I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

In the Second Reading debate the Bill was warmly welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and there is nothing I wish to add, unless the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Hobson) or anyone else wishes to raise a question.

As was stated during the Second Reading debate, we welcome the Bill. No doubt the Government will give an assurance that they will expedite its passage into law. There are only two questions which I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman. First, can he tell us when the Bill w ill become operative? Secondly, in what way will the reduction be made? Will it be made on the expiry of the existing licences when the occupants of houses where blind persons live seek to renew those licences? Will the appropriate reduction of £1 be made then?

It is hoped that the Bill will pass through all its stages here today. I cannot anticipate the course of events in another place, but I believe that the Second Reading debate will take place there next week, and there is every reason to suppose that the Bill will pass through both Houses and receive the Royal Assent at a very early date. From that moment the Postmaster-General is empowered to make the reduction, and it is proposed to proceed without delay to make that reduction. I cannot give precise details of the way in which it is proposed to apply it to those who are current holders of licences, but I shall seek to secure that the reduction is made, in whole or in part—according to whether a licence is held or a future licence is applied for—with the least possible delay.

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will welcome a Question on that point.

I rise to give the Bill a very warm welcome. I have been working for most of my professional life in close touch with the interests of the blind, and I am quite sure that all persons and organisations are grateful for the concessions given by the Government in this Measure which, though not extensive, shows the interest of the Government and of Members of this House in those who suffer from this very grave affliction.

I should like to thank the officials of the Post Office, the Clerks of the House, the Ministers and all hon. Members of the House for this kindly action.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

The House will be aware that, during the Committee stage, the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) moved a new Clause very similar to the one I am moving. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General said that we would give consideration to the proposal. It seemed to us at the time that there was considerable force in the arguments by which it was supported, although the occasions on which any use would be made of the provision seemed likely to be few.

Nevertheless, it is important to provide that where a case is started in the county court, and it appears while it is awaiting trial, or indeed at the trial, that the amount which the plaintiff should recover is in excess of the county court jurisdiction, there should be a way of transferring the case, if need be, to the High Court.

Of course, there is power in the Bill to agree to the county court having jurisdiction in excess of £400. One would expect that in the majority of cases, where liability was clear and the damages ought to exceed £400, the defence would agree to the county court judge disposing of the whole matter. If the defence would not agree, the proposed new Clause would give power to the county court judge to transfer the case to the High Court.

There are differences between the proposed new Clause and that which was tabled by the hon. Member for Oldham, West. The proposed new Clause enables application to be made for transfer both before the case comes on and when the case has come on in the county court. The plaintiff may apply at any time. It is contemplated that if he applies before the day of trial he will have to give notice to the defendant, so as to give the defence an opportunity to resist the application.

The proposal of the hon. Member for Oldham, West was that no order as to costs should be made by the county court judge on the transfer of the action, but that the case would be subject to such order of the High Court as to a judge of the High Court or master in chambers seems just. In the proposed new Clause there is no provision with regard to costs. That is intentional because, under Section 73 of the principal Act, the costs of the whole proceedings both before and after transfer shall, subject to any order made by the court which ordered the transfer, be in the discretion of the court to which the proceedings are transferred. I do not think that any county court judge would make a prospective order as to the cost which would be incurred when the proceedings were in the High Court. but it will be an advantage that he should deal with the costs in the county court before the transfer, and he will have power to do so under the proposed new Clause.

The economic sanctions to which I referred in Committee will not apply in relation to an action so transferred. Assume, for instance, that, contrary to the opinion of the county court judge when he made the transfer, the damages awarded in the High Court are less than £400. The economic sanctions apply only in relation to actions commenced in the High Court for the purposes of Section 47 of the principal Act, and the action to which I have referred would not come within that Section.

I hope that I have said enough to commend the proposed new Clause to the House. I doubt whether much use will be made of it, but it will be an advantage to have it in the Bill.

Having heard what the Attorney-General has said, it seems that this proposed new Clause will be most helpful and will give additional rights to litigants in circumstances where those rights may be very important for the obtaining of due justice. I heartily commend it.

I thank the Attorney-General for proposing to include this new Clause in the Bill. We are grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), who originated the proposal. We appreciate that it is a valuable provision. My hon. Friends and myself have considered the proposed new Clause in detail and have not repeated the proposal which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West in Committee. We are certain that the proposed new Clause will be a substantial improvement to the Bill and we very much welcome it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed new Clause, at the end to add: (3) If in such an action the Judge at any time is satisfied that there is reasonable ground as aforesaid he may with the plaintiff's consent make an order that the action be transferred to the High Court. The purpose of my Amendment is not to detract from the value of the proposed new Clause, but I hope the Attorney-General will accept it for the reasons which I will try to explain.

I do not agree that the proposed new Clause is not likely to be used. I think it will be used quite a lot. Applications will be made, and the reasons for making them will be obvious. The judge will have considerable difficulty in many cases in deciding whether the amount which he is permitted to deal with in the county court is sufficient to meet the case. There is a good reason for giving a judge himself, in the course of the conduct of a case or possibly at the end, power to order the case to be transferred.

There is a precedent, although not in respect of quite the same subject matter. When a magistrates' court has heard a case against a defendant it is entitled to send the case to quarter sessions for sentence. It may be said that if a county-court judge has heard a case to the end it will be difficult to send it to the High Court, but perhaps that difficulty may be overcome in the same way as it is overcome in remission from a police court to quarter sessions. In this case it is sent for penalty but in the other case it will be a matter of assessing the amount to be recovered.

It cannot be stated that a full record is taken of a case in the police court. The intention would not be that every word is taken down so that the quarter sessions would have the full facts before it. In that respect it might differ from the proceedings in the county court, but that is not so. While it is perfectly true that the court could indicate to counsel or to the plaintiff that they ought to make this kind of application which is intended under the new Clause, I think, nevertheless, that a judge should be in a position to say, at any time during the hearing of the case, that he himself has come to the conclusion that it would not be fair to the plaintiff if the judge were to have the final word in relation to the amount of damages, even though, I admit, he is entitled so to do, and the amount can be increased by virtue of the provisions of the Act.

The judge may say, "I think that this is a case where a High Court judge should have an opportunity of deciding that an amount very much larger than that set down in the Act should be awarded, and I should not like to take the responsibility of deciding what that amount ought to be." He could, of course, indicate that to the plaintiff or his solicitor, or whoever may be there, but in such an event I think that the county court judge should have the right to say to the plaintiff, "I think you should send this to a higher court. I am not in a position to award the amount which should be awarded. I cannot fix it myself. I think that it should be very much higher than any amount I could, within the purview of county court jurisdiction, allow. Consequently, you should take it to the High Court."

Does my hon. Friend think that if the judge gave any information of that kind in court the plaintiff would be in any way reluctant to leap in to make an application under the Clause?

It is additional to the Clause I think that if the judge gave such an intimation himself, the plaintiff would readily accept it and it would immediately be sent to the High Court. That is my view, and it derives from some experience of practice in the county court. No harm would be done, and quite a lot of good would result were the Attorney-General able to see his way to accept the Amendment.

As there is no seconder, the Amendment falls.

Clause added to the Bill.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 41, after "pounds" to insert "respectively."

This is a drafting Amendment to clarify a point raised in Committee by the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher). I think that the addition of this word "respectively" makes absolutely clear what some of us, at least, thought was reasonably clear before.

I am very much obliged to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for having moved this Amendment. My only comment is that, in my view, this makes clear what was not clear before and removes an ambiguity in the Clause. Therefore, we are indebted to him for having accepted our point of view.

Amendment agreed to.

I beg to move, in page 4, line 19, to leave out from "but" to the end of line 20 and insert: after making allowance for funeral expenses and for debts and incumbrances. It might be for the convenience of the House to take with this Amendment that immediately following in page 4, line 22.

We were impressed by the arguments adduced in Committee by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) and by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Mr. Simon). We have had an opportunity of examining what were supposed to be the practical disadvantages of adopting the net value of the estate for this purpose. On closer examination the alleged practical disadvantages appear to be insubstantial, and we are glad to adopt the method of taking the value of the net estate as the guide. It was not possible to adopt the precise form of words suggested by the hon. Member for Oldham, West, because subsection (2) refers to the value of the estate at the time of death. As most of us do not incur funeral expenses until after death it was necessary to make some allowance for funeral expenses.

The other difficulty was that there is authority for the proposition that for this purpose a mortgage is not to be taken into account in assessing the value of the property mortgaged. The matter can be got rid of by making, in this form of words, an appropriate allowance for "debts and incumbrances." The effect of adopting this Amendment and that in line 22 will simply be that we shall retain the advantage of having the value of the net estate as a guide to the jurisdiction.

We welcome this Amendment and again, as the Attorney-General will have noticed, we have not repeated the Amendment put down in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). It is incorporated in the Amendment now brought forward. This is yet another instance where my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West, has made a substantial contribution to the improvement of the Bill.

One final comment I should like to make is that I am delighted to see that the Law Officers have investigated alleged practical disadvantages. Whenever the argument of administrative convenience is put to the Law Officers—and indeed, to other Ministers of the Crown —I hope that they will immediately be put on suspicion and investigate it thoroughly, because it really is an argument which should not, if I may say so with respect, be accepted without very considerable investigation.

We are glad that the Law Officers have taken that course on this occasion, have come quite frankly to the House and have said that the practical disadvantages are illusory, and that those concerned have been big enough to accept the Amendment. We thank them for the course they have taken.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 4, line 22, leave out from "for" to "and" in line 27 and insert: paragraphs ( a ) and ( b ) there shall be substituted the words that the value of the estate of the person in respect of whose estate the application is made was at the time of his death less than one thousand pounds, exclusive of what he was possessed of or entitled to as a trustee and not beneficially, but after making allowance for funeral expenses and for debts and incumbrances'".—[ The Solicitor-General. ]

I beg to move. in line 2, after "to" to insert: amend the law as to costs in and transfers to the High Court. This Amendment to the Title is required in view of the new Clause dealing with transfer of proceedings, and it is also desirable to pick up the reference to costs.

Amendment agreed to.

11.29 a.m.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I believe that this Bill will be useful and that it is a good Bill. I am grateful to all hon. Members who, in Committee, have helped to polish it up and make it even better than when originally introduced; although I think that the improvements are what I call polishing improvements rather than improvements which go to the root of the Measure.

If you will permit me, Mr. Speaker. I should like now to express our thanks to the members of the Austin Jones Committee and of the Evershed Committee for the work they did. It has enabled us—after, I must admit, some lapse of time—to bring a Measure of this sort before the House. It is a Measure which, I believe, will be of great value in the administration of justice and will, one hopes, tend towards a reduction in the cost of litigation.

11.30 a.m.

On this side of the House I am sure that we all appreciate what the Attorney-General has just said. We, too, believe that the Bill is a good Bill and that it has been considerably improved in Committee. There may still be some points of detail about which some of my hon. Friends would have wished that the Bill had emerged in a slightly different form. For example, some of us would have preferred that the cushion figure should have been £250 and not £300. But the Government have made a notable concession in having responded to the wishes very generally expressed on both sides of the House and in both sections of the profession that there should be a cushion.

There is also the debatable question whether there should be appeals on questions of fact from the county court to the Court of Appeal. Opinion is divided on that subject, and I think, divided not on political lines. The Government have adopted the recommendations of the Evershed Committee that there should be appeals on questions of fact, and we hope that that will work successfully, but we also hope that it will be treated as an experiment and that its working will be watched.

Having said that, I want to turn to an aspect of this Third Reading stage which seems to me to be of cardinal importance. The blessing which we have given on this side of the House to the Bill is conditional, and I think this is the occasion to emphasise the condition on which it is based. The condition on which we are supporting this Bill is that legal aid will be extended to the county court and that legal aid will be so extended to the county court in a way which will enable the Bill to be operated successfully, as it is designed, for the benefit of poor litigants.

This question arises under Clause 7, and it is this Clause to which I want to draw particular attention because it will be appreciated that this Bill does not come into operation immediately. It will not come into operation until an appointed day is fixed by the Lord Chancellor. It was a tacit assumption; it may have been an expressed statement—I have not checked it—made by the Attorney-General and I think by the Solicitor-General also, that this Bill would not be brought into operation under Clause 7 until legal aid is also extended to the county court.

I said so expressly in moving the Second Reading.

I am very grateful to the Attorney-General.

It has been expressly stated that the Bill will not be brought into operation until legal aid has been extended to the county court. It is not enough to leave the matter there. It is also important—and I hope the Attorney-General will give his mind to this—to see that before legal aid is introduced into the county court the present administration of legal aid is improved and that the abuses which have come to light and of which the Attorney-General is aware are changed, because if we are to have legal aid in the county court it must be administered in a more sympathetic way and on a different scale from the legal aid administered in the High Court.

A number of my hon. Friends and I have received a good many communications on this subject since the Second Reading. I am, in fact, continually receiving complaints about the unduly high assessments on legal aid in respect of cases administered in the High Court, and I very much hope——

The hon. Member is now going a little wide of the Third Reading. He has made his point, I think. He really cannot discuss legal aid on the Third Reading of the Bill, not in any detail.

