House of Lords, if not all, were then opposed to them.
What is the position to-day? The position is that in the Court of Appeal, with ten or eleven Lords Justices to do the civil work, we dispose of 600 or 700 cases a year. The House of Lords, quite properly, has to deal with the very important cases and, after full consideration, may deal with 30 or 40 cases a year. It is quite right that that should be so, because it is, after all, the supreme tribunal; the cases must be well and carefully considered and not rushed through. If I may say so, having sat in both places for a considerable number of years, the House of Lords obtains considerable benefit from the judgments which we give in the Court of Appeal.
Now, what is the proposal? What cases are to be brought direct to the House of Lords? There is one class I do not mind in the slightest. That is where there is a binding decision of the

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Court of Appeal already dead on the point. It is no use then having that argued out again in the Court of Appeal; let it come straight to the House of Lords. But this new proposal is not confined to that. It is put in the widest and most ambiguous terms which, in another province of the law, the criminal law, has given rise to great difficulty in the Court of Appeal. It is where a point of law of general public importance is involved in the decision. We often find a point of law may be involved, but there are dozens of other points of fact or other points of law also involved, and all those cases are able to come straight up on statutory construction to this House.
Furthermore, it is to be done by consent of the parties. The parties are often quite wrong in their thinking about what is, or is not, involved. Lord Evershed's Committee itself said,
"… although the parties at the trial might assert that the case would undoubtedly have to go to the House of Lords, it not infrequently happened that after hearings in the Court of first instance and the Court of Appeal there was then in fact no desire to litigate further, not, or not so much, on the ground of expense but because the losing party was advised that a further appeal would be unlikely to be successful."
Here we open the door to a great number of our cases, Court of Appeal cases, coming straight here, because, if I may say so, the great proportion of the cases which are now considered in the Court of Appeal do involve a point of law of statutory construction. Whether it concerns the Rent Act, the Factories Acts or the Lands Tribunal, practically all our cases involve points of law, and they are all points of general public importance. Whether the case is about the selective employment tax, redundancy payments or the like, all these cases come through our Court, and it provides a sieve and a filter so that the House of Lords is not troubled with the multitude of cases which we have to hear.
But if this clause, with its wide wording, is accepted, it means that a trial Judge, by consent of the parties, can give permission for a case to come straight to the House of Lords. I have wondered what trial Judges will do. There are 60 of them. Some may take one line and some another. If both parties say, "We
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want to go straight to the House of Lords, since it will save the expense and delay of going through the Court of Appeal", the easy course will be for many Judges to say, "Good luck to you. Go to the House of Lords direct". And how many cases are going to come to the House of Lords and add to the volume of which my noble and learned friend Lord Reid has spoken? Will it take a year or two years for a decision? We in the Court of Appeal get through our cases in four to six months. And if these extra cases are added, there is the danger not only of the House being overwhelmed but of people jumping the queue and getting advanced over other cases in the Court of Appeal list.
There is one final matter. I would suggest that we go back to Lord Greene's suggestion that it should not be the trial Judge who should decide this matter but the Appeal Committee of this House, because the House then can keep control over its own lists. The House can see which are the important cases that really ought to come here for decision. The Supreme Court of the United States follow that practice; a good deal of their work of certiorari and the rest is sifting out the cases which are worthy of their mettle. So it should not be the trial Judges who should do this, since they have not the experience or knowledge, but the Appeal Committee of the House itself.
I listened to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor for any reason against it. It was suggested that there would be the cost or expense of a re-hearing before the Appeal Committee. But if, as the Bill suggests, the parties are coming by consent and it is a really important case, then there would be no controversy. There need be no counsel or advocates because, on the face of the Judge's judgment, the Appeal Committee ought to be able at once to say, "This is a case which raises a point of such importance that it ought to come to us at once, and we do not need the help of the Court of Appeal upon it." It seems to me that if the House itself accepted the responsibility of deciding whether or not there should be a "leapfrogging", most of the objections—and I am authorised by the Lord Chief Justice to say that, although he cannot be here to-day, he agrees with what I have said—could be

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removed. It means that it would overcome the objection of my noble and learned friend Lord Reid, because the House knows the state of its own business; it could keep control of the volume of business coming to it and the nature of the case. Subject to those observations, many of which may be Committee points, I welcome the Bill.
5.14 p.m.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, this has been an instructive debate, particularly in relation to the speeches made about the "leapfrogging" provisions. I found myself for once (and I venture to say this without the slightest degree of unfriendliness because I do not always find myself in this position) in great sympathy with the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. He has endeavoured to make what I think is a very mild reform in relation to the processes of litigation. What he has tried to do is to reduce the time taken and the expense involved. Of all the provisions in this Bill—and it contains a miscellany of provisions—I regard this as the least important. We have had a number of speeches, addressed to us by lawyers of immense eminence, which convey the impression that what we are trying to do is sink the Fleet, abolish the Bank of England, and do something of such enormous importance to the Constitution that the darkest forebodings must be felt by all of us.
