Viscountess ASTOR:

asked the Home Secretary if he will, in the interests of public convenience, consider issuing a circular to all police courts recommending an arrangement whereby ordinary summonses for civil offences should be heard in police courts before cases of a criminal nature?

Such an arrangement would operate very hardly against persons arrested and detained in custody pending the hearing of charges against them, who would have to wait until all the summonses, which at busy Courts are very numerous, were disposed of. I should not feel justified in issuing a circular to all Police Courts, asking magistrates to vary the arrangements which their experience has led them to regard as best calculated to serve the general convenience.

Viscountess ASTOR:

Is it not true that persons recently arrested have to listen to the most appalling cases; that, for instance, if a woman is arrested for a motoring offence, she has to go to court and listen to these cases, and does the right hon. Gentleman think that that is quite right?

The Noble Lady is wrong in saying arrested; she probably means summoned.

Viscountess ASTOR:

Yes, summoned.

In my younger days, I had experience of these courts, and, after long experience, I am sure that it is right to deal with the persons who have been arrested and kept in prison and to get rid of them first. They are entitled to it.