With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I am always, as you know, the last to challenge your Ruling but I do wish to make this submission. On a Friday morning the House has plenty of time. There is no other Government business on the Order Paper after this Order. We are not a very full House, and there are not a great many Members wishing to speak. I submit with the greatest respect to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is perfectly in order and perfectly proper on the Third Reading. As a matter of convenience to the House, I am trying to make a point which is the basis on which this Bill is being given a Third Reading.

May I make this suggestion? If I am not allowed to make this point on Third Reading, the only consequence will be that I shall have to make it on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House when the Third Reading has been carried. If that is the case, I should like to give notice to the Law Officers of the Crown now that, subject to any other matters which you may have called for the Adjournment today, I want to raise this question about the administration of legal aid before the House adjourns. I only say that because I want to illustrate to you, Sir, for whom I have the greatest respect, that I am entitled to raise this matter before the House adjourns, and it seemed to me that it would be more convenient and in order and germane to raise it now.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not in order on a Third Reading debate, in trying to assist the House to come to a conclusion, to say whether what is in the Bill under discussion is good or bad and why it is good or bad?

In those circumstances, would it not be in order to say, as my hon. Friend has been saying, that this Bill, when it becomes an Act of Parliament, will depend for its strength or weakness upon certain rules which may be brought in under the Legal Aid and Advice Act? Surely that is material. It does not suggest any amendment to the Act itself. It merely refers to the strength or the advantage or the disadvantage of what is contained in the Bill as it now stands.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I respectfully submit to you that the question of legal aid may well be raised on the Third Reading, for this reason. We can speak presumably on any provision contained in the Bill on Third Reading. Clause 7 (1) specifically says: Sections one to four of this Act shall come into force on such day as may be appointed by order of the Lord Chancellor … The learned Attorney-General has expressly stated that this Measure is subject to an express undertaking with regard to bringing in the provisions of the Legal Aid and Advice Act in the county court. I respectfully submit in those circumstances that it is surely in order to ask any question in connection with legal aid, in view of provision of Clause 7 (1) and the express statement made by the Attorney-General.

The House will realise that I am as much bound by the rules of order as hon. Members. On the Third Reading of a Bill, as hon. Members are aware, the rules are that one can discuss only what is in the Bill. The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) founded what he had to say correctly upon Clause 7 (2). I think there is something to be said for that, and I was quite prepared to listen to what he had to say about the advantages of legal aid applied to the county courts. I gather, however, that the hon. Member was going on to discuss the present administration of legal aid, because he was telling us of complaints which he had received about its maladministration. That must be out of order on Third Reading of this Bill. I know that there is plenty of time, but that does not permit me to escape from the rules of order, which I have to enforce.

I am obliged to you for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. If I may say so, it is a very sympathetic Ruling, which takes account of the fact that the House is not unduly pressed this morning.

The hon. Member should not say that I am entitled to take that into account. I am not.

I think that within your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, I shall be able effectively to make the point which I wish to make.

Our welcome to the Bill is conditional not merely upon the introduction of legal aid to the county courts, which has been promised, but upon its introduction in the county courts in a form which is different from the legal aid at present available in the High Court. It is admitted on both sides that it would have been wrong to increase the jurisdiction of the county courts as long as legal aid was available in the High Court but not available in the county court. The Bill considerably extends the jurisdiction of the county courts and we are postponing its application until a date in the future to be determined by the extension of legal aid in the county courts.

I think I am entitled to say this on Third Reading: In our view, it will not be sufficient to bring this Bill into operation merely by extending to the county court legal aid in its present form in the High Court. I want to support that argument by reminding the Law Officers of the Crown, as my hon. Friends and I have had occasion to remind them before, that legal aid in the High Court is not working out at all satisfactorily.

If the Bill is to have the desired effect of giving extended jurisdiction in the county courts and making it available to people of poor means and of humble status, who will litigate in the county courts, it is essential that the bringing into operation of the Bill should be postponed until the Law Officers have considered the abuses and injustices which are resulting from the legal aid system at present. They are aware of the numerous cases in which people have been assessed for sums which they find the greatest difficulty in paying, and in which legal-aided litigants have had to pay more than they would have paid had they not been given legal aid.

I have had letters from constituents who complain that they have been ruined by legal aid and would have been much better off without it. Under legal aid as at present administered—and this must be cured before it is introduced into the county courts—they are assessed for contribution on a maximum basis and there is, therefore, no inducement to the professional advisers to keep the costs as low as possible.

That criticism of the present working of legal aid will become more acute in the county courts because, ex-hypothesi, the cases in which legal aid will be required in the county courts are cases in which the amounts involved are smaller and the costs involved should be smaller. It will, therefore, not be right or just to apply the existing system whereby every legal-aided litigant makes a contribution according to the maximum amount he can afford to pay. Such a system would work unjustly. I am pressing the point with some emphasis only because it has not emerged at all during the debate.

On a point of order. The hon. Gentleman says that the point has not emerged during the debate. Surely it is not in order, Sir, to discuss the operation of the regulation concerning assessment of means.

The subject of legal aid is connected with the Bill in the sense that the Bill will not be introduced until legal aid is extended to the county courts; and that provides a tenuous thread between that subject and the Third Reading of the Bill. Nevertheless, I am bound to say that I cannot see that what the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) is now saying can possibly be in order on Third Reading. He suggested another course which he might adopt. That has nothing to do with me. I am bound to keep the debate on Third Reading within the limits of what is in the Bill. While I realise the force of the hon. Member's observations—I am not concerned with that at all but with their relevance to Third Reading—I think he is going wide of the Bill.

I am sure that nobody wants to bring forward matters which might be embarrassing at this stage and which might not be suitable for full consideration at the moment. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) is not pressing what he says in that way. I am sorry the Attorney-General felt that he had done so in his last sentence.

On the other hand, as the Bill is conditional upon the introduction of legal aid, I suggest with great respect that it is in order for my hon. Friend to outline the nature of the legal aid upon which it should be conditional, although I appreciate, as he appreciates, that it is undesirable to go too far outside the limits of the Bill. I respectfully suggest that it would be in order for him to indicate the nature of the legal aid involved and to say that legal aid as at present administered would not be suitable to be the legal aid conditional upon which the Bill is to be brought into operation.

I did not raise the point of order out of any sense of embarrassment, because I have answered the points raised by the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) on many occasions and, no doubt, will deal with them on many future occasions. I asked for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, for this reason: the Bill does not deal with legal aid but merely with the extension of county court jurisdiction, and I wanted your Ruling on whether it was in order on Third Reading to debate the operation of legal aid in its present form, so that I might know the position when I replied to the debate.

On Second Reading, I made what I hope was a not inappropriate observation about legal aid, but the Bill does not deal with legal aid and the hon. Member for Islington, East is now beginning to discuss the operation of the assessment regulations which are part and parcel of the present legal aid system. I was merely suggesting, with great respect, that that is not in order on Third Reading of a Bill such as this.

Further to that point of order. The House is being asked to give its blessing to the Third Reading of the Bill and we on this side of the House are doing so specifically because of the express opinion of the Attorney-General that legal aid would be implemented in the county courts. Our agreement and approval of the Bill are entirely subject to that.

How can we possibly discuss the merits of the Third Reading unless we discuss the basis upon which that legal aid is to be given? Is it not in order to criticise the existing system of legal aid and to suggest what sort of provisions ought to apply in granting legal aid to implement the provisions of the Bill in the county courts? Our approval is given only upon that basis and I respectfully submit that criticism of the legal aid system is, therefore, in order.

I really must rule on this. I am sure that I am right about it and I must ask the House to obey the rules of order. The rules on what is relevant and what is not relevant on Third Reading do not depend upon any condition, expressed or implied, by which hon. Members in various parts of the House give their support to the Bill. That is not the point. What we have to consider is what is relevant to the Bill as it stands at this moment.

Although I allowed the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) to make what use he could of Clause 7, I must rule that a discussion on the administration of legal aid would be quite out of order on this Bill now. The Bill does not deal with legal aid. I have been told that in some way legal aid in the future is a condition of the Bill coming into effect, but that does not permit a discussion of legal aid as such. The hon. Member must take some other course to discuss this matter. He cannot do it on the Third Reading of this Bill.

I am grateful for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, and will not depart from it. I will not discuss any further the way in which legal aid is at present administered, but I should like here and now to give notice to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that when we have finished the Third Reading debate, subject to other matters being discussed on the Adjournment, I shall raise the question then.

I conclude my observations on Third Reading by saying that we all welcome the Bill. We welcome the assurance that its provisions will not be introduced until legal aid has been introduced into the county court, but we shall not be satisfied unless the abuses of the present system of legal aid in the High Court have been changed before it is extended to the county court.

11.53 a.m.

While, of course, I must abide by your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, and although we shall have an opportunity of speaking again on this subject later, I shall vote for the Third Reading of the Bill with considerable reluctance.

In Committee and in earlier stages I raised questions on the subject of legal aid. I said then, as I still believe, that the whole benefit of the Bill depends entirely upon the manner in which poor persons in the county court will be able to utilise its provisions. That is something which the Attorney-General has never yet really understood. We have consistently asked him to tell us what he intends to do, but all we have heard is, wait and see. Wait and see is the policy of the Attorney-General and the Government when we ask them to let us know what they have in mind.

I am very disappointed. I think that the provisions of the Bill are very important. A poor person, or any litigant, who goes to the county court is entitled to have the very best possible advice and advocacy on his behalf. Points of law are just as involved and complicated there. If a person is applying for a smaller sum within the province of the county court he is just as entitled as a person applying for a very large sum by way of damages or otherwise in the High Court, to have the best advice and proper law administered in the fullest sense of the term.

As we are pushing into the county court a lot of things which, otherwise, would have been dealt with by High Court procedure and by a High Court judge, we have to be extremely careful that we do not place in the hands of the Government a Measure which, if not carried out in that spirit, will be a disadvantage rather than an advantage.

You have held, Mr. Speaker, that we should not at the moment discuss in detail questions of legal aid, but there is another question I want to raise. I do not want to transgress the rules in these matters, but there is something which has been brought into the Bill in relation to scales of costs, and that is very relevant. That, too, will bear precisely on the point I am trying to make. Whether the Measure is of any use or not, or of more value or less value, will, to a considerable extent, depend on what scales of costs are available for those who plead on behalf of plaintiffs and defendants in the county court. We have heard nothing about that from the Government. Perhaps that is a matter which also may be dealt with on the Adjournment. I shall certainly raise it then if I cannot do so now.

Why does not the Attorney-General tell us what he intends to do about helping people who go to the county court, so that we can decide to vote for the Third Reading or not?

11.56 a.m.

Now that we have reached the concluding stages of this Bill, I rise to give it my blessing in its final form. Although it is called the County Courts Bill, in fact it does not only affect county courts but all the courts of the land. That is because one of its provisions is what really amounts to a penal Clause against those who bring a number of actions in the High Court which at present they are in a position to bring. The result must be that there will be fewer actions in the High Court. We hope that when parties set down actions in the High Court they will reach trial at a more rapid rate than at present.

Another effect must be an increase in the number of actions in the county court. Very rightly and properly, the Bill provides for the appointment of additional county court judges. I hope we shall hear from the Attorney-General that those judges will be appointed before or at the same time as the Bill comes into effect so that the immediate increase of work which must result may have the necessary judicial staff ready to deal with it and that this will not merely result in a congestion in the county court subsequently to be relieved by the appointment of judges.

I said that the Bill has my blessing, I meant the alterations in the latter part of Clause 1 dealing with a question raised by myself and others on Second Reading—the question of the cushion. In its original form, the Bill was wholly unacceptable in the provision it made in that respect, because it put litigants and advisers in an impossible position. I join with those who from all parts of the House have congratulated the Law Officers on listening to those who have made helpful criticism which has resulted in improvements and amendments to the Bill.

I want to draw attention to the provisions of Clause 1 (5) giving power by Order in Council to increase the scales of county court jurisdiction. I am sure it is wise to put in that provision. If by any chance the value of money should increase, or if county court jurisdiction should be increased, it is necessary to act in this manner rather than by coming to the House for leave to introduce a further Bill. I am sure it is not intended that as soon as this Bill is passed its substance and essence should be immediately changed by passing an Order in Council raising the jurisdiction to the amount set out in the subsection. Hon. Members of this House had in mind that county court jurisdiction should be increased to £400 and no more. If at some future date that is required to be altered, it would have to be well in the future. I hope the Government will not use the powers of that subsection immediately to increase the jurisdiction of the county court.

I also welcome the fact that there is now to be an appeal on questions of fact from decisions of the judges of the county court. Up to now they have been the sole judges on questions of fact—and I should like here and now to give great praise to that hardworking body of men who are our county court judges. But nobody, however good, is infallible. If at any time they should make a mistake on a question of fact, it is only right that the Court of Appeal, which has more time and can go into these questions in greater detail, should have power in proper cases to reverse those decisions of fact.