I should like to indicate to some of your Lordships who are not lawyers precisely what this clause involves. It involves a process of appeal at a stage which is not normally a final appeal. It means that in the course of litigation, when the parties have what can be regarded as a preliminary point, if it becomes necessary to determine it before one goes on to determine the whole case it can be agreed that this is normally a matter which may be dealt with by these "leapfrogging" provisions. This is ordinarily the type of case in which the point would he taken as an advance point. It may dispose of the litigation; it may not.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, surely the noble Lord is wrong in that. This "leapfrogging" proposal will not apply to a preliminary point. It will apply only after judgment has been given by the trial judge.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, as I understand it, it will apply in circumstances where the parties are trying to get a ruling on a point of law which may be done in connection with some stage of a case, not the final stage. But let us assume that it does not. Let us assume that it is a case where one is "leapfrogging" after final judgment. What one is seeking to do is to make it possible to dispose of a case by one appellate process only instead of by two. It is agreed by all lawyers that there is no merit in two appellate processes. We have it as an historical accident. The process which we happen to have is immensely expensive. It is no better than one; it is no worse than three. It is simply an accident that we have that particular number. The disadvantage of it is obviously that it is much more costly. If we can reduce the appellate process to one, instead of two, so much the better. The litigant, who is rarely considered in these matters, will be wholeheartedly in favour.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the business of only one appeal was established by the Judicature Act in its first form? After very careful consideration it was decided to put it back and to have the double appeal which is now provided.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I am not sure what the inquiry connotes. At this stage we have two processes of appeal which are available in ordinary circumstances, sometimes with leave, sometimes without leave. I am suggesting that we should be better off with one process of appeal. Whether at some stage—in 1870, or whenever it was—it was decided that we ought to retain a second process of appeal does not seem very relevant to the considerations at this moment of time. I think that it is unimportant.
The one important consideration in connection with the process of justice is to have a system of justice that is available to everybody and is not calculated to be so costly that people cannot resort to it. However perfect a system of justice may be, if it is beyond the means of the people who want to resort to it then that perfection is no use to them. Anything that is done to make it possible to reduce the prohibitive cost of litigation in this country should receive the greatest

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and most vehement encouragement from lawyers. If it is possible by "leapfrogging", by hurdling, or by any device one can think of, to reduce the processes of appeal so that one brings the cost of litigation in this country into conformity with the average man's means, then something of real importance and something of a real reforming nature will have been achieved. That is why I strongly support the "leapfrogging" provision. One can see the difficulties. Of course it is difficult suddenly to reform a single process in a very long, elaborate and historically established system of precedent, and in machinery of justice which is closely integrated. I see the Lord Chancellor's difficulties in the matter; but we should try wherever possible. If, after experiment, we find that it does not work, we can change it; but experiments of this kind should be wholeheartedly welcomed.
I said that I did not think this was the most important provision in this Bill. The more important provision, and one where there is an opportunity—and an opportunity which I hope may be seized more amply than it has been in the Bill—is in regard to the extension of the county court jurisdiction. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, expressed misgivings about this, and hoped that we should not thrust too large a burden on to the county courts. He hoped that the county courts would remain as they always were—the poor persons' courts. But I sincerely hope that they will cease to have any such designation, if they ever had it. I hope we shall cease to have anything in this country which is remotely corresponding to, or is understood to be, a poor persons' court. I hope we shall have equality of justice which is identical for people, whatever their means.
I hope also that we shall not regard the importance of an issue as determined by the financial amount involved, because the point here is that the county court determines issues of immense difficulty. The county court judges have issues to determine which are just as difficult as those which come before judges of first instance in the High Court, and often, indeed, more difficult. The only difference is that the amount of money involved in issues coming before the county courts is smaller. A county
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court judge must have a thorough working knowledge of all branches of the law. In many ways he has to have a much wider general knowledge than a High Court Judge, because he is exercising for Common Law and for Chancery jurisdiction. I am not sure we should not recognise that this responsibility may be asking too much of county court judges, and that there should be a division with different judges operating for Chancery matters and for Common Law matters within the county courts. I think it would be a good thing for the county courts if we recognised that equality of jurisdiction makes it difficult for one man to administer the whole field of law in this matter.
