§ Leave out Clause 23 and insert the following new clause:
§ Commencement of proceedings
§
(".For paragraph (a) of the proviso to subsection (1) of section eighty of the principal Act (which provides a time limit for prosecution in certain cases) there shall be substituted the following paragraph:
(a) where a sample has been procured under this Act, no prosecution in respect of the article or substance shall be begun after the expiration of—
beginning with the date on which the sample was procured, unless the justice of the peace before whom the information is laid, on being satisfied on oath that having regard to the circumstances of the particular case it was not practicable to lay the information at any earlier date, gives a certificate to that effect; and, if the prosecution is in respect of a sample of milk, it shall not in any case be begun after the expiration of forty-two days beginning with the said date.")
§ VISCOUNT WOOLTONMy Lords, this clause goes together with an Amendment to the Second Schedule, 1731 page 33, line 36. It replaces Clause 23 by new provisions for the beginning of proceedings. Clause 23 extended the period within which authorities had to take proceedings from twenty-eight days to two months, and extended the longer time which could be taken at the direction of a justice of the peace from forty-two days to six months. This Amendment restores the shorter period provided in the 1938 Act for milk samples alone, as milk is particularly liable to deterioration. The Amendment to the Second Schedule deletes an Amendment of Section 80 of the 1938 Act, which is no longer necessary, as a new paragraph (a) is substituted in the proviso to subsection (1) of Clause 80, and has been redrafted in this clause. I beg to move that the House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Viscount Woolton.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.