A number of the Clauses of the Bill deal with special matters and special jurisdiction and I should not like to go through them in great detail in the time available today. Subject to what I have said, I certainly give the Bill in its final stages my unqualified blessing.

12.1 p.m.

I should like to add one or two words on Third Reading. I, too, agree that this is a very good and much improved Bill, having regard to the changes which have been made during its passage. In view of your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, I should not dream of going in detail into the question of legal aid, but I emphasise what my hon. Friends have said and I ask the Attorney-General to appreciate that, as far as this side of the House is concerned, we realise that the successful working of the Bill must depend upon the implementation of the Legal Aid Scheme in a proper and satisfactory form. One must realise that there are many unsatisfactory features which will have to be looked into; and apart from that, there is also the question, which must be very carefully considered, of legal advice for people who bring actions in the county court.

12.2 p.m.

I have taken no part in the proceedings on the Bill up to date, and I did not intend to do so until I had seen it in its final shape. I want, however, to take up a point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) and the question as to what will be the result of the Bill. While the arrears of litigation in every country have been growing for at least two generations, my experience far away was that the arrears of litigation were on a scale unknown in this country.

I appreciate that the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and other people are gravely concerned at the delays that take place in the disposal of business in the superior courts in this country, and quite rightly so. But those delays are delays of months, whereas my experience has been delays of years; and in 90 per cent. of the cases that came up to the highest court for disposal, the parties generally had to be rearranged because the original litigants, and even some of their successors, had died years before. We have nothing whatever like that in this country, but I emphasise that delay in litigation is the very worst thing that can possibly happen.

One hon. Member used the expression that we were pushing down to the county court a lot of business from the High Court. In a sense that may be so, but what I am much more concerned about is that it is perfectly obvious that the moment the Bill gets working, there will be an immense increase of litigation in the county courts. Whether the contemplated 15 extra judges will be sufficient, I do not know. If one adds legal aid on the lines for which hon. Members, very properly, are pressing, the stream of litigation may be something terrific. I view with grave apprehension the enormous flow of additional litigation in this country, particularly what I call, quite frankly, the very speculative litigation assisted by legal aid. Those in charge of the administration of the law will have to watch with great anxiety and care the results which finally emerge from the Bill.

I welcome the Bill because I feel that under present circumstances there are persons with personally good causes of action which they cannot have litigated, and it is a serious personal complaint when that happens. But I view with apprehension the enormously increased litigation which may result from the Bill. Therefore, while I welcome it, I do so subject to very different reasons from those expressed by hon. Members opposite.

12.5 p.m.

I have always viewed with some misgiving the provision in Clause 1 of the Bill which will enable the Government, whenever they think fit, to alter the maximum limit in the county courts. I am reinforced in my apprehension by what has just been said by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens).

It is quite obvious that there will be a large influx in cases into the county courts. Why, in those circumstances, the Government should reserve to themselves the right to raise the limit and to that extent increase the number of cases coming within the jurisdiction of the county court, is something I cannot understand. This point has been stressed in previous stages of the Bill. The Attorney-General was adamant on the subject. He insists upon the Government having this power by Order in Council, although I still do not believe that he has made out a sufficiently strong case to justify this most unusual provision—and it is an unusual provision—in legislation of this kind.

The main reason I support the Bill is that we have had an assurance from the Attorney-General that at the time when the Bill is operated, the Legal Aid Scheme will be introduced. The one provision without the other would not serve any purpose at all and some of us are justified in our fears that the Bill that we are now asked to approve cannot properly operate until various other Measures are taken, into which it is not possible for me to go at the present time.

Some of us have had a little experience of the invaluable work that is rendered to litigants in the county courts. It would appear that the Bill will extend the usefulness of county courts and county court judges. Coupled with the legal aid provisions that are to be introduced, there is every possibility that the Bill will serve a really useful purpose.

12.8 p.m.

I wish to associate the Opposition with the Attorney-General's remarks about the Evershed Report and the Austin Jones Report. They have provided the invaluable basis for the Bill and an invaluable basis for a good deal of law reform which I hope in due course will be carried out. A tremendous amount of work has been put into these Reports and they provide a fund from which we can draw to our advantage.

The Bill has been a non-party Bill and has been treated as such. On behalf of my hon. Friends and myself, I thank the Attorney-General for his acceptance of the substantial improvements that have been suggested during our discussions on the Bill. There has been a rather different approach by the Government from the approach which we on this side favour. The emphasis on the Government side has rather been upon administrative convenience, whereas our approach certainly is an approach, not in favour of administrative convenience, but in favour of providing an efficient, cheap court, where there is no delay, for the small people who have to resort to litigation.

The Government's attitude was at its worst on the question of the cushion. It was only after every hon. Member had spoken in the debate on both sides of the House—and I certainly pay my tribute to those on the Government benches who joined with us in pressing this matter—that eventually the Government, after obstinately resisting pressure to bring in the cushion, conceded it.

I am very glad that they did so, and I wish to thank the Attorney-General for eventually taking that course. The argument which he put forward for resisting it on Second Reading was that it was essential to push into the county courts, as a matter of administrative convenience, a good deal of the work which is now in the High Court. With the greatest respect, I cannot share the enthusiasm of the Attorney-General for relieving the pressure on the High Court, because the Chancery Division at the moment is certainly not overpowered with pressure of work. I understand that even the Queen's Bench Division is not over-pressed with arrears of litigation.

There is the consideration that work which is diverted from the High Court into the county courts will certainly lead —and I entirely agree with the observations made by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens)—to a great deal of pressure of work in the county courts. It is essential, in our view, to have the county courts efficient, cheap and free from delay. Those three tests are the tests which we bring to assessing the value of this Bill. Unfortunately, of course, much of the answer is not to be found within the four corners of this Bill. Much of the answer will be provided by the way in which the Government administer the Bill itself.

On the question of delay, we debated this matter, and there were very different views expressed about the question of appeal on fact. I recognise the strength of what the hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) said about it. But we must not lose sight of the fact that it is desirable in these small cases to keep litigation cheap, to reduce appeals to the minimum, and to provide the final answer with the minimum of delay.

I must say that I approach this question of appeal on fact, which is now given for the first time from the county courts, with considerable misgivings. I am not surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), with his usual candour, has changed his mind upon this subject. It is a difficult subject, one which exercises all of us, and it is a question on which we may very well come down on one side or the other. But whatever our views may be, and whichever way we may eventually come down on this, it is obviously of the greatest importance that the Government should watch how these appeals work in practice.

I hope that the Government will see that statistics are available as a result of the working of the Bill to show how far appeals are made on fact from county courts, how far they are successful, and how far they fail, so that this House shall, in due course, be able to have adequate information on which to review appeals on questions of fact. We do not want to be faced later with the kind of answer on appeals on fact which we had on the extent to which the county court was used for litigation which should have been brought within the county court, cases where less than £100 was recovered in contract and less than £50 in tort in the High Court. We want the facts made available for us when the opportunity comes to us to reconsider this. I hope that we shall not be told, on a later occasion, that the information as to the extent to which appeals on fact are made, and the extent to which they are successful, is not available at all.

On the matter of delay in the county courts, to which I was glad to see the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South brought such forceful attention, it was a matter which concerned us in Committee on the Bill, when we moved for an increase of judges to be available for county courts. I will tell the Attorney-General what perturbs me about the Government's attitude to this question. The Government obviously contemplate that there will be more work in the county courts. They provide for more judges, but the whole of the basis of the assessment which they made in this Bill for the increase of judges appears to be merely to deal with the increased litigation which will be brought in the county courts as a result of this Bill.

What we are anxious to ensure on this side of the House is that there shall be enough judges available to avoid the appalling delays which already occur in the county courts, when cases get put off month after month, instances of which have been given by my hon. Friends from their own experience. We should like to see enough judges available to abolish that kind of delay, which results in inefficiency, and is very hard both upon the county court judges themselves, upon the litigants and upon everyone else engaged in the cases.

The question of cheapness is, of course, bound up with legal aid. I am not going to say anything much about legal aid, except to say that it is, of course, an extremely valuable contribution to administrating and achieving justice. In the speech, with which, if I may say so, I was very much in agreement, made by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South, I regretted his reference to speculative actions under legal aid. It is very easy to bandy about dramatic words of this kind. It is an entirely different matter to substantiate them.

The statistics on legal aid show quite clearly that, so far from their being speculative actions, the actions taken under legal aid have been justified up to the hilt by the very large proportion of successes which have resulted from legal aid cases. We have the provision that these matters are carefully considered by committees, by professional gentlemen, before they are brought to the courts at all. I regret that the right hon. and learned Gentleman—and I know that it is very easy to slip into this kind of thing on the spur of the moment—used this unfortunate phrase.

We see in the Bill a provision for raising the financial limit of county court jurisdiction, and that that is to be done by Order in Council. It is a feature of the Bill to which, of course, we take exception. If inflation goes on as it is going on at present, the Attorney-General will have to get a move on in applying this Order in Council procedure to keep up with the inflation promoted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hope he will not hesitate to use his powers by Order in Council, but, at the same time, I think it would have been very much more appropriate to have brought these matters before the House by way of Bills, so that we could have considered in detail the very important effects of the administration of the Bill.

It is unfortunate that there is this escape clause for the Government. Of course, it is a favourite Governmental device, but it is unfortunate that in the Bill there is this escape clause of the procedure by Order in Council, because the House will not have the opportunity it otherwise would have had for full consideration of these consequential proposals.

From what has been said in this debate it is quite clear that the administration of the Bill is, perhaps, more important than the legislation itself, because the effect of the legislation will depend upon administration. It is for that reason that I, amongst others, deplore the device of resorting to Order in Council for raising the limit, and the Government's using that device instead of proceeding by way of Bill.

Taking the Bill as a whole, I consider that it is a valuable Bill. It is certainly one which we support, and we on this side would like to thank all those who have co-operated in furthering it. Not least I should like to thank the Attorney-General for his acceptance of some of the Amendments which have been moved.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

My purpose in talking of transport services in North-East Essex is to bring to the attention of the Government the desperate desire of many who live in that area to see the transport services improved by speed, comfort, and cheaper travel. For too long now they have had to put up with an inadequate and deteriorating transport system. Because the transport facilities there are out of date, criticism is beginning to be bandied about, such as the criticism expressed in the debate which took place in another place last week, when the noble Lord who is the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who replied to the debate and questions on the tourist industry, said I admit that all is not well at Harwich." —[OFFICIAL RFPORT, House of Lords, 7th July, 1955; Vol. 193, c. 549] Such criticism harms the good name of the very pleasant and attractive holiday resorts, with their privately run and very efficient hotel services, which there are at Harwich and Dovercourt. What is wrong with Harwich is not the town or the hotels but Liverpool Street and the policy adopted by successive railway managements, which have starved the area of adequate transport facilities. They have failed to adopt a progressive policy for the needs of the area.

One cannot blame the local officials for the lack of support from headquarters. Indeed, when I made a journey last week on the local branch lines I could not help being impressed by the efforts the local officials made to make their stations atttractive. It is the denial of capital to the railways, and their starvation for lack of it, which is making the situation desperate. It is because the managements have failed to find the capital that they have been unable to implement a progressive policy.

The Port of Harwich, of which criticism was made in another place, was left by the railway for the Port of Parkes-ton many years ago, and the problem of facilities for Continental tourists is there and not at Harwich. I hope that the Government will press the railway management to improve the facilities for the Continental tourists as quickly as possible at Parkeston. I have received the utmost courtesy from the officials there. It is lack of capital which at present is making the arrival of tourists at Parkes-ton a dreary one indeed.

I am today more concerned, however, with the needs of the area which contains the North-East Essex coast resorts. I know that very welcome proposals are on the way to electrify the railway line between Liverpool Street and the North-East Essex coast. What I should like to hear from my hon. Friend is how long it is to be before that scheme is completed. Is there any way of hurrying on with the scheme of electrification from Liverpool Street to the North-East Essex coast?

How long is Clacton to be given a train service for its inhabitants worse than it was in 1939, and in some cases worse than it was in 1911? Have the inhabitants of Harwich still to be content with a train service which takes almost as long to London as it did a hundred years ago? If it is possible for Ipswich to have through express trains to and from London why cannot the trains from the North-East Essex coast resorts be speeded up? Why have they to suffer the large number of slower stopping-trains to London?

The improvement of the train service to Colchester can be done in a comparatively simple way, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) will agree. Let the railway run express trains to Colchester in the hour or under, and let the branch lines be given diesel trains to meet the expresses at Colchester. I am certain that such a policy of speeding up the service will encourage business men to take advantage of the very beneficial factors which the North-East Essex coast affords. At present, the price of travel and its increasing slowness and discomfort are forcing more and more business people to live nearer to London. It is no wonder that the number of season ticket holders for the journey from Clacton to London has decreased by almost half since 1939.

Obviously, in time, as electrification comes, many of these requirements will be met, but is it not possible for the railway to improve its schedules before electrification takes place? I am certain that if the railways are to compete properly with the roads they must be able to give a cheaper, more comfortable and a quicker service. It is only by that they will relieve the congestion that there is at present on the roads between London and the North-East Essex coast resorts.