But I hope that we shall take advantage of increased jurisdiction in the county courts although I think the present increase is much too small. To increase the limit of jurisdiction from £500 to £750, with the changes in the value of money since the original limit was imposed, is really much too small. There seems no reason why, if we accept that county courts are competent to deal with amounts of £5,000 in Chancery jurisdiction, they should not deal with a similar amount in Common Law jurisdiction. Once you determine that a county court judge has qualifications to decide the issues involved, then it is not of tremendous importance what monetary consequence there is in relation to that issue. It is just as important to a litigant who is concerned about £50 to have the matter accurately determined as to a litigant concerned about £2,000 or £3,000.
One of the great advantages of county courts is that they are speedy and inexpensive, and, on the whole, give equality of justice about which very little complaint can be raised. Also, of course, there is a direct right of appeal to the Court of Appeal where, if the county court judge has gone wrong, a matter can be rectified. There is every argument in favour of increasing county court jurisdiction to the absolute limit. I do not make this argument as part of what is known to be one of my fervent and passionate beliefs, that there ought to be a reconstruction of the legal profession. I do not make this argument because it happens that both branches of the legal profession have audience in the county courts. I make it at this point because I believe

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that county courts are an appropriate tribunal to deal with issues to a much greater value than £750.
The other matters on which I should briefly like to touch are ones which are troubling me. I apologise for making on these matters what must be a Committee speech, but the nature of the Bill makes it difficult not to do so, because it deals with such a variety of topics. There is the question of enabling a will to be made for a person who is mentally defective. I share the misgivings expressed by the noble and learned Viscount. Lord Dilhorne, on this matter. I do not say that it should not be done, and I do not say there are not circumstances where it may be highly beneficial that it should be done. But I venture to think that some more thought requires to be given to this problem than appears to have been given by the drafting of the clause.
There are, for instance, such considerations as these. What is to happen if the testator—the person for whom the will is being made—has already made a will of which the judge is not aware? Is the new will to take effect as revoking that will? I should have thought that in those circumstances it ought not. In short, a will under this clause ought not to revoke a will previously made, which was made by the testator when he may have had full capacity. This seems to be one consideration which ought to be inserted into this clause.
Another consideration of the greatest difficulty is to what extent you preserve a right, which it has always been a matter of high importance to preserve, that the would-be testator is entitled, notwithstanding his mental infirmity, to purport to make a will, and leave it to the court later to determine whether or not he had mental capacity. It may well emerge that persons who have decided at some stage that he is to be regarded as mentally defective were, in the event, wrong in relation to his testamentary capacity. This would be a matter for very careful determination by a Chancery court—I think not by a Probate court—at a full trial. Now to what extent would the testator be entitled to preserve that right which at the moment he has, because one of the two things for which a person is entitled to incur expense is to take advice about making a will, and to take
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advice about discharging a receivership. This makes it clear that it has always been left to a patient in this condition to seek advice as to whether or not he can make a will, and even to make a will notwithstanding that somebody may later declare it to be invalid. That possible conflict also, has not been resolved in these provisions.
There are quite a number of matters which occur to me, where, if one is making a change of this character, it is of extreme importance that one should survey the field with the greatest care. One cannot allay one's anxieties too easily, by saying that the procedure is analogous to the procedure in making settlements, because I understand that the settlements are nearly always revocable. That being so, you have a very different situation from when you are making a will which will take effect in an irrevocable and final fashion. These are probably Committee points, but they seem to be points of some substance in relation to this provision.
There are two other matters on which I should like to touch. The first is that I was asked by the Society of Public Notaries of London to do two things. One was to thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for having inserted in the Bill a provision relating to their articles. The other was to express to him their faint misgivings that the provision did not achieve quite what they wanted. I have seen a rather entertaining correspondence between them and the Lord Chancellor's Department when, not perhaps without justification, a member of the Lord Chancellor's Department—who had obviously expended a great deal of time and energy in research as to the law relating to notaries public; a matter which goes back to time immemorial—pointed out, I think with some asperity, that he had now reached a point where he could research no longer and it was either this amendment or nothing. May I intercede on their behalf and ask that the few additional words for which they plead, since they are the people particularly concerned in this matter, might be considered, even by the gentleman whose patience has been tried so hard, and to whom they remain so very grateful? May I make that proposal?
The second comment which I should like to make is about the Court of the

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County Palatine of Durham. I observe that the Church Commissioners are now selling this back, and that we are buying it for 15 years' purchase on £427 7s. 4d. The comment that comes to my mind, since I am acquainted with the admirable lawyer who presides as the judge there, is: how has this gentleman contrived to be paid adequately out of the £427 7s. 4d. which has been paid during this period, and to ask that appropriate consideration should be given to setting up some additional fund to enable the Court to be conducted, not on a lavish scale but at least on a scale which is not quite at such a starvation level. In these days, when we are concerned with regionalisation. I think it is very important to consider preserving these Courts. The two of them—I believe there are only two; one at Lancaster and one at Durham—have a considerable degree of local popularity. They save the immense expense of coming to the Chancery Division in London, and I hope that not only will they be preserved but that everything possible will be done to improve them.
