§ Mr. Foxasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will review the present system of paying allowances to justices of the peace since it operates to the detriment of the self-employed.
§ Mr. JohnI assume that the hon. Member has in mind the requirement that financial loss allowance may be claimed by a justice of the peace only if he incurs expenditure—other than expenditure on travelling or subsistence—to which he would not otherwise be subject or suffers any loss of earnings which he would otherwise have received.
Although a self-employed justice may be at some disadvantage, in the sense that he cannot claim an allowance in respect of income he might have earned during the period he was acting as a justice, I do not think it would be practicable, consistently with the principle that lay justices render unpaid voluntary service, to devise a means of paying an allowance in respect of such loss.