I know that much has been done by the railway in running cheap fare excursions in the summer. The railway has helped the resorts by running special excursions from the Midlands. I hope that it will be possible to extend the excursions in collaboration with the local authorities which conduct excellent advertisement schemes in the Midlands and in the North. I am sure that more could be done by those means which would be beneficial to the railways, to the resorts, and, indirectly, also to the roads by relieving road traffic and congestion.

I hope, too, that the Government will adopt a progressive policy for the road between London and North-East Essex. The road between Harwich and Colchester, for the tourists arriving from the Continent, must be one of the best examples of a genuine English antique that there is in the country. It is time the Government improved this road. Nearer to London, at Gallow's Corner, at the junction of the Southend, North-East Essex and London road, is the worst traffic bottle-neck in Essex. I have the support of my hon. Friends the Members for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) and for Billericay (Mr. Body) in pressing the Government to take action quickly to deal with the serious situation on this corner on the road between London and the North-East Essex coast resorts. I advise the Government to be bold in their planning. The alteration that would meet the need on this dangerous corner is a fly-over and not the plan which the Government have put forward.

Last Sunday morning I saw a two-mile traffic block on the double-track road and in the evening there was a two-mile traffic block on the Brentwood Road, the other way. I know that the Government have plans to do something about this corner, but let us have a modern progressive plan and not something which will be a patching-up process for a few months or even a few years. Further, the widening of the road between Colchester and Chelmsford cannot be long delayed, and I press for an extension of the by-pass between Colchester and Chelmsford at Marks Tey so that the bottle-neck into Colchester can be avoided.

There are many other improvements that are vital. I know the Government's difficulty in finding the capital, but I suggest that minor improvements that can be made on the road are the extension of the bus lay-bys and the closing of the gaps in the double roadways, to mention only two. I advise the Government to press these transport reforms forward without delay. They are essential and by no means luxury requirements. The inhabitants of North-East Essex and the many hundreds of thousands of visitors to the resorts there have had to endure bad transport facilities for far too long. It is high time that something was done to help the patient inhabitants of North-East Essex and their visitors.

12.33 p.m.

I should like to support the eloquent representations which have just been made by the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale). He has painted a picture of season-ticket holders from Clacton suffering misery which, I am sure, will find a sympathetic chord in the normally sympathetic breast of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. The contemplation of two miles of traffic being held up at Gallows' Corner fills me with considerable alarm and despondency, and I trust that that will be considered when the Minister replies.

I differ, however, from the hon. Member for Harwich in that he has centred his attention wholly on the North-East corner of Essex. He might have cast his interest over a wider field, because my particular interest is in the South-West corner of Essex. I hope that in the reply to the debate the whole of Essex may come under the benign attention of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary.

Why draw the line at the whole of Essex?

I speak as a representative of an Essex constituency which has had to suffer from the severe limitations of the railway facilities in Essex.

I do not know why it is, but Essex seems to be a Cinderella of the railway services. When one travels towards the South of England, towards Kent or Sussex, the comparison between the facilities there and those in Essex is greatly to the disadvantage of Essex. It may be that there are far more first-class ticket holders in Bournemouth, Brighton and the watering places of the South Coast than there are in Harwich or West Ham. Whether that is a factor which has caused in the past the gross disparity in facilities and services, I know not, but there is room for immediate improvement in services in Essex.

I agree with the hon. Member for Harwich that it is not enough to say, "Wait until electrification is on the way." There seems to be room for improvement in the present services. I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will assure me that his Department does not intend to wait for major capital developments but is in a position now to make immediate improvements.

12.36 p.m.

I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) and the hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) in pressing upon the Joint Parliamentary Secretary the claims which we have in Essex as a whole, and more particularly in North-East Essex, for the improvement of transport facilities.

I have been told that there was a "Society for the Denigration of North-East Essex" before the war. Its object was to prevent people coming into Essex in large numbers from London and elsewhere and spoiling our very lovely countryside, and at the same time, raising the local cost of living. I understand that the members worked in conjunction with an honorary member who was the architect of Liverpool Street Station. The result has been a general impression that the difficulties of reaching North-East Essex are very great indeed. It is true that there are great difficulties, both in rail and road communications. I would only say, living in that part of the world, that the advantages and pleasure secured by anybody who overcomes those difficulties when he eventually reaches our part of the country make the effort and the visit well worth while.

I wish to draw the attention of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary particularly to the probem of those who do not want to come from London to Essex so much as to go from Essex to London daily to earn a living. Before the war, many of them bought houses in North-East Essex knowing that the train services which existed at that time were sufficiently convenient to enable them to attend their offices and places of business at a proper time in the morning and to leave at a reasonable hour in the evening.

But the timing of the railway schedules has progressively declined since the war. They have been gravely affected in recent years, perhaps inevitably in some degree, by the work done to improve the permanent way and the scheme to carry out electrification, first towards Shenfield and now further on towards Chelmsford.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and I, since October last, have been pressing on the management of the Eastern Region of British Railways some very modest proposals for altering the schedules, to enable the group of travellers concerned to travel with greater convenience and attend their offices with greater regularity. We have seen representatives of the Eastern Region management personally and have communicated with them by letter and telephone at intervals during the last eight months.

I must tell my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that the outcome of this approach to the railway authorities has been completely negative. I may be doing them an injustice but they seem to take the attitude that this particular group of residents are really rather a nuisance, that it is their fault that they live so far away from their places of business, and that if they wish to attend business regularly they should live nearer London. I have always thought it one of the most important things that as far as possible those who work in London should be able to live outside it.

I would say, further, that this particular group of passengers provide the railways with a continuous and secure revenue. They are an important group to us in Colchester and North-East Essex because their presence is an economic advantage to us. Yet I must tell my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that everything has been done as far as we can see by the railway management to discourage their continued residence in our part of the county, and, what is more, to discourage any further similar residents coming to North-East Essex.

I cannot imagine that any Government Department or any private enterprise transport organisation would take such a stubborn attitude almost to the point of contempt to the legitimate interests of an important section of their clients. I can only use this occasion, which I do reluctantly, to say that I believe that unless we get a different attitude on the part of the railway management to their passengers whom it is the duty of the railways to carry and who are a source of profit to them, we will never see British Railways compete economically with other forms of transport.

I can tell my hon. Friend that my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and I are absolutely at our wits' end in this matter. I should have thought any management which was determined to conciliate and which had a proper public relations sense would have made some effort to meet what is a continuing and, I believe, a legitimate complaint against the services which are now offered.

Can my hon. Friend tell the House whether those who have these complaints have ever used the transport users' consultative machinery?

It has been taken up with it, so I understand. I have had some experience of the Transport Users' Consultative Committee, during the last three years. I do not believe that the present method of representing the grievances of the user of nationalised transport is effective. We had considerable negotiations about the maintenance of Brightlingsea branch railway and, it is true, we were supported and received a fair hearing from the transport users' consultative committee, but it took not only a local authority, with all its financial resources which enabled it to pay for legal advice and representation at the meeting, but the presence of the then hon. Member for Maldon, Mr. Tom Driberg, and myself to argue the case.

I would say that any small group of passengers who have not got those facilities and cannot be expected to engage legal representatives has a relatively small chance of getting their views put across properly against the great weight of technical mysticism which British Railways are able to deploy to meet a case of that sort.

I hope that my hon. Friend will take this matter seriously, because, although it is a local problem, it is at the same time one which I think affects very many issues about the future of British Railways. Until British Railways regard themselves as not being a separate "mystery," but as something which can be adjusted and made flexible to meet changing demands, we will never get a satisfactory passenger service in this country, despite all the money that we spend on diesel engines and on electrification.

Perhaps I may now turn from the railways to the roads. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich has been absolutely right in his description of the very difficult conditions which exist on our roads, particularly during the summer months. During the early part of my residence in the Colchester area, I had a cottage on the main road, and during certain periods of the year it took me twenty minutes, and usually with the assistance of the police, to get out of my front gate on to the road.

From the point of view of danger, nobody was more relieved than my wife and myself, with our small children, to get away from that road. We never knew when an accident was about to take place, involving the children living in the vicinity, and I would ask my hon. Friend to regard this matter not only from the point of view of the convenience of the travelling public, but also to bear in mind the interests of those who live in the neighbourhood of a great trunk road of this sort.

I would again raise with him the problem about which I have been in communication with him, namely, that of Gun Hill. We realise that that presents the Ministry with a big problem, and I think his right hon. Friend the Minister told the House the other day that the cost of providing a by-pass road at Stratford St. Mary would be 000,000, and that the Ministry only intended to spend a lesser sum of £7,000 on making certain alterations in the camber of the road. We are grateful for this expenditure, and grateful for the effort which the Ministry has made, but I do not think that this is a stitch in time saving nine. The county council believes that the expenditure of £300,000 now would save greater future expenditure and would, in fact, provide the only reasonable and practical solution to the problem of the danger on that particular part of the London-Ipswich road.

I should like to deal with the question of the by-pass from Marks Tey to Lexden. I would join with my hon. Friends in pressing upon the Minister the urgency of proceeding with that particular improvement. There is a stretch of road from Marks Tey to Lexden, part of the old road, which is extremely dangerous, narrow, unsatisfactory and passes through what is almost in a sense ribbon development. During the whole period of the season for Clacton and the North-East Essex seaside resorts very heavy traffic comes along that stretch, and a new bypass will not only speed up access to the North-East resorts, but would also make a tremendous improvement for motorists passing along that road who are constantly faced with the anxiety of driving through a fairly heavily populated part of the countryside.

We are anxious to see North-East Essex used as a resort for those who wish to come from this great metropolis in order to take advantage of the amenities which exist at the various points along our coast. I have in my own constituency only one small resort, which is really a yachting centre, West Mersea, but there are many people not only there but in Clacton and elsewhere who depend for their livelihood upon the continued arrival of visitors from the rest of the country.

We therefore feel that it is in the interests not only of our own people but of the population in the great urban areas that access to our part of Essex should be made as easy and as convenient as possible. This morning we have put forward some suggestions in a constructive spirit, and I hope that my hon. Friend, more especially when he has time to consider our representations, will find himself able to advise British Railways on their future policy for our part of the country, and will himself be sympathetic towards the improvement of road communications between the rest of the country and North-East Essex.

12.50 p.m.

I wish to intervene only for a few moments because, whatever steps the Minister may intend taking in Essex to improve the flow of traffic there, they might well have tragic results upon the flow of traffic in the Medway towns area, in which I am particularly interested. I must raise this point because we are already in extreme difficulties and these will no doubt be increased greatly when the Dartford tunnel project is completed. I speak with some feeling because I had an unfortunate experience recently when I went to my constituency hoping to see Kent play Essex. I spent most of the morning sweating and fuming on one mile of road, taking an hour and 20 minutes to cover it.

When the Dartford tunnel operates, although I agree that there are some charming areas of Essex, I have no doubt that many people from that county will use the tunnel to get to the much more desirable County of Kent. The cherry orchards and the vast expanse of Kentish coastal resorts which will be open to them will draw them like a magnet on to that mile of road which was so difficult to cover only a short time ago.

I hope, therefore, that when the Minister considers this question, he will also consider the claims of Kent. Also I hope he will realise that, if he looks into the question of the Rochester bypass urgently, he will not only please the people of the Medway towns, but will make it possible for the constituents of my hon. Friends who represent Essex to enjoy their weekends much more pleasantly in the County of Kent.

12.52 p.m.

I rise to draw the attention of the Minister particularly to those parts of A.12 which serve the North-East Essex coastal area, and to ask my hon. Friend if he could not do something soon in the interests of the safety of the people who live in the towns of Hatfield Peverel and Witham. Both of those towns on Saturdays and Sundays suffer from a continuous roar of traffic—at least they suffer the roar of the engines, the traffic is not always moving quite so fast. I disagree strongly with my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden), though I can appreciate that in Essex we shall be inundated with visitors from south of the river coming up to enjoy our sunshine.

The second and main point which I ask the Minister to consider seriously is that he should be quick in defining the areas which are to be by-passed and the routes which these additional roads will take. I do so because there are numbers of people living in the vicinity of A.12 who do not know whether their houses will be moved, whether their gardens will be taken, or whether the land on which they are planning to build factories will be bisected by a dual carriage-way or a by-pass. So I draw the attention of the Minister to the problems of people living on A.12, both from the point of view of safety and also of the uncertainty which surrounds the future plans of his Ministry.

12.55 p.m.

This is essentially an Essex affair, so I did not try to catch your eye before, Sir, because I was anxious that all the Essex Members should have a chance to speak first. I do not propose to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) in the line he pursued for his constituents, although the Isle of Ely has many road needs which I hope can be dealt with on some other occasion.