5.30 p.m.
LORD MORRIS OF BORTH-Y-GEST>: My Lords, I should like to join with other noble Lords in expressing a general welcome to this Bill. The suggested increase in the jurisdiction of the county court does not alarm me. I do not feel that that increase need alter the character or detract from the quality and type of work that is undertaken in the county court. The present limit has been in existence for, I think, some nine years, and the planned increase does little more than take heed of the change in the value of money.
I am sure that we were all very glad to hear the tribute paid by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to the work done by the Committee presided over by Lord Justice Winn. That Committee made the suggestion, among other very valuable suggestions, that provision should be made for interim payments in personal injury actions; and Clause 19 of the Bill before your Lordships' House provides that such orders may be made. I wondered whether Clause 19 was not couched in very wide terms indeed. The recommendation of the Winn Committee was in reference to personal injuries. Clause 19 enables the
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rules in both the High Court and the county court to include the power
"… to make provsion for enabling the court in which any proceedings are pending, in such circumstances as may be specified in the rules, to make an order requiring a party to the proceedings to make an interim payment of such amount as may be specified in the order",
and so on.
My Lords, I imagine that if any words of limitation were imposed it might be found in the course of the next period that they were unhappily phrased and that further legislation was needed; but this clause enables orders for interim payments to be made in any type of litigation. Having said that, may I add that I am well content, for when one knows the composition of the Rules Committee one can be quite happy that no rule would be made which would be unacceptable; and I think I am right in saying that rules must be laid before both Houses of Parliament after they have been before the Rules Committee.
May I say just a few words in regard to Part II of the Bill, which more particularly concerns some of us? As I listened to the debate in your Lordships' House I was reminded for one moment of a remark which was made a short time ago when people were having a discussion and somebody said, "Why do we go on talking about this when half of us are unanimous?" My Lords, those of us who have the honour of sitting in your Lordships' House and taking part in the consideration of judicial matters are, I think, very conscious that many interests are involved when an appeal is being heard. First, and primarily, there are the interests of the particular litigants. But their interests, as well as those of a wider public—the interests of the whole public—are, further, that the decisions in your Lordships' House should be decisions which settle the law clearly and which develop the law as a sensible and just system.
So more than the interest of the litigants is involved; and in the process with which your Lordships' House is concerned when sitting judicially I am quite sure that all of us feel that it is of the utmost importance to have the considered views of the learned Lords Justices in the Court of Appeal. It would be a very great pity if anything took place which

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detracted from the value of the decisions in your Lordships' House and if that were a result which might follow if the judgments of Lords Justices were not available in a case. After there has been a hearing in the Court of Appeal, and after there have been three judgments, those judgments are subjected to very careful consideration by skilled counsel, and all that consideration is of the utmost value in the determination of the right result as a matter of law in the particular case.
Those reflections led me at first to the approach that it would be undesirable to go further than the proposal that there should be direct appeal to this House in cases where an existing decision of the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords governed the case. I appreciated the point taken by my noble and learned friend Lord Denning, when he referred to the words,
"a point of law … is involved in that decision".
I must say I had read those words not as denoting that a point of law was just incidentally involved but as denoting that the point of law was really the point in the case; that the effective decision in the case was on the point of law. If I am right in thinking that that was the intention of the Bill, and if it could be read in the way in which my noble and learned friend Lord Denning has read it, it could be easily changed by some slightly different wording.
But, though my first approach was to limit the power to come direct to your Lordships' House to the one type of case where there was a governing decision in the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords, further reflection has led me to the view that it would be a good thing, as an experiment, to give the proposed system a trial. After all, it was considered very carefully by the very powerful Committee under the late Lord Evershed, and it would be a pity to adopt any attitude that was negative, an attitude that was not willing to give reasonable trial to a new proposal.
I am very much affected by the two points that, first, both parties must agree, and, secondly, that the Court must agree. I use the words "the Court" at the moment because, like other noble Lords, I am not very definite as to whether it
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should be the trial Judge or whether it should be an Appeal Committee of your Lordships' House. I lean rather in favour of leaving it to the Judge. There would be some delay—not very much—and some expense if it came to the Appeal Committee, whereas the Judge, having heard the case, could give his decision quickly. One cannot really tell how this proposal would work out in practice. It might well be that the winner before the trial Judge would not be disposed to consent to by-passing the Court of Appeal. He might argue: "I have won the case. Let my opponent go to the Court of Appeal if he will. If he loses there he will probably stop. If, unhappily, he wins there, then I hope to be able to go to the House of Lords".
