Commons Amendment (Hansard, 21 October 1969)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 14. I should like at the same time to discuss Amendment No. 25 and 29. This is a clause dealing with the pension rights of assistant registrars, and particularly assistant registrars of the county courts. The purpose of the Amendment is to improve their pension terms by reducing their pension span from 25 years to 20 years. In recent years the Lord Chancellor has had very considerable difficulty in finding solicitors who are well qualified for appointment as county court registrars and assistant registrars, and it is desirable to make the terms of service more attractive by improving their pension terms. The reduction of the pension span from 25 to 20 years would put registrars and assistant registrars in the same position as masters and registrars of the High Court. The pension terms of the sheriffs substitute were recently improved—some little time ago, I think—and their pension span was reduced from 25 to 20 years by Section 3 of the Sheriffs Pensions (Scotland) Act 1961.

The Amendment to Clause 28 reducing the pension span of the county court registrars and assistant registrars from 25 to 20 years would give them precisely the same pension terms as those now enjoyed by the sheriffs-substitute. A registrar or assistant registrar cannot, under Section 21 (4) (6) of the County Courts Act 1934, be granted a pension until he has served 15 years and has attained the age of 65, unless he retires on medical grounds. A solicitor who is appointed assistant registrar in the first place is likely to be appointed at a younger age than one who is appointed initially as a registrar, and will probably serve more than the 20 years required under the Amendment for the maximum pension for a registrar. He 1624 may indeed serve that length of time as a full registrar. It follows from this that the Amendment, which provides an attraction to practising solicitors who are considering applying for appointment as full registrars in the first place, is unlikely to make much difference in practice to those who are initially appointed as registrars. I hope that your Lordships will think that these Amendments are desirable, and I beg to move accordingly.

My Lords, I am afraid that I have inadvertently taken Amendment 15 before No. 14. I am sorry; it is entirely my fault. I wondered for a moment whether I had done so, and then concluded I had not, but I have.

Amendment No. 14 is a separate Amendment. It says that Section 153 of the Judicature Act 1925, which limits the district probate registries in which second and subsequent grants of probate and administration may be made, shall cease to have effect. Section 153 was designed to ensure that an application for a second or subsequent grant, of which grants de bonis non—that is to say, when an executor dies leaving portions of his estate unadministered and there is no change of executorship—are the most frequent, should not be applied for except at a registry which has the papers relating to the original draft or, in the case of the principal probate registry, a copy of the original draft will. In these days when copying documents is such a simple task the reason for Section 153 has disappeared and the section remains purely as a source of administrative problems. This Amendment will get rid of those problems. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 14.