The reason I sought to catch your eye, Sir, was because this debate has some relevance to a Bill which some other hon. Members and myself have been considering at great length in a Committee upstairs, which has now reported to the House. I do not propose to go into the details of the British Transport Commission Bill and I shall not suggest legislation, either directly or by roundabout means. However, in the course of the proceedings on that Bill we were given information about the plans of the British Transport Commission which have considerable relevance to this matter.

For instance, we were shown the plans for electrification and we were made very much aware of the enormous proportion it represents. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale), who introduced this debate so ably, drew attention to the fact that his constituents in North-East Essex are looking forward to increased electrification. However, when the British Transport Commission Bill came before the Committee of which I had the honour to be chairman, their representative made it clear that certain developments had been definitely held up as the result of a Government decision in 1950 about capital. That decision restricted the Commission from doing some of the things that it wanted to do, and I want to dwell on that point for a few moments.

Throughout his speech my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich said that capital was the difficulty. No one would dispute that but, be the industry nationalised or under private enterprise, it is not fair to blame the lack of capital for failure to carry out much-needed improvements if the real reason is a Government decision about capital.

From what I have seen of the attempts at modernisation of British Railways, I believe they have improved the service rendered to the public—that is, with the exception of signboards on Ely station, which I thought unnecessary and which I have mentioned previously.

I was particularly interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) replied when I interrupted him earlier about the use of the Transport Users' Consultative Committee. I have always understood that this machinery was provided to enable the user to complain about anything in the existing service with which he was dissatisfied. It may be a narrow point as to whether or not that committee is entitled to consider improvements ab initio, but it was the impression of the House when various nationalisation Bills were passed that this machinery was set up to ensure that the voice of the user was properly heard. It was felt that whether the users were small groups of individuals or vast corporations, public companies, local authorities or any others, all should have equal rights before that committee to ensure that their voices were properly heard.

The hon. Member for Colchester disclosed the rather startling fact that people in his constituency who have grievances have found that this consultative machinery is not practical. If that be so, no legislation is required to alter the situation. The consultative committee is there, and the important thing is to ensure that it operates in such a way that the individual is given as much chance as the collective body or the local authority. This machinery is working fairly well in the electricity industry. People who have not got a service are able to come before their consultative committee and say that they want one. The same thing should apply in the case of transport. The consultative machinery should be so geared as to enable individuals or groups of individuals to make their complaints known without being put to prohibitive costs.

In its capacity as manager of our railways the British Transport Commission ought not to be blamed if the restrictions imposed upon it are caused solely by a Government decision about capital. A very important decision was taken in 1950 in connection with the use of capital for the improvement of the London area transport facilities, both underground and above ground. I understand that the Commission has not been back to the Minister of Transport to raise the matter again since that clamp-down took place in 1950. One of the recommendations of the Committee of which I was chairman was that the Minister should confer with the Commission upon that matter straight away.

I feel that this matter should be kept under continuous review and, where really urgent needs are shown—whether they be in Essex, London or anywhere else—the Government should keep in such close touch with the Commission that they should not feel bound by a decision given five years ago. I do not know whether that decision has any effect in North-East Essex. Perhaps the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will tell us that.

Would my hon. and gallant Friend please explain exactly what this decision in 1950 was?

It was a decision, taken in consultation with the London Transport Executive, about the development of transport facilities in London. My hon. Friend will doubtless receive the special report of the Committee of which I was chairman in due course. It was printed yesterday and is now available in the Vote Office.

This debate has served a useful purpose in that it has brought to a head two points first, that we cannot blame any industry, be it nationalised or otherwise, if it is doing its best with the capital which it is allowed by the Government to use, and, secondly, that we cannot expect a nationalised industry to have good public relations unless the consultative machinery is working properly in the consumers' interests. I do not think that this machinery is working properly in the case of transport, although it is working quite well in certain other industries. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider that aspect of the matter, because it is one of the most important.

1.4 p.m.

As not infrequently happens, when a certain matter is raised upon the Adjournment and there is plenty of time for the discussion to run, the scope of the speeches tends to extend beyond the subject originally announced. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale), with great courtesy, gave me notice of certain matters he intended to raise, and I have furnished myself with the information necessary for giving him a somewhat detailed reply.

After the problems of North-East Essex had been referred to, however, those of other parts of Essex were mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones), and then, in his speech, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) pointed out what was familiar to those who are students of geography, namely, that the Isle of Ely is outside the County of Essex. Nevertheless, I shall try to give a brief general answer to the points which have been raised before dealing in more detail with those of which I have been given notice.

I stand here not as a representative of the British Transport Commission, but in order to inform the House, as far as possible, of the policy which the Commission is following, subject to the very general directions which are provided for in the Transport Acts and which my right hon. Friend is empowered to give. Generally speaking, the purpose of Parliament in 1947—and it is one which has not changed with the change of Government—was that the Commission should be left responsible for the administration of the railways and the other transport services which come within its responsibilities.

It is obviously unreasonable for Parliament to ask the Commission to balance its accounts, taking one year with another if, at the same time, Parliament is going to seek to impose upon it the obligation to maintain uneconomic services. Therefore, we consider that where it is manifestly impossible for a certain service to be profitable the Commission is justified in putting to the Transport Users' Consultative Committees the proposal that that branch line or railway should be closed down.

It is necessary, and inevitable, that hon. Members representing parts of the country where these uneconomical services are being cut down should, as the spokesmen of their constituents, protest; but it is the duty of the Minister of Transport to take a broad view of these matters and not normally to interfere with a decision which has been approved by a consultative committee.

I was sorry to hear the criticisms which were made of those committees. Our view is that, faced with extremely difficult tasks, they have on the whole worked satisfactorily. Indeed, I was surprised to hear the complaint coming from Essex, because it was in the case of the Brightlingsea branch line that the consultative committee asked the Commission to change its original intention, which was not to rebuild the branch railway after it had been seriously damaged in the floods. As a result, that part of the country has had its railway services restored, at any rate for a time, in spite of its being uneconomical.

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that no conclusive proof was given by British Railways at the time of that case—in which I took some part and which I followed with very great attention—that that branch line was uneconomical or, at any rate, could not be made economical if proper steps were taken by British Railways and local people in combination? It is a little mis- leading to give the impression that British Railways made a concession in keeping in existence an uneconomical line which could in no circumstances ever be made economical.

The point I was trying to make was that the consultative committee was effective in that instance. If it is the case—and I do not doubt that it is, although it is an expression of opinion—that my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport), together with other people, was able to convince the consultative committee that the Commission had not made out its case, it goes to show how satisfactory is the machinery which is provided.

I will now say a word in reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely. He referred to a decision in 1950, limiting the capital expenditure which the British Transport Commission might undertake in London. It is not necessary for us to go back to 1950 and to recall the economic conditions of that time, because since then the present Government have announced that they were prepared to facilitate the provision of the £1,200 million needed for the modernisation of British Railways. Any decision taken at that time has no general bearing now upon the provision of capital for the modernisation and improvement of the railways.

My hon. and gallant Friend said that this referred to the underground services in London. I informed the House some time ago that, while under its Private Bill the British Transport Commission seeks power to explore the possibility of extending the underground services of London, the Government will decide only after careful survey has been made whether or not money can or should be provided for that purpose. That matter will be decided after the survey has been made, and when we know more precisely than we do at the present time what the cost will be.

I thought that my hon. Friend would say something like this. The particular matter I had in mind was a smaller expenditure than that, for which powers were first acquired in 1921. The power has been renewed every six years. The Abercrombie Report for London recommended that this plan should be put forward as a matter of high priority. As a matter of fact, as a result of the decision in 1950 by the Government at that time, the money was considered to be unavailable for spending on this project.

I will examine that matter carefully and also the report of the Select Committee over which my hon. and gallant Friend has been presiding.

I come to the more detailed points that were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich. As was suggested by a representative of the Government in another place recently, we are not entirely satisfied with the facilities that exist in the Port of Harwich. I am glad to inform my hon. Friend that we are examining the whole of this question with the British Transport Commission. Moreover the modernisation plan includes provision for the reconstruction of the main Marine Station, including the enlargement of the reception facilities.

My hon. Friend asked about general facilities between North-East Essex and the North. I am glad that he and his friends in that part of the country have been in discussion with the local regional officers. I understand that a new intensive interval service between London and Clacton was introduced some four years ago but that the public response did not suggest that there was further scope for providing much better facilities. I understand that there is an excellent train service to Clacton, and that in addition to through trains there is a connection at Colchester off every main express.

With regard to electrification, it is expected that the extension of the present electrified line between Liverpool Street and Shenfield to Chelmsford will be completed by 1956. Experiments with diesels are going ahead, and I hope that in due course the introduction of diesels will result in a considerable improvement in railway services all over the country, an improvement in which North-East Essex will participate.

On railways, I am only able to give the House the information which I have obtained from the British Transport Commission. Hon. Members have, however, been asking questions about a number of roads, and I would like to say something about those for which my hon. Friend has direct responsibility. For trunk roads he has financial responsibility and he pays large grants in respect of classified roads.

Trunk road schemes we have already announced are the dual carriage-ways on the East Ham—Barking bypass, the Newbury Park Station Bridge widening and reconstruction, the Potter Street diversion, the Harlow by-pass and the Tilbury Docks approach road. These are large schemes which should have an extremely beneficial effect. For classified roads, the grants to be made to the Essex County Council out of the present allocation for major improvements to classified roads estimated to cost less than £500,000, total £152,000.

When I am asked to deal with the help which has been given to Essex, I think I am justified in referring to the Dartford—Purfleet Tunnel. Although my hon. Friend said that this will in some way add to the burdens of the Medway Towns, it will greatly facilitate communication between Essex and other parts of the country. This is one of the largest schemes that we are undertaking at the present time, and it will cost about £9,450,000.

I have tried to give my hon. Friend an answer to most of the points that he raised. I cannot be expected to deal in detail with the other matters which have been raised, but I can give an assurance to every hon. Member who has taken part that we shall carefully examine in the Department what has been said. It is our anxious desire to do everything that can reasonably be done to ensure the provision of better facilities.

May we take it that urgent consideration will be given to the question of the Medway by-pass? There is the gravest concern about the effect that the Dartford—Purfleet tunnel can have on the already terrible traffic conditions in Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham. It is felt that it will impose greater hardship.

I know a certain amount about the problems of the Medway towns, and they are always present to our minds. We are trying to give some measure of priority to industrial roads, which are of great importance, and I am not quite sure whether the Medway towns are specially concerned with such traffic. I will certainly look into the point and will send my hon. Friend an answer on the subject.

I rise to pursue a subject which, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, we were discussing earlier this morning on the Third Reading of the County Courts Bill. I am very glad to think that in the less trammelled atmosphere of an Adjournment debate it will be possible to elaborate some of the matters which would not have been technically in order on that Third Reading. I should like to say that I am very grateful to the Solicitor-General for coming here to listen to this debate and to reply to the observations which will be made.

I do not think that anyone would doubt —and I should be the first to pay tribute to—the great advantages derived by a great many people of poor means from the Legal Aid Scheme since it was introduced by the Labour Government about eight or nine years ago. Having said that, one must realise that no scheme of that kind is perfect, and that during the years a number of blemishes, a number of abuses—in fact, a number of injustices—have come to light.

I rather regret that, judging from the replies that have been given from time to time by Government spokesmen in this House, neither of the Law Officers of the Crown really seems to be alive to the abuses and injustices that have become apparent in the administration of the Legal Aid Scheme in the High Court. Therefore, now that Parliament is about to pass the County Courts Bill, which is to give increased jurisdiction to those courts and also to introduce a scheme of legal aid in them, it seems most appropriate that the Government should take the opportunity of overhauling the whole Scheme in the light of the experience of the last few years.

We do not know, at the moment, precisely how the Scheme is to be operated in the county courts. It is, therefore, very important that those of us who have had some experience of seeing how it is administered in the High Court should give the Government the benefit of that experience, and hope that, when it is extended to the county courts, the blemishes that have been revealed will not be repeated. We do not even know whether or not there is to be only one scheme applicable both to the High Court and to the county courts.

During the debate on the Second Reading of the County Courts Bill, the Solicitor-General agreed with me that it would be most undesirable for the legal aid committees to decide at the outset that, for example, a litigant who is to be legally aided in an action for damages for personal injuries should bring it in the High Court or in the county court. That is a very important decision for the litigant, and it should be taken by his legal advisers after he has his certificate for legal aid. If that is to be the system then, presumably, there will not be two different categories of applicants for legal aid.

Putting it in a nutshell, I would say that the greatest tragedy that has resulted from some legally-aided cases in the last few years is that those who have a legal aid certificate entitling them to take proceedings in, say, the divorce court for a divorce or for some other remedy in the High Court, have often found that they have had to pay more money than if they had not been legally aided at all but had consulted a solicitor in the ordinary way.

I have had a number of letters from people who have had that experience, and my hon. Friends have had similar experiences. That is a very serious criticism. The object of legal aid was to enable people who had not adequate means to be suppored by the State and so have the same opportunities for obtaining redress for injury as are open to litigants of greater affluence.

