§ 2.57 p.m.
§ The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone) rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 31st March be approved. [16th Report from the Joint Committee.]
§ The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the first of the two Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper. Some of your Lordships may be surprised, thinking that they recognise these two Motions. No one is more surprised than I. In speaking to them the noble and learned Lord on the Opposition Front Bench asked me a question. He asked whether there was anything significant in the fact that the Scottish regulations were laid to start on 1st April. In all innocence I said that there was not. But the noble and learned Lord spoke more truth than I think either of us knew. He is evidently endowed with that gift of second sight for which his fellow countrymen are famous.
§ In fact it proved necessary to amend the commencement date, and so on 31st March the draft regulations 794 were withdrawn and re-laid. Unfortunately, it was too late for the Motion on the Order Paper, which referred to the regulations being laid on 11th March, to be amended to refer to the substituted regulations laid on 31st March. Now I am asking your Lordships to agree to the regulations in the form in which they now appear in order to prevent a subsequent oral Question, with the exception of the fact that the word "March" in the first of the two Motions is misprinted. Having said that, I think we have fully debated the subject already, and with a suitable degree of apology I beg to move the first of the Motions standing in my name on the Order paper.
§ Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 31st March be approved. [16th Report from the Joint Committee]—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ Lord Elwyn-JonesMy Lords, when the noble and learned Lord introduced these regulations he said that in a sense this is an annual event. It has proved to be a non-event. I noticed the marked contrast that whereas the Legal Aid and Advice (Scotland) Order came into force on the 1st April 1987, in regard to the orders relating to England and Wales—wisely—there was no indication as to when these would come into force. I ventured to ask whether there was any significance, any sort of superstition or whatever it might be, in this matter. I have looked into the matter rather more carefully, with the assistance of your Lordships' Library. Chambers Book of Days 1886 casts a great flood of light upon all this. It reads:
The 1st April, of all days in the year, enjoys a character of its own in as far as it, and it alone, is consecrated to practical joking. On this day it becomes the business of a vast number of people, especially the younger sort, to practise innocent impostures upon their unsuspicious neighbours by way of making them what in France are called 'poissons d'Avril'—with us, April fools. Thus a crew of giggling servant maids will get hold of some simple swain and send him to a bookseller's shop for The History of Eve's Grandmother or to a chemist for a pennyworth of pigeon's milk.But, my Lords—and this is the point—the plot thickens in the case of Scotland.
What compound is to simple addition—in the case of Scotland, April fooling is far more complex.In the northern part of the island, they are not content to make a neighbour believe some single piece of absurdity"—as proved to be the case here.
There, the object being, we shall say, to befool simple Andrew Thomson, Wag No. 1, sends him away with a letter to a friend two miles off, professedly asking for some useful information but in reality containing only the words, 'This is the first day of April: hunt the gowk another mile'. Wag No. 2, catching up the idea of his correspondent, tells Andrew with a grave face that it is not in his power, etc. but that if he will go with another note to such a person he will get what is wanted. Off Andrew trudges to Wag No. 3.The Scots employ the term `gowk' (which is properly a cuckoo) to expose a fool in general, but more especially an April fool, and among them the practice above is called 'hunting the gowk'.My Lords, who was hunting the gowk when we discussed this matter at the stage of introducing the regulations? It was not, I trust, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. The House is entitled to know what went wrong. What went wrong was not in your Lordships' House, I suspect, but in another place. What did go wrong? I think we are entitled to know.The House may also like to know whether any action has been taken by reason of this unfortunate 795 error. Between the 1st April and the 6th April—today—has any legal expenditure been incurred, and is the noble and learned Lord seeking a Bill of indemnity and oblivion for this misfortune? How is the matter to be dealt with? This is absolutely fascinating, and it is of course of the gravest possible importance.
§ The Lord ChancellorMy Lords, I am afraid that what went wrong is lost in the impenetrable jungles of the Scottish Office; but I shall seek to pursue this "gowk" still further. I shall write to the noble and learned Lord, putting the reply, so far as is necessary, in the Library—no doubt decorated with the arms of the Venus de Milo!
§ Lord Elwyn-JonesMy Lords, I venture to think that this is a far too important piece of history for it to be left to mere correspondence between the noble and learned Lord and myself.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.