COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 19 May 1970)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 23. This, I am afraid, is rather a long new clause. It will enable a single attachment of earnings order to be made to secure payment of two or more judgment debts or other liabilities of the same debtor. Under the Bill as it stands, an attachment order can be made only to secure payment of one debt or liability. If two or more attachment orders are made in respect of separate debts and liabilities, the employer is required to deal with them in accordance with the provisions of Part II of Schedule 5. This means that an attachment order made to secure the payment of maintenance, or one of the other liabilities in respect of which a magistrate's court may make such an order will fall to be dealt with before any other attachment order.

As between attachment orders in each of these classes, an earlier order would be dealt with before a later one. Although it is not likely that several attachment orders would be made against the same debtor, since the first, particularly if it was for maintenance, might well exhaust most of the debtor's free pay, it would obviously be inconvenient to the employer if he had to comply with two or more orders and accord them due priority. Moreover, as between creditors of the same class the principle of "first come, first served," while applying to existing methods of enforcement, is scarcely compatible with the integrated system envisaged by the Payne Committee.

In the county court these disadvantages can be avoided by making an administration order, either under the 1010 court's present powers or under the powers conferred by the new clause, together with an attachment of earnings order to secure the payments due under the administration order. This may, however, be an unnecessarily cumbersome expedient where the debtor has only two or three judgments against him. Furthermore, since an administration order covers all the debtor's liabilities, and not merely judgment debts, it may stimulate into activity creditors who would not otherwise press for payment of their debts. In the magistrates' courts there is no procedure comparable to an administration order whereby all liabilities of a debtor can be dealt with simultaneously.

On Third Reading in this House the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, urged that there should be some means of consolidating attachment orders made to secure the payment of fines of similar liabilities so that an employer would not be faced with the task of dealing with several orders made by different courts in respect of the same man. The Confederation of British Industry made the same point in representations to me. In reply to the noble Viscount, I said that there were practical difficulties in the way of consolidating two or more attachment orders in respect of fines: for example, the enforcement of the fines might be in the hands of different magistrates' courts. I said, however, that the matter was under consideration, and it is now thought possible to provide for the consolidation of attachment orders if the procedural details are left to be worked out by Rules of Court.

I need not deal in great detail with the various subsections of the new clause, particularly as the noble Viscount is familiar with them. I have stated their effect and am glad to know that at last we have been able to meet this point which has been raised here and to provide for consolidation orders.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, this is probably the most important of the new clauses. Amendment No. 31 is important, but this Amendment will make the matter very much easier in every way. I have never disguised from the House that I disliked 1011 Part II of what is now Schedule 5, which provided for this complicated system of priority of orders. I fully understand that there still has to be a difference between magistrates' court orders and county court orders. I was disappointed when the Bill had to leave the House without there being any really satisfactory method of consolidating orders in either of those courts. There were only the administration orders that we considered, and we had not made very much progress. Now there is a very much better method of doing it.

I am glad that the magistrates' courts department of this new clause is to be dealt with by rules. I may as well say now that at some stage somebody is going to have to write a little book on the new method of enforcement of debts provided under this Part of the Bill. There will be all sorts of new subsidiary orders rules, both in the county courts and in the magistrates' courts. It is no secret that we hope to have before long consolidation of magistrates' court legislation Statutes. That will no doubt be followed by new rules to supersede the ones which came in at the beginning of this year, because the references will all be wrong. There will be an opportunity then to include the rules envisaged by this new clause in the consolidated new rules.

One way and another, the other place, with the assistance no doubt of the noble and learned Lord's Department, and the right honourable gentleman the Attorney General, and his Office, have succeeded in tidying up this Bill in a big way. I never placed this as exclusively a matter for the convenience of employers, as the noble and learned Lord will remember. I always thought that the system was inherently unsatisfactory as we left it, and I welcome this new clause; I think it is a great improvement.