But it may well be that from the, start both parties recognise that the case involves simply a matter of construction—the construction of an Act of Parliament or the construction of a Statutory Instrument. It may be that some change in the law, in a Statute, is necessary once there is a final decision. If both parties say, "We wish to go straight to the House of Lords", and if that involves some diminution in expense and some shortening of time, prima facie there is a lot to be said for their wish. But I would not leave it there. Nor does the proposal in the Bill. For the Bill says that, though the parties may agree, it is necessary for the Judge to be satisfied that it is expedient for the matter to come straight to your Lordships' House. I think that any High Court Judge considering whether it is expedient would know the type of case that is suitable for hearing in your Lordships' House, and he would not proceed to give his certificate merely because both parties asked him to do so. So I think that with those two safeguards—being, as I say, not very emphatic as to whether the permission should be given by the trial Judge or by the Appeal Committee of your Lordships' House—I feel that here is an experiment that we should at least try.
5.40 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that this is not an easy Bill on which to make a Second Reading speech, because so diverse are the provisions in it that I think it is no criticism

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to say that there is no theme except one of a general tidying-up of the law and of providing useful reforms. Therefore I do not wish to do more than to touch upon four points. The first two of them I will approach with wary tread.
The first, raised under Clause 7, concerns the right of audience. I must be wary here because, since I am an ordinary member of the Bar, it is obviously most necessary that I should not be thought to be taking any partipris attitude about increasing the opportunities for solicitors to have a right of audience. I certainly do not want to do that. It seems to me, having looked at the arguments for and against the changes which the Bill makes in the County Courts Act, that the case for the change that is suggested here has been made out. I should like to support the provisions in the Bill on that matter. I think it is to be noted also that, as a concomitant (or it may be a pure coincidence that it also appears in the Bill), in Clause 9(3) there are provisions whereby disciplinary rules can be made regarding solicitors which I think could not previously have been made. This will no doubt be useful if they use the powers given in Clause 7 as to rights of audience.
The second matter which I approach in a wary fashion is the matter of Part II. It is, of course, here that someone who has listened to a debate in which there has been crossfire of great power from noble and learned Lords who take one view or another, must be careful if he is not of their number. It seemed to me that all noble Lords who spoke agreed that there were circumstances in which a 'leapfrog" procedure could be justified. The difference was as to the occasions on which it should be used and, to some extent, as to the methods. I am bound to confess that I have not myself altogether understood how it is to work—it may be because I have not taken enough trouble; but, equally, I am not sure that it is altogether clear from the Bill.
My noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne said that he thought the Appeal Committee of your Lordships' House, rather than the trial judge, ought to decide whether any specific case fell within the rules set out in Clause 12(3). I think that one of the reasons he gave for that
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was that the trial judge will not have the advantage of hearing anybody opposing the two parties, who ex hypothesi, must consent. Both of them will say that they think it falls within the rules; and there will be nobody to argue to the contrary. Precisely the same thing seems to me to apply if the matter is dealt with by the Appeal Committee; because there, presumably, both parties must agree and, if the matter is heard at all, both parties will be saying that they would like the case to come straight to the House of Lords.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, the Appeal Committee will be in a better position than any trial judge to judge whether the case is suitable for the House of Lords.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, that is another point. I do not think that that followed directly from what my noble and learned friend said.
The point that really concerns me is this—there are really two points. First, it is very interesting indeed, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said, to hear that if this matter were dealt with by the Appeal Committee of your Lordships' House, it might not be necessary to have any hearing at all. If that is so, it is quite clear that this would be a fairly inexpensive method of dealing with the matter; but I do not think I have heard anyone else say that this should be done. I think the House would like to have confirmation about whether or not this is a possibility.
Then there is the difficulty, unless it is a matter of abysmal ignorance on my part and I have it wrong, that in ordinary cases (of course, this procedure does not apply where there is no appeal to the House of Lords) where there is a right of appeal to the House of Lords that right is available only on leave either of the Court of Appeal or, if that Court does not give leave, of this House itself. But what is the position about the certificate? If the trial judge grants a certificate under Part II, is that, in effect, the equivalent of the Court of Appeal giving leave to appeal to the House of Lords? If it is, I wonder whether this House has considered whether it is right that the trial judge should have this jurisdiction to decide a matter which I think is sometimes quite a difficult point for

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the Court of Appeal itself to decide, and when, after all, if the Appeal Court decides against giving leave, the matter can he argued again in your Lordships' Committee.
If the trial judge is in fact doing what the Court of Appeal now does, which is to decide whether or not a particular matter is a suitable one to be sent to the House of Lords, is not a similar sort of argument going to have to take place before the Committee of your Lordships' House—or might it not?—because just the same sort of difficulties will arise as to whether or not the matter falls within the rules? If so, even if both parties agree, I should have thought it probable that your Lordships' Committee would want to hear counsel to see whether they could be persuaded, even though both parties agreed, that the matter fell within the rules laid down in this Bill. If that is so, then, with the greatest possible respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, it seems to me that there is the chance of having a fairly substantial hearing on occasions on the question of whether the Appeal Committee will issue a certificate.