It works in this way. Under the regulations, once a legal aid committee decides that a person is entitled to a certificate, another committee has to decide what his contribution is to be. There is a complicated scale, but the general effect is very often to make the applicant pay a larger sum of money than he can afford. It is very often a sum of money that he can raise only by a good deal of self-deprivation and hardship. In a great many cases the amount exacted from him —very often by instalments—is the maximum permitted under the scales, because it is assumed that the costs will amount to that kind of figure.

It is notorious that the cost of getting a divorce today varies considerably from one case to another, but in the ordinary case—where there is no complication about getting witnesses from long distances—it is not, outside the Legal Aid Scheme, a very expensive matter. I know of a number of people who, in ordinary cases have been able to get a divorce at a cost considerably less than £50. Under the Scheme it is frequently assumed that the cost will be more—at the outset one does not know what the cost will be—and if, under the regulations the unfortunate person who gets a certificate is liable for the costs then a larger sum than necessary is exacted.

I have had, not one or two isolated cases but a number of cases of people complaining that they cannot afford to keep up the instalments required from them. Sometimes they have had to abandon the case; sometimes they have had to apply, successfully or unsuccessfully, to the committee for reconsideration of their circumstances.

And sometimes have had the certificate withdrawn.

And sometimes, as my hon. Friend says, have had the certificate withdrawn.

I do not want it to be thought that I am criticising those who administer, and do a great deal of valuable work on, the legal aid committees, but one of the defects in the system is the degree of rigidity which is imposed upon them. It may be they are hide-bound by the regulations, or it may be that they consider themselves to be far more hide-bound than they are. I have had cases in which the Attorney-General has apologised for the way in which the Act has been administered and for the amounts that have been exacted. In my own experience, there are a number of cases in which, if there is any doubt, the legal aid committee exact too much rather than too little from the litigant. They assume that the costs of litigation will be more than they actually prove to be.

Outside legal aid there is the greatest possible measure of flexibility. A solicitor in private practice can attune the costs of proceedings to the means of his client—and very often does. My experience, and I am sure it is that of all my hon. Friends, is that before legal aid was ever introduced there were a great many solicitors who, in the interests of humanity, conducted divorce and other cases at a bare minimum of cost.

It is much more difficult to get solicitors to do that now or to get counsel to co-operate, because members of the profession say, quite naturally, "We need not go on doing what we have been doing for years because of the legal aid system." But the system does not work in that way. The legal aid system often makes the unfortunate person who gets a legal aid certificate pay far more money than he would have had to pay if he had not got legal aid.

Therefore, I urge the Government, before bringing this County Courts Bill into operation and before applying legal aid to the county courts, to have the whole administration of the legal aid system as we have known it hitherto overhauled. I urge them to make quite sure, that the scales of assessment are very drastically reduced in the case not only of those who will inevitably bring their actions to the county court but even to those who, if they have an option to take their cases to the county court or to the High Court, decide to bring their cases into the county court.

As was realised during the debate on the County Courts Bill, that Measure will not provide the blessing that we all hope it will of enabling people to get their injuries and hardships redressed, unless there is a very humane and sympathetic administration of the legal aid system when it is administered in the county courts.

I realise that in an Adjournment debate of this kind one cannot call for any specific pronouncements from the Government on precise details of the scheme when it is introduced, but we hope that as a result of this debate these matters will be very fully considered before legal aid is introduced into the county courts.

1.31 p.m.

I do not want to detain the House for more than a few minutes in supporting the appeal which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) has made for a thorough reconstruction and overhaul not of the Legal Aid and Advice Act but of the spirit in which it is administered. I will not go over any of the ground that he has covered, but I should like to say that I endorse virtually every word he said.

There is a rigidity, and particularly a financial rigidity, which, in many cases, works very great injustice indeed. It is not more than a guess, and it might turn out on investigation to be wholly unsound, but my own impression is that, except in divorce, the Legal Aid Scheme actually makes an annual profit. The cases in which legal aid is given are so carefuly vetted in advance as almost to insure the fund against loss, so that the risk of the legal aid fund having to make payments at all in all that range of cases that fall outside the divorce court must really be a very slight risk—a far less risk, I should have thought, than most solicitors are compelled to take in running their own practices.

Of course, that is not true in the divorce court. I suppose that a great many cases—I do not know whether they are the majority or not—are, in fact, brought in the divorce court where it is rare for costs to be recovered, and I suppose that any financial deficit in the legal aid fund at the end of the year would be largely attributable to the costs incurred on the divorce side.

It is not the authority that grants the certificate that fixes the financial contribution. I suppose it is this virtual impossibility that the fund will recover anything, however successful the legally-aided litigant may be in the divorce court, which leads to the fixing of contributions in very many cases quite out of proportion to the applicant's practical possibility of paying. The attitude is this: the man ought to be able to pay so much, and if we spread it over a long enough period he will be able to pay it. But the man finds that he cannot do it, with the best will in the world. I am sure that that financial side of the matter really needs looking at again.

I want to say a word about another aspect of this matter. I hope it will not be thought that one is attacking anybody or being unfair or unduly cynical. One has to remember that this Legal Aid Scheme effects a virtual revolution in our legal administration—as big a legal revolution as was effected by the National Health Service Act in the case of sick people. In both cases Parliament felt that poverty should be no bar to skilled professional assistance.

There are a great many old-fashioned people in the world. Not all of them are elderly people. There are a great many old-fashioned younger people, too, people who find it difficult to attune their thinking and activities to new ideas. We all know that there was great resistance, at any rate, in part, from the medical profession when the National Health Service Act was under discussion. The Legal Aid and Advice Act was run voluntarily and with sympathetic co-operation by the legal profession itself, and the scheme that Parliament ultimately adopted was largely the scheme which had been devised by the profession long before.

Nevertheless, there are a great many people in the profession—solicitors, barristers and judges at all levels—who still look down their noses at legally-aided litigants. I do not suppose it is really social snobbery. It is probably more a habit of mind induced by long practice in a profession which is as individualist as the doctors, and accustomed to other ways. But if we are to transfer large numbers of cases to the county courts as it is now proposed to do, if a large number of those cases are legally-aided cases, and if we are not, as we are assured we are not, to put the County Courts Bill into operation until legal aid has been applied to the county court, then we have to take very great care to see that we are not establishing different systems of law for different classes of citizens.

The man who comes into a court legally aided has had his right to be legally aided thoroughly investigated before the legal aid certificate is granted, and it is nobody's business to assume that because he is a legally aided person he has a less right in the court or that his case can be examined with less care or with more cantankerous criticism than if he were a normal litigant; otherwise, we shall have a first-class and second-class litigant, first-class and second-class law, and one kind of law for people who can pay for their litigation out of their own pockets and another standard of justice for those who cannot.

I do not say that there is a difference, but I say that when we are extending legal aid to the county court and taking a great many cases out of the High Court into the county court, we run very great risk of that happening unless great care is taken.

I would remind the Solicitor-General —although I am sure it is not necessary —that in the County Courts Bill there is power to increase the number of county court judges. I hope that when the Lord Chancellor exercises that power, and selects the judges to be appointed, he will take very great care indeed to see that those who are appointed to administer this new kind of jurisdiction are fully in sympathy with its objects and purposes. I should regard that as essential to the safe working of the Scheme.

What we are doing is, I am sure, right. I am sure that, properly administered and properly run, this is a beneficial scheme. But it is beneficial only if we do it with our eyes open to the dangers and the inadequacies—to put it no higher than that—which have shown themselves in the present working of the system; and only if we do it with a determination to see that justice shall be equal between citizen and citizen, regardless of their financial backing. It was to achieve precisely that result that Parliament embarked upon this legal revolution.

1.42 p.m.

I am glad that we have an opportunity once more to raise this extremely important matter of the extension of legal aid. I was sorry that it appeared to be out of order to discuss it this morning, when we were discussing a Measure which intended to bring a great number of cases into the county courts. It was considered not to be in order on Third Reading——

We cannot discuss the Bill. The House has disposed of that.

I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and merely say that I am sorry that what we are about to say now could not have been said then.

It would have saved time, too.

I have raised this subject on a number of occasions and I think the time has come when the Government should tell us what their intentions are. Time after time we have asked that the provisions of legal aid should be reexamined and extended. There is ample scope in the Act for a re-examination, but we have been told to wait until such time as the Government see fit to move.

In the meantime, it has become a public scandal that a large number of people who are entitled to receive legal assistance in accordance with the Act have, in fact, been excluded from seeking advice and have even been placed in a desperate position over cases which they were legitimately entitled to bring before the court—legitimately entitled to do so because, before legal aid was granted, the prima facie merits of their cases were fully examined. As a result of that examination it was clear that there was justification for their cases being brought before the court. In those circumstances they should have been granted the facilities which the Act intended to provide.

May I quote what was said when the Legal Aid and Advice Bill was introduced? The then Attorney-General said: …I should be inclined to call this Bill a charter. It is the charter of the little man to the British courts of justice. It is a Bill which will open the doors of the courts freely to all persons who may wish to avail themselves of British justice without regard to the question of their wealth or ability to pay."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th December, 1948; Vol. 459, c. 1221.] It is nonsense for anyone to suggest that that is what is happening under the legal aid system today. On the contrary, with the best intentions in the world on the part of those who have had to administer the provisions, nothing of the sort is happening. I, too, would express my highest regard and respect for those who have the duty of administering these provisions. They ought to be thanked for the services they have rendered. Unfortunately, they have been kept within such limitations by the regulations that it has been literally impossible for them to carry out the intentions of the Act.

It is not a question of a lack of sympathetic approach. There has been a most sympathetic approach. The fact is that the regulations have not allowed them, in spite of their sympathetic approach, to do what they should have done. They were kept within such limits, for example, in the payment of contributions that the position became difficult for those people who wanted justice done to them according to their rights.

I will give the House a few illustrations. In my own experience I have come across a case in which the disposable income of a family was £292 a year but they were called to make a contribution of £68. That is a public scandal. It is well known that in the constituency so ably represented by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) people will not and cannot go to the courts, in spite of the fact that they have serious grievances, because the amount they are called upon to contribute is so high that it does not pay them to seek justice. These people have put up to a considerable extent within injustice.

I know another case of a family in the same area—two decent working-class people who have great difficulty in making ends meet. They have two children whom they send to school. Such people do their very best to keep the family together, but in this case they were called upon to pay £89. That is from my own experience and shows how serious the position is. I repeat—it is a public scandal and something must be done rapidly to put it right.

The Solicitor-General, I know, has a very sympathetic outlook on this and many other matters. I have had the experience of working with him on committees times after time and I have found that not only does he exercise the ability which he possesses but he also approaches the subject in a reasonable and sympathetic manner. I appeal to him to see that this problem is dealt with in a proper way. Why now, particularly? It is late in the day as it is. We have had the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, in connection with which hundreds of people should have had legal advice. They should have been in a position to be assisted. In consequence of the regulations they have lost the opportunity because in many cases they entered agreements as they could not go to the courts. In nearly the whole of the provisions of that Act——

I understand from the argument of the hon. Member that he is criticising the provisions of the Act.

With the greatest respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I am not doing that. What I am saying is that legal aid should have been available in the county courts to enable people to take their cases there. Now we have come to the stage at which we have passed the new Bill without being told what the legal aid is to be, what provisions there are to be, how they are to be put into effect, and what measure of control there is to be in these matters.

I must remind the hon. Member that debate on the Adjournment is limited to criticism of the Administration.

Certainly, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that is what I am doing. With the greatest respect, I am asking that the provisions of the new Measure shall be humane instead of rigid as in the present system, which does not fulfil the purpose for which it was intended.

Why has something not been done to bring in a regulation to enable a person who, having passed through the county court and the Court of Appeal twice legally aided and those courts have held in his favour and then is taken to the House of Lords to have an opportunity of being legally aided? That position is ridiculous. It is a grave injustice. It is just flaunting the ideas which were intended to prevail in consequence of this Act.

I ask the Solicitor-General to say that it is not only unfair that the provisions of the Act have not been put into force in that respect yet, but that he will immediately see to it that a man shall not be denied justice in consequence of the fact that he is not able to pay for that justice to be afforded him. I speak with immediate knowledge of a case in which a person cannot go to the House of Lords although the other side can do so. The litigant has to prove his purpose before he can get assistance of any kind. It is not only wrong, it is humiliating. It is not a British idea, nor consistent with what the former Attorney-General said when he introduced this Measure.

Much could be said about this matter. I felt it was putting the cart before the horse to introduce a Measure like the County Courts Bill. I think the Government have failed in their duty. They know now how these Acts have worked, or failed to work, and they know how the position should be remedied. They now know that advice should be given to litigants free of charge. That should have been attended to before any Bill was introduced, whether the Bill were good, bad, or indifferent. I think that a good Measure can be introduced and possibly has been introduced, but, without legal and being properly dealt with in the manner I have suggested, we shall find that the ordinary man in the street is unable to get justice done in his case.

