Juries (Amendment) Bill [H.L.] (Hansard, 22 December 1982)

§ Lord Wigoder
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
At this stage it is not my wish to detain your Lordships with any debate on formal amendments to curtail the extended disability envisaged by this Bill, but, assuredly, at some stage this question warrants your Lordships' attention because on Second Reading some noble Lords wished to curtail the extent of disability envisaged by this Bill. In particular, I refer to the observations of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, at column 602 of the Official Report for 17th November; but other noble Lords wished to extend it very substantially indeed. As an example, I refer to my noble friend Lord Elton at column 619.
A formal amendment would require some words of limitation to be inserted after the word "offence" in Clause 1, line 6, and possibly a schedule of exclusion. Would it not be more convenient if this question could be discussed at some later stage, preferably when the Government have formulated their own proposals and when one hopes, perhaps, that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, may have crystallised some of his concepts for the assistance of some of your Lordships? Surely it would be wrong to rush such an important measure as this without full discussion on the extent of disability and all administrative aspects of its implementation in practice.

§ Lord Mishcon
The noble and learned Lord whose name has just been referred to is engaged at this moment upon other affairs, and apologises that he is not able to be with your Lordships. He is one of the more fortunate Members of your Lordships' House who has not therefore been detained until this moment and likely to be detained hereafter.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, has quite correctly referred to the difficulties that are inherent in this matter. The Bill seeks to deal with a problem. Most of us feel there is some problem, and most of us feel that we have not reached the right formula and have not yet "crystallised" (to use the noble and learned Lord's word) our feelings, thoughts and philosophies on this matter. I find the view of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, most acceptable in this sense: that at some stage or other very deep consideration has got to be given to the arguments for and against, if any formula can improve on the existing law. From that point of view I therefore agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, has said.

§ Lord Elton
I think it might be useful if I were to use this opportunity to explain to the Committee the position of the Government on the Bill. I will not detain your Lordships for long. The siren calls not only for my noble friend's Second Reading but for the debate on the Unstarred Question set down by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew; and, indeed, the Christmas Recess would make that perilous. As I made clear at Second Reading, there is very little between us and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, as to ends: each wishes to ensure that those who have shown their rejection of the essential values of our criminal justice system by their own way of life should be disqualified from jury service. We agree about ends, but we differ about means. The Government do not believe that the proposals in this Bill go wide enough. My noble friend was kind enough to point that out. Our own preferred approach would be to exclude from jury service anyone convicted of an imprisonable offence in the last ten years.
As some noble Lords may be aware, a Member in another place has introduced a Bill there to achieve this purpose. The Member concerned has drawn a low position in the ballot, but we shall clearly want to give him all the assistance we can. I do recognise, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, will wish to proceed with his Bill, and, given our agreement on aims, the Government will not oppose it in its remaining stages in your Lordships' House. We are not now in a position to put forward substantive amendments of our own to the Bill, but we would not oppose any amendments that might be moved at later stages which were consistent with our own proposals, provided they were satisfactory and workable.
We shall also be pleased to make available to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wigoder, the detailed drafting proposals for the Bill in another place as soon as they are available. In addition, I have drawn the noble Lord's attention to a detailed technical point in the Bill, which I gather he proposes to deal with later.

§ Lord Wigoder
I am grateful to the noble Lords who have spoken on this matter. It is very difficult to distinguish, I think, between a debate at Committee 1099 stage on "Clause stand part", where the clause is the only clause in the Bill, and a debate on Second Reading. Perhaps much of what has been said today could equally have been said—and, indeed, was said—when we had the debate on Second Reading.
I am grateful particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for indicating the view which the Government take. They still appear to adhere to their view that the proper course might be to seek to disqualify from jury service anybody who, within the last ten years, has been convicted of an imprisonable offence. It is the view of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and myself, and many other people who have become involved in this matter, that this is far too wide an exception; that it is totally unacceptable to many of us who are deeply concerned about this matter; and if the Government propose to seek to proceed in that way, those of us who want something to be done will be forced into the position of resisting, and, in due course, opposing, the Government proposal.
I want to make that clear now because as your Lordships will know there is a Member in another place who has indicated that at the end of February he proposes to introduce a Bill on this subject. If that Bill proceeds on the lines the Government have indicated today, then that Bill is quite clearly doomed to total failure because under the procedures in another place it will obviously arouse opposition not merely from those who are disposed not to alter the present position at all but from those who, like Lord Harris of Greenwich and myself, are disposed and anxious to alter the present position but in a reasonable and moderate way. For that reason, I am grateful to the noble Lord for indicating his view.
Equally, it gives me a chance to suggest to the Government that the way to proceed to get something on the statute book (about which so many of us are agreed) is to take a moderate formula of the kind envisaged in the Bill, which will meet with very wide support. It will not arouse the vehement opposition of those who quite rightly will say that the Government's proposal will be a totally unwarranted interference with civil liberties and will exclude far too many people—all those who have on one occasion succumbed to sudden temptation in what may be a very minor matter—from jury service.
I ask the Government therefore to consider whether the way ahead is not to allow a Bill of this nature to go through as being a compromise solution which would have the effect of restricting jury service in the sense that it would exclude those who in ordinary parlance would be called criminals from serving on juries. It would mean that it would exclude, therefore, some people who otherwise it could be assumed would inevitably approach jury service with deep-seated and quite improper prejudices; and it would exclude from juries many of those who were so obviously susceptible to jury nobbling.
If we can exclude those people by some formula of this sort, I venture to think that the precise formula is not very important. Whenever we seek to draw the line in this matter—and I accept the point of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway—there will be those 1100 who say it is a little too far one way and those who say it is a little too far the other way.
The important point is to proceed to draw a line in order to deal with an abuse that has now been so widely accepted and recognised. In those circumstances, I hope that your Lordships will agree that this clause should stand part of the Bill. I hope that in due course the Government will accept the argument for finding time in the other place for a Bill of this nature in order to get on to the statute book something of the sort that we all want to see achieved in the very near future.