Whether that is better; or whether it is better to leave it to the trial judge, who will, as it were, pre-empt the matter and take it altogether out of the hands of the House of Lords I do not think I am in a position to say. It will be a matter for the House to decide. I do not think the matter is altogether clear, and I should be grateful if the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor could say a bit more about how he thinks this will work in practice. I appreciate that this is an experiment and that nobody knows; but I am sure that it is something that has been carefully thought out before being introduced as part of this Bill. I think at Second Reading we might with advantage have more detail so as to consider whether any Amendments may be necessary at subsequent stages of the Bill.
My Lords, I pass on to a matter on which I have a lot more confidence. This is in Part IV. My noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne wondered whether one could not go further (I think he said this) in the business of making orders for interim payment. If that is what he said, I entirely agree with him; because there is one matter not covered by this
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Bill which I think could be dealt with in this House, although it might require an amendment of the Long Title and is completely analogous to the sort of subject matter in Clause 19. This is the matter of compensation for compulsory purchase. The arguments for interim payment, as I understand them, are that in personal injury cases, or other matters where it is perfectly clear that somebody is going to get some money in due course, and where the argument is over how much, the case for putting in a provision to grant an order for interim payment is that the person who has been injured or in other ways damaged should get some of the money straight away.
As it is drafted in Clause 19, this is a fairly wide provision, as I think other noble and learned Lords have said. But most people find that there are few more damaging things that could happen to them than to have their property or business compulsorily acquired. It is equally clear that there is nothing more fundamental in law than that they will get compensation for it in due course, just as people who are damaged in other ways will do. But, just like the people who at present have to wait for judgment in the High Court or county court, or whatever it is, so people who are hoping to get their compensation may have to wait for the matter to go to the Lands Tribunal.
It is no criticism whatever of the Tribunal to say that this matter, just as it does in the courts, may take some time. The pressure is this. If you are losing your house or your business, more particularly your business, you may be entitled not only to compensation for the value of the property but also for what is called disturbance, which is the general upheaval of moving to other premises caused by the original premises having been brought up. It is on that that the difficulty often arises. It is a difficult matter, because often you cannot put a figure on it until it has happened and after the person has moved. If it is going to be contested, there are many occasions when the person who has been dispossessed does not get paid at all until after the Lands Tribunal has decided, and that is not much good if what you really want to do is to minimise the damage, find somewhere else to go, get on with moving your business and, in fact, cut down the

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disturbance claim to the minimum. I do not say that this always happens, but it certainly does sometimes.
The incentive, therefore, for a person whose disturbance claim, or some other element of his claim against the acquiring authority, is being contested, is to settle—get your money, even if it is less than you are really due to have, because if you settle, and get the money then at least you can go and buy another property. If the bank will not lend you some money, that is what you have to do, or go out of business altogether. I should have thought, therefore, if we are going to have a general provision of the sort that appears in Clause 19, this would repay study. It seems to me very similar in principle to what is in the Bill, and I should be grateful to the noble and learned Lord—though I do not suppose he can possibly answer it to-day as I did not give notice of it—if he would be so good as to consider it a little later on, and perhaps I will return to the matter at a later stage.
The final point I wish to raise is a small one and relates to Clause 26. Here, in subsection (2), we have a list of people to whom pension swapping provisions or pension sharing provisions shall be applied. It seems to me that in these days, when we are looking forward to the Report of the Beeching Commission, it is not altogether impossible that there may turn out to be more people in this position than we have or know about at the present moment; and we may want the situation to be flexible enough to enable their jobs and pension rights to be changed. If the list which is in the Bill is finally enacted, I suspect, unless I have misread the clause, that if we want to add anyone else to it we shall have to have another Bill. That must be difficult because it always takes time.
It cannot be a controversial decision, that two officers, or two judges, or people of that equivalent, who are merely swapping positions from one court to another should have their pensions follow them. Would it not be possible, therefore, to provide for any extra names or positions which do not at present fall within some section to be added by Order in Council? Perhaps this would be a matter for another place alone if it is a financial one, but I do not see anything in the Bill
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at the moment which would allow that to be done and it might be a useful suggestion to avoid the necessity for legislation later on.