One thing which is not understood by the Government. and which, I am sorry to say, is not always understood on this side of the House either, is that the litigant who is poor and has to have recourse either to the county court or magistrates' court feels his position just as keenly and feels that his case is just as important as anyone with a case in the highest court of the realm. He is entitled to feel that because £1,000 or £10,000 to a man in the High Court may not mean anything like what £10, £15 or £20 means to a man who has to go to the other courts. If we look at things from that point of view we can wait no longer for reform. Not a day should be lost before this matter is dealt with. I hope that the Solicitor-General will go to his perhaps more hard-hearted colleague, the Attorney-General, and try to see that justice is done—and done rapidly.

1.52 p.m.

I am sure that the House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) for raising a very important matter. It is most appropriate that this discussion should take place on the day on which we have given a Third Reading to the County Courts Bill.

I understand that about one-third of the work now dealt with by the High Court will be transferred to county courts. It would obviously be absurd to consider such a revolutionary change unless the Legal Aid Scheme were implemented very fully with reference to county court litigation. I understand that a married man with two children, earning an average national wage, is considered to be liable for a sum of £112 in costs before he can obtain legal aid. From a practical point of view, that is the position today. When one remembers that costs in the county court are about £50, if the regulations remain as they are it will be absurd to talk about giving legal aid to any person in the county court. Clearly, a drastic change is required.

I certainly agree with criticisms which have been made about the administration of the Legal Aid Scheme to date. I have come across many cases of constituents who have protested strongly about the contributions they are called upon to make. I have had information from solicitor friends and others that in an undefended divorce case the costs are in the region of £50, and sometimes less. Yet, in my experience there have been cases of constituents who have been asked to contribute something in the region of £75, and possibly more. That appears absurd. I do not know what possible justification there can be for that sort of thing. Obviously, we did not initiate the Scheme to arrange that in undefended divorce and similar cases persons should be called upon to pay considerably larger sums. Clearly, there is a case for looking very carefully into the administration of these regulations.

I have found that although sympathetic consideration is given in the majority of cases, very often, not only with regard to the amount of contribution but the way in which it has to be paid by instalments, what appears to be far too high an assessment is made. They are matters of vital importance.

The matter is appropriately discussed now and is given emphasis by the fact that we are to have this revolutionary change in the transfer of cases to the county court. That does not alter the fact that as it is now administered the present system requires the most careful overhauling. Undoubtedly, it causes great hardship in many cases.

I understand that the usual delay in the granting of a legal aid certificate is about two months. Again and again, in discussions on the County Courts Bill and otherwise, we have heard talk about the county court being a poor man's court. We have heard it said that justice ought to be provided expeditiously. But how are cases to be dealt with expeditiously if the litigant has to wait for a minimum of two months, and often considerably longer, before a legal aid certificate can be granted? Here, too, is a matter for further investigation.

I turn next to another point with which I am seriously concerned in the administration of the Legal Aid and Advice Act. Hon. Members will notice that it is called the "Legal Aid and Advice Act." Obviously, it was intended that importance would be attached to the latter part of that title; yet after a number of years of administration by means of the regulations, we have had no indication whatever of the date when there will be implementation of the provisions of Section 7 of that Act.

The question of legal advice was one of the most important things dealt with in that Act. If a person has a complaint, something for which he thinks he has a legal remedy or has suffered an injustice, is it not obvious that if he went to an advice bureau and was able to get advice as to his legal rights, one of two things would happen. In a bad case, he could be persuaded not to proceed with any question of litigation. In a good case, he could quickly be put on the road to having his rights exercised and obtaining his remedy. It seems to me extraordinary that no attempt has yet been made to bring into being the provisions in connection with the provision of legal advice.

When one thinks of the average man of small means who may have, as he thinks, a claim under the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, under the Rent Acts, or under the Landlord and Tenant Act, or perhaps in connection with a small debt or claim, what a boon it would be if he could go to an advice bureau and get advice.

One important change has been made as the result of the Legal Aid and Advice Act. It is worth while emphasising that before that Act came into existence, there were many advice bureaux and many instances of legal practitioners giving assistance in various parts of the country. These centres depended upon charity, so to speak, upon assistance given to them by various societies or by borough and county councils. At present, the London County Council pays a large sum of money in connection with the giving of legal advice. Unfortunately, however, since the provisions of the Legal Aid and Advice Act came into being, a number of those advice bureaux have closed down. I think that the provision today for legal advice is less than it was before the Legal Aid and Advice Act came into being. This, surely, is very wrong.

In the passing of that Act we envisaged the building up of advice bureaux where for a moderate sum the humble citizen could get advice. Indeed, it is to the advantage of the State that he should get that advice, for this would assist in preventing unnecessary litigation; and yet nothing has been done about it. The strongest point I would desire to make is that it is utterly wrong that there should be this delay in providing for the implementation of the provisions under Section 7 of the Legal Aid and Advice Act. I hope that before long the Government will see that regulations are made to enable people to obtain that necessary advice.

2.6 p.m.

The difficulties to which preceding speakers have referred in connection with the Legal Aid Scheme arise from the one cause that the Legal Aid Scheme has been put into effect piecemeal instead of being operated immediately after the Legal Aid and Advice Act was passed. We therefore have the curious anomaly that in a quite large category of cases it is cheaper for a litigant not to take advantage of the Legal Aid Scheme.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) has referred in particular to one category of case: namely, undefended divorce cases. When constituents in humble circumstances come to me and say that they are likely to be involved as petitioners in undefended divorce cases or they want to commence proceedings, I advise them first not to resort to the legal aid machinery but, if it is not a complicated case, to make their own arrangements with a suitable solicitor. In such cases, it may well be that the costs involved would not amount to more than, say, £50, whereas if they apply under the Legal Aid Scheme the expenditure involved might be very much larger. Many people find themselves in that position. It is surely ironical that a scheme that was introduced for the benefit of poor people should in practice penalise them. That is one aspect to which I hope the Solicitor-General will direct some of his remarks.

The other difficulty in connection with the scheme arises from the participation of the National Assistance Board in the assessment of the contribution to be made. I make no complaint about the persons engaged in the work of the National Assistance Board who are asked to investigate and make assessment in accordance with the present regulations. The difficulties arise from the fact that the National Assistance Board is perhaps not the most suitable body for dealing with this class of case. It may not be easy to suggest a practical alternative, but when an official of the National Assistance Board who for the greater part of his time deals with people who are destitute and more or less on the starvation line has to assess the contributions to be made by someone earning, perhaps, £10 or £15 a week, the tendency is—or so it appears to me—for the assessment to be much greater than it ought to be.

I have met constituents who have had to embark upon litigation on my advice because it was the only way that they could secure justice against anonymous slum landlords. After the assessment had been made by the committee sitting at Clement's Inn, I was horrified in one or two cases to discover, not only the very large sums that were required of these very poor people, but the excessively high weekly or monthly contributions that they were expected to make. That is only part of the difficulty, because they represent the middle sector so to speak of the problem of these particular constituents.

Before they could make the first move in establishing their rights, they had to go to the county court. In those circumstances, they had to make their own arrangements. It was only by the generosity of various people concerned in the matter that they were able to institute the first proceedings, which showed that they were right, because in the later stages, and on two occasions in the Court of Appeal, it was held that their particular plea was absolutely justified. Now the same point is to be tested in the House of Lords. As soon as it reaches that stage, then again the Legal Aid Scheme ceases to operate and these unfortunate citizens find themselves in this very difficult position.

On the subject of advice, that of course is an aspect of the scheme which ought to have been put into effect long ago. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North has refered to the diminution as a result of the Legal Aid and Advice Act in the facilities for legal advice particularly in London. What happened in my area, where the need was especially great because of the existence and operation of slum landlords. The local authority—the Metropolitan borough council—instituted a legal advice bureau. When the district auditor saw that certain expenditure had been incurred in connection with the legal advice bureau, he said "That expenditure is illegal and it must be terminated." It was only by making some kind of alternative arrangement through a citizens' advice bureau—purely a technical formality in this particular case—that the Metropolitan Borough Council of Lambeth was able to continue to incur the same expenditure in the provision of legal advice that hitherto had been regarded as illegal by the district auditor.

There we have just one or two aspects of the difficulties as they affect ordinary people. I hope that what has been said in the course of this valuable Adjournment debate will help to persuade the Government to take the speediest possible action to implement the whole Scheme under conditions which will help instead of penalise poor people.

2.12 p.m.

The Legal Aid and Advice Act, when it was first introduced, was most certainly a very revolutionary change in this country. To have introduced its provisions fully would undoubtedly have resulted in trying to do too much, with the result that it might well have been a failure. I do not want to introduce a political note into this debate today, but I was glad to note that the Conservative Party was the only one to announce in its manifesto in the recent Election the intention further to extend the provisions of the Act.

So far as the administration of the Legal Aid and Advice Act is concerned, I should perhaps declare an interest, as I sit regularly on those committees which grant or refuse certificates. It is not a very enviable task with the information available to one upon those occasions. Some people rather forget that the words are "legal aid" and not "free legal assistance." The actual assessment of the capabilities of people to pay is made by the National Assistance Board, by those who are presumed to be fully capable of inquiring into what are the capital assets, the income and the expen- diture of those people. It would be quite impossible for a legal aid committee to do so. That information, which has been carefully gone into, is before the committee when it decides.

Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is not really a question of the Assistance Board's intervention? The point is that the rules on which their decisions are based are such that they are not good enough, and they should be altered.

They have to inquire into what is a person's disposable income and what his capital is, if any. It is a question of figures. On the whole, I think that they arrive at very fair results.

Some of us who have to deal directly with these cases in the first instance are, perhaps, in a better position to form an opinion as to the actual results, and I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will find that it is a common experience of solicitors who act in these cases that the assessments are in fact too high in a great many of them.

Because of the regulations.

That is the point.

I agree that people complain of the assessment, but that is quite another thing, because they may well assume that they are to get something nearer free legal aid.

I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that he is quite mistaken. In a great many cases——

The purpose of an intervention is not to carry on a debate by making a second speech, which is, in fact, what is being done, but merely to clear up an ambiguity.

I hope, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you will not think it presumptious on my part when I say that it is a little difficult to know the purpose of the intervention until it has been made.

I think that I understood the purpose of the intervention. That was made fairly clear.

I was trying to clear up a point on which I thought there was misunderstanding between the hon. and learned Gentleman and myself. The point to which I wanted to draw his attention in my previous intervention was that the amount charged is very often in excess of what a solicitor would have charged to a person who was not legally aided.

That is the point to which I was coming. The legal aid committee is in no way responsible for the figure ascertained by the National Assistance Board and the committee makes its own assessment. It may well be that in an undefended divorce case, and in other cases, the figure is higher than if the man had gone to a solicitor and put his money down.

Will not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that very often that amount is higher than the cost of the case may be?

That is exactly what I was saying. It goes to prove the point that I was about to come to. Many of those who do apply for legal aid are not those who require legal aid, because they are the people who want to obtain free assistance in litigation for divorce or whatever it may be. When the matter is gone into fully by the National Assistance Board and the legal aid committee it is found that they really do not require the assistance given by the Act at all.

Is not the very fact that a person is granted legal aid acknowledgement that he is entitled to legal aid?

Yes, he gets legal aid, but the assistance is often at a rate that he does not require, although it may be that the same person making a legal aid application in a defended divorce suit would require it.

There is another point which has been overlooked by all hon. Members, I think, who have taken part in the debate so far, and it is this. The person who receives legal aid—though not, of course, in an undefended divorce case—is, in the litigation, in a very privileged position, for if he should be unsuccessful in his case he is not put in the position of an unaided person who so fails, and that may be an advantage that should be taken into consideration as well.

I am not going to say that a system like this, brought in fairly recently, and extensively used by many people, is one which should not be looked at from time to time. Of course it should, but I hope that when it is looked at certain principles will be borne in mind, namely, first, that this system is for legal aid but not free legal aid, and secondly, that there is provision for advice.

I beg to differ from those hon. Members who have asked for the setting up of advice bureaux. I pay tribute to those which exist today, which are provided by various organisations, but I do not believe that advice bureaux will be able to give the assistance to the litigant that the solicitor can who is visited by his client for advice. I know, because I have assisted in granting such certificates. Under the Act, we frequently undertake a measure of inquiry and report through solicitors, who can make a full inquiry, if the committee cannot, and who report back to the committee what they find through such inquiry. That is a very useful provision and one that is very frequently used, and if it were extended litigants would be able to obtain the advice they require from solicitors.

However, when we consider whether this scheme should be extended to the House of Lords one becomes a little careful. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because the expenses of the scheme have to be borne in mind when we are considering all the factors.

If a person is successful all through the litigation, to the stage when it may go to the House of Lords, how can the hon. and learned Gentleman, consistently with his view, say that that litigant should not be given aid to continue with the case?

I should like to know how many such cases there have been. I cannot think of any, speaking from memory.

There have been such cases.

There is a procedure to be gone through, and I find it hard to imagine that the number of such cases, is other than extremely small.

The hon. and learned Gentleman will bear in mind what I am sure he has overlooked for the moment, that a case cannot go to the House of Lords at all except with leave, and that one cannot get the leave unless one has already established that the point to be litigated in the House of Lords is one of great public importance.