My Lords, I make those comments on the Bill and I think that there will be matters which need discussing in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has set out a list of very important subjects under the provisions of Part III of the Bill, and plainly there are other matters, too. I look forward to a very interesting Committee stage. Meanwhile, from these Benches I warmly welcome this Bill, and I hope that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
5.55 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords. I am grateful to your Lordships for the welcome which has been given to this Bill and for the comparatively few points which have been raised. As to the increase in jurisdiction, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, thought that £750 was overdoing things a bit, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, thought it was underdoing things a bit. All I should like to make clear, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, is that one wants to see how much additional work the existing judges can take on; it is to some extent pragmatic. As the House has agreed that it would be right that in future one should be able to alter the jurisdiction by Statutory Instrument—
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord said "alter it by Statutory Instrument." Did he not mean alter it by Order in Council?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think it is by Statutory Instrument, but I will check that point. While it is in my mind, may I say that the noble and learned Viscount asked where to find the provision that it must be affirmatively approved by both Houses of Parliament. That is, in fact, the effect of the Bill as it is drafted, but one has to refer back to the other legislation which is mentioned in the Bill to see how it is arrived at. It is a little complicated and therefore I will write to the noble and learned Viscount to explain why that is so. I think the noble and learned Viscount thought that in a real sense the jurisdiction of the county court was being increased—I mean in the sense

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that it will now do things that it has never done before. With great respect, this is not so. If one takes the case of a secondhand car, if the jurisdiction is increased to £750 the same kind of car will be being dealt with now as was the case in 1938, because, if the Treasury is right, £742 now is the exact equivalent of the £200 in 1938.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble and learned Lord, but I did not, in fact, express the view that £750 was too much. I said I was sorry that the noble and learned Lord had felt it was necessary to make that enlargement, but I was not opposing it. What I did say was that, with their other activities, I was worried lest too great a load might be put on the county court judges.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am obliged. Then, my Lords, I think that on the question of right of audience there has been general agreement, except that the noble and learned Viscount suggested that perhaps the right of audience might be denied to solicitor agents in larger cases. But I would remind him that they get round it now perfectly lawfully by serving a notice of change, and I should have thought that the same point would have applied there.
My Lords, the power to make wills is a thing which struck me as very odd when I first examined it, and I should welcome any amount of assistance on this subject. It is a matter which we ought carefully to consider in the Committee stage. Under the 1959 Mental Health Act a complete settlement can be made of a patient's estate. There can be no question of the estate being left to somebody by will, because it will not be there; it will have been settled already. All it really comes to is that you now make a settlement in cases, and, if the same thing were done by will, a great deal of tax would be saved. To change that seems to be sensible. Ordinary people are allowed so to arrange their affairs that they attract as little tax as possible, and there does not seem to be any reason why the relatives of somebody of disordered mind should be deprived of an advantage which every other citizen has. But, as I say, I should welcome consideration of it during the
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Committee stage of the Bill. As to notaries, I promise the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that I will certainly look myself at the file and see whether we can oblige him any further.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, that the provision in the Bill about interim payments is very wide; but the intention is that the Rule Committee should specify clearly what the cases should be in which alone such Orders could be made. The question of interim payments and compulsory purchase is a new and interesting one to me. As the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, will appreciate, this is not a branch of the law—compulsory purchase—for which I am responsible. Therefore, I shall have to consult my colleagues before I can deal with that interesting suggestion. I will certainly consider also what he said regarding pensions and the sort of people who are specified in the Bill. The difficulty is that I could not have proposed this unless the local authorities who pay them had agreed, and we could hardly deal with somebody in the Bill whom we had not thought of, without asking the local authorities.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not think that there will be any difficulty about that, because before any Order in Council or Statutory Instrument was made inserting a new post in the Bill no doubt the agreement of the local authorities would have to be obtained. If it was not obtained, there would not be an Order in Council.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I will certainly consider that. That leaves me only the "leap-frog". I would say that the effect of the clause is that a certificate can be granted where no leave to appeal is required. If an appeal lies with leave, a certificate can also be granted, but where a decision of the Court of Appeal is final, then no certificate can be granted. I think that the Bill is drafted to give effect to that
I agree with those who have said that this ought to be experimental. The Evershed Committee themselves said that in their Report. They said at page 161:
"We further recommend that the working of the 'leap-frog' scheme should be reconsidered after a period of, say, three to five

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years, by an appropriate Committee or Commission with a view to seeing whether it should be extended or modified …"
Maybe we should consider it at an even shorter interval than that. It was at their express request that appeals from Northern Ireland are included. No doubt there are questions of terminology which might be usefully considered on Committee stage.
The chief difference of opinion has been whether the trial judge should give the certificate or whether it should be given by the Appeal Committee of the House of Lords. Three or four of us think that it should be the trial judge; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, was in effect neutral, and the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, think that it should be the Appeal Committee of the House of Lords.
The first thing I should like to say is this. We talked earlier this afternoon of people who gave up a great deal of their spare time to try to help in this field. The Evershed Committee started in April, 1947, and finished in July, 1953. They sat for just about seven years. I think I am right in saying that as a member of the Committee I attended 330 meetings, most of which were for two or three hours, so that if one takes an eight-hour day, this took up something like 100 days of my life.
Who were the members of this Committee? They included the Master of the Rolls, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Evershed; Mr. Justice Lynskey, Mr. Justice Willmer and Mr. Justice Upjohn (as they then were); the Treasury Solicitor; my noble friend Lord Crowther, who is down on the list of members as Geoffrey Crowther, Esq.; then two solicitors, each of whom subsequently became President of the Law Society; a third solicitor who became Deputy Speaker of another place; a president of a trade union, Mr. C. J. Geddes, now the noble Lord, Lord Geddes of Epsom; the Chief Taxing Master; Professor Sir Arthur Goodhart; Sir Arnold Gridley; Sir John HanburyWilliams; Sir Alan Herbert; Professor Marshall; Mr. Giles Newton, who was chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce; Mr. Charles Norton, who
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subsequently became President of the Law Society, a Master and a chartered accountant. This recommendation was unanimous and they thought of the idea mentioned, that we should go straight to the House of Lords. They did not recommend that both parties should have to agree. As I have explained, I put that in at the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid.
The Evershed Committee said this at page 161:
"We imagine that in the great majority of cases in which the scheme would operate it would do so in fact with the consent of both parties. But we think it necessary that the determination to grant or not to grant a certificate on the part of a trial Judge should be at his discretion and should be final, i.e. that there should be no right of appeal by leave or otherwise to the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords against the Judge's grant or refusal of a certificate. Unless this were so, there would, we think, be substantial risk in some cases of considerable expenditure of costs on the question whether a certificate should be granted which might go far to offset any savings that might otherwise be achieved by the 'leap-frog'."
The Committee said at page 160:
"If the 'leap-frog' scheme is, in the first instance, limited as we have suggested, then we think that the objection to leaving to the Judge of first instance the decision to order a 'leap-frog' appeal direct to the House of Lords will be met; and there is no doubt that by so leaving it to the trial Judge the greatest saving in costs is achieved. Moreover the trial Judge will necessarily be fully seized of all the facts and circumstances of the case and will therefore require no further or separate application to be made."
Again the Committee said at page 158:
"It appeared to us that if such application had to be made to the Appeal Committee of the House there was a risk that the costs saved in one direction might be lost in another; for the petition would have to be carefully settled and might require substantial argument. … Finally, we were afraid that a result of petitioning to the House of Lords might be to involve the House in a serious increase in the volume of work."
It seems to me that, whatever lawyers might say, we cannot persuade laymen that it is a sensible system of justice under which one might have to get the issue decided by four different courts when the top court but one has already made a ruling about the very point at issue. It has been admitted that a number of these may be tax cases. There have to be barristers and solicitors to argue before the Commissioners. When the Commissioners have decided the

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whole thing, then there have to be barristers and solicitors to argue the whole thing again before a judge. If it is agreed that neither the judge nor the Court of Appeal can finally decide the matter, it really is impossible to persuade me that then for a third time barristers and solicitors have to argue the matter in the Court of Appeal and then again for a fourth time it has to be argued in the House of Lords. Obviously this cannot be right and it ought to be possible to save one of these appearances. The difficulty of saying that it is not the trial Judge who is to give the certificate but the House of Lords is that, although you may send them the documents, nobody is going to agree to their saying that the Court of Appeal cannot be by passed without his being heard. It is everybody's right to be heard before something is decided against him. By the time you have got up to the House of Lords to argue whether you can bypass the Court of Appeal or not, you might just as well go to the Court of Appeal. If the case goes to the Court of Appeal, then the facts of the case have to be explained, the judgment of the trial Judge read, and the Appeal Court's own previous decision; but the other side will not be arguing it and once you have done that, then you agree that they are bound to dismiss the appeal because you are on the way to the House of Lords.
If, in order to get a certificate, it is necessary to go to the Appeal Com
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mittee, give them the facts, read the trial Judge's judgment and the previous decision of the Court of Appeal, you might as well go to the Court of Appeal and be done with it. Obviously, this might remove the whole of the saving of costs which it is the object of this reform to achieve. But I will consider most carefully what has been said on this point and the other points referred to. Again I thank all the noble Lords and noble and learned Lords who have been good enough to take part in this discussion.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS
Message from the Commons: That they concur in the Resolution of this House relative to Consolidation Bills, communicated to them on Wednesday last.

PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS AND PRIVILEGE
Message from the Commons: That they concur in the Resolution of this House relative to Parliamentary Proceedings and Privilege, communicated to them on Thursday last.
House adjourned at ten minutes past six o'clock.