That was exactly the consideration I had in mind when I said that I wondered how many cases there had been, or were likely to be. One does not know, because the obtaining of leave is not automatic, but in many cases, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is very difficult.

A litigant gets the leave, but the hon. and learned Gentleman says he may not take advantage of it.

Order. This is not a private debate.

I hope I have not induced anyone to think so by having given way as often as I have. One would think from what hon. Gentlemen have said that I was not, on the question of principle, in agreement with them. It was on questions of detail only that I was discussing the matter, and on those questions it could well be discussed yet more.

I was pointing out the difficulties of those who administer the scheme, and I would ask hon. Members to remember that the public purse is not unlimited. We are now, very rightly, to extend the scheme to the county courts, and, of course, the administration will have to be speeded up, so that the certificates can be given in time.

2.25 p.m.

I am sure that this is a most useful Adjournment debate. It relates to a great public service which, no doubt like other public services, is not entirely free from imperfections. Hoping for a long life myself, I doubt whether I shall ever see it entirely free from imperfection.

Pessimistic.

No. My remark was based on experience of human affairs and human fallibility, and among other aspects of human fallibility there is this one. The House, and particularly the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), have been good enough to indicate that they really did not think it would be possible for me here and now to make specific pronouncements about new matters at such short notice as I have had of this Adjournment debate. I can give this assurance to the hon. Members who have taken part in it, that all that has been said today will be fully and carefully considered.

I am glad to notice that without exception hon. Members have paid tribute to the work of those who work this Scheme, because it is hard and difficult work, and it is generously undertaken, and occupies time.

I wish once again to repudiate the accusation, made by the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner), that the Government are guilty of doing something wrong because they have not yet told the House what the full legal aid in the county courts is to be. This House has itself entrusted to schemes prepared by the Law Society the working of the Act, and the hon. Member knows —at least, I suspect he knows; certainly the rest of the House knows—that the Law Society is working at this Scheme. No doubt it will pay attention to what the hon. Member and other hon. Members have said. I do not, standing at this Box, have any official information whatsoever as to what its scheme is, and I told the hon. Gentleman this a short time ago, and I cannot hope to improve on that statement yet.

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman not know that many reports have come out from the Law Society for some years indicating how matters should be improved? But nothing has been done by the Government.

The hon. Member is not following the point on which I am. I shall come to the reports in a minute. I am simply discussing at the moment the question of what will be the form of the scheme of legal aid in the county courts. Will it be, for instance, one scheme not separate from the other scheme? Or two schemes, separate schemes? That is all. I am only saying that the Law Society is working at its scheme and that I have no official information whatsoever as to what its workings are in that respect. I cannot be blamed for not telling the House what the scheme shall be. I hope I have made that point fairly clear and shall not have to tell the hon. Member the same thing again, because he does not really have to hear things said twice.

I suppose that when the House passed the 1947 Act it knew very well that this vast new scheme, involving the setting up of a new body of administration and new expenditure, was to be established only by stages. I would say, in answer to the hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton), who complained that the Act had been brought into force piecemeal, that that was clearly recognised by the House when it passed the Act, because let us remember the structure of it. It was made so that Sections, and what we call bundles of Sections, could be brought into operation at different appointed days. That was clearly right, and any Government are faced with a decision as to priorities in bringing it stage by stage into force.

Our predecessors started with the High Court legal aid, and we, in accordance with the recommendations of the Lord Chancellor's advisory committee on the working of the scheme, move as the next stage to legal aid in the county courts.

I cannot speculate as to what would be the very next stage to be introduced, but I rather think, subject to some views expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) that the House would probably take the view that the next stage to be introduced should be the legal advice part of the Act. Certainly we have declared in the political document referred to that, as soon as we have this next stage in the county court carried out, we will give consideration to the introduction of the legal advice part of the Scheme. But, until the administration of the county court part of the Scheme is in operation, and quite apart from the cost, it would be unreasonable to ask the Law Society to set up a vast new organisation for legal advice at the same time. It is a question of allocating priorities in bringing into operation various sections of the Act.

I think that there are two points about contributions—excessive contributions, as hon. Members urge—which are now demanded under the existing Scheme. There are the statutory regulations which govern the duties of the National Assistance Board in assessing the disposable income, and so forth, of the applicants, and then there is the question of the local committee estimating the probable cost of the litigation.

In the first matter, namely the regulations, I am hampered by the rules of order, but I hope that, without outrage, I might say that we are following a paragraph which I quoted so recently that I think I need not quote again. It is in the Report of the Law Society Advisory Committee on the working of the Scheme that was published in November last. Following a view there expressed, the Government have gone on the lines that what resources are available should be directed first of all to extending the Act into other fields of application before a change in the rate of contribution is dealt with. We have adopted that method of priority advised as we are to that end by the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee, which does not consist by any means exclusively of lawyers. As the House knows, persons with great experience in welfare work and so forth sit on that Committee.

If hon. Members know of any individual cases in which it seems that the existing regulations have been harshly applied and they cannot by a more short-circuited method deal with the matter, I should be very grateful if they would let me or my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General know about it. We could at least invite the National Assistance Board, which is always willing to look again, to review the assessment which it has made in accordance with the regulations. I hope that hon. Members will do that, because no one would wish that the regulations which the House has laid down should not be as humanely enforced as they possibly can be. I do not think that any hon. Member suggested that those who seek to enforce the regulations for the purpose of their calculations are not actuated by the best possible motives all the time, though in rare cases they make mistakes and would be glad of an opportunity to put them right.

As to the other aspect, namely the estimate of probable cost, hon. Members who are concerned with these matters no doubt know the position, but I am not sure that it is publicly known. It might be of advantage to say what it is. Under the statutes and regulations, the applicant for legal aid has to have his appropriate maximum contribution assessed by the National Assistance Board. Then the local legal aid committee has to make an estimate of the probable cost of the litigation ahead. If that estimate is more than the maximum contribution assessed, the committee will fix the contribution required at the maximum. If it is less, the committee will fix the contribution at the probable cost in their estimate.

It is said that this estimate is too rigid, but I am sure that the House will appreciate that there must be some degree of uniformity, if it can be possibly attained, in its working. In relation to divorce cases, which have been chosen as instances where it is not working well, the Law. Society issued notes for the guidance of area and local committees with the object of assisting them on points which gave difficulty and of securing some uniformity.

Do those appear in a published document?

Yes. I am about to quote from the first Report of the Law Society on the operation and finance of Part I of the Act. The notes are in Appendix V to that document.

Does not the Solicitor-General agree that in this context there is no great merit in uniformity, because that makes for rigidity and we want flexibility? Uniformity tends to make for a large contribution from a great many people, in many cases the maximum.

I am sure that the hon. Member will allow me to develop the point. I did not realise that the notes to which I have referred were new to some members of his profession. I should have thought that, with a large number of local committees all over the country, it was desirable to have some degree of uniformity in their initial assessment of the cost, for instance, of an undefended matrimonial cause.

The notes provide broad hints to the committees. Paragraph 10 of the document contains some hints on the fixing of actual contributions in matrimonial causes. The notes invite the local committee to assume, unless the contrary appears, that the case will be undefended and that there will be no complications in its conduct. That is the first stage. On that assumption they suggest that there are right figures, which vary with the nature of the undefended cause. For instance, the figure in a case of desertion, where service by advertisement is not required, is given as probably £55. In medical nullity—an unfortunate phrase which just means calling doctors—the figure suggested is £75, and in all other matrimonial causes. £65.

How were these broad estimates arrived at? I do not suppose that one could possibly compete with the price which could be obtained, in a scheme of this kind, from some solicitors. I use the word "price", I hope without offence. A skilled solicitor who is able to streamline his office in relation to matrimonial causes no doubt could sometimes do a case more cheaply than at these clearly average figures. But these figures were arrived at by the Law Society after consultation with the Principal Registrar of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, a pretty good authority, and with the experience of the Law Society itself, whose members ought to know better than anybody what these cases cost.

I do not think that many of us would quarrel very much with those figures, but it makes it all the more difficult to understand why in so many cases the contribution that is fixed is higher than those figures.

I should get into trouble with the hon. Member for Islington, East if I suggested some rigidity, but these figures are given in the guidance notes for local committees to fix the amount in a case without complications. They have to make the best estimate they can of the cost. Of course, this may be changed. The applicant might be afterwards required to make a larger contribution because the case might become defended or some other complication arise; but in the first instance that is the procedure.

Of course, every charge the applicant is required to pay is taxed by the officers of the court as between solicitor and client, and when all that is done 15 per cent. is knocked off from profit costs and counsels' fees to cut it down to the charge made under the legal aid scheme.

I am sorry to see that the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) has gone, because I wanted to deal with the point he raised about the delay in granting certificates. I would have told him, as I will now tell him in his absence, that this is being urgently considered by the Law Society, which is eager to effect an improvement in this direction as far as it can.

I was going to say I was astonished, but that is altogether too young an expression in this House. We have become proof against astonishment, but I rather regret that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) suggested that any judge in this country would qualify the quality of the justice which he administered according to the means of the litigant.

I did not say that.

I have no reason to believe that anything of the kind has ever existed, and I can certainly give him the assurance that no Lord Chancellor of any Government in this country would ever recommend the appointment of anyone to a judicial office, high or low, whose mentality showed the slightest sign of doing anything of the kind.

I hope the Solicitor-General, if he was about to finish his remarks, will give me the opportunity of clearing up the position. He put the proposition I made in very much wider terms than I had done, and I certainly would not have dreamt of going anything like as far as the extent to which he attributed my remarks. I hope he will look at what I did say, because he will find that there are many people who are of that opinion. I should like to give him just this one instance. Quite recently in the Divorce Court I heard a learned commissioner say, "Is there nothing that can prevent this man from washing his dirty linen in public at the public expense?" The man was a legally-aided respondent to the petition of his wife, and the wife had an admitted income of £4,000 a year.

I am glad I gave the opportunity for that intervention so that the hon. Gentleman could make it clear that he never intended to make the allegation which I have, if he did not make it, most unfortunately put into his mouth. I am very glad to hear that he entirely joins with me in asserting the belief that no judge in this country ever would allow the quality of justice which he administered to be affected in any way by the means or absence of means of the litigant before him.

There is just one other thing the House might like to look at, and that is to see, what is the extent to which people are kept away from litigating by the current terms of legal aid. I want to draw the attention of the House to that before I sit down, because the House will be aware that in its last report the Advisory Committee drew attention to this fact. My quotation is from paragraph 15 of the latest Report of the Advisory Committee, page 20. It refers to the fact that— the amount asked for in contribution does not appear to prevent people from accepting the terms on which legal aid is offered to any greater extent now than it did at the inception of the Scheme. The House might be interested to know what the figures indicate in that field. Of course, the applicant is told before he accepts the offer of legal aid what the maximum contribution could be, at all events as far as it is known, because future events might alter it. Some people do refuse the offer on those terms, and, of course, those who refuse comprise all cases where for some reason or another they have decided not to litigate, as, for instance, where the claim is settled between the application and the announcement of the terms on which the parties can have legal aid.

But the percentages for calendar years of the refusals of offers of legal aid made after the application are these. In 1952, 14.5 per cent.; in 1953, 14.8 per cent.; and in 1954, 15.3 per cent. So it does not look, as far as we can get any guidance from those figures, that there is any doubt about the rightness of what the Advisory Committee said, namely, that the amount asked for in contributions is now having no materially greater effect on the assisted litigant than it did at the inception of the Scheme.

Does not that show that one in six or one in seven has declined it?

No, it cannot be assumed that all those declining are because they cannot afford it. Indeed, I have made that plain. I cannot tell how many in the percentages refuse on the ground that they cannot afford their con- tributions and how many refusals are due to other causes. Those are the percentages, and they seem to remain substantially the same.

Before the hon. and learned Gentleman sits down, he might like to consider this example. I am sure quite a number of people who wish to seek legal aid do without when they are told before making the application what the contribution might possibly be. Would he be good enough to say whether he does or does not agree that the rules that prevail at the present—I am sure he has not quite grasped this—controlling the decision of the Assistance Board, when it decides how much an individual should contribute, are the real cause of the trouble which prevent people from taking advantage of this service?

I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I refer to the rules of order and say that I do not think it would be in order to discuss an amendment of the statutory regulations. I am seeking to give an answer to the debate without infringing the rules of order, that is, to deal with the Advisory Committee's advice under the regulations as they are now.

As to the hon. Member's other point about the Assistance Board's assessment, it is possible that those who make their own guess of the Board's assessment may well be frightening people off, but I cannot possibly tell him anything further about that, and I can only give the House the facts as they rest on these percentages. I hope the House will take the view that those figures mean there has been no substantial change in the numbers deflected from litigation under this Scheme since it was first brought into force.

With these scattered observations, I hope I have covered the ground as far as I can. I give the assurance to all hon. Members that all has been said in the course of this debate will be earnestly considered by those who are concerned with the working of the Scheme.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes to Three o'clock.