CLAUSE 2.—(Saving for necessary business.) (Hansard, 18 June 1920)

§ Mr. SPEAKER
Mr. Briant.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
On a point of Order. I do not know whether you have passed over the Amendment standing in my name as to the weekly half-holiday. That is a very important Amendment. If it be not accepted, every restaurant will have to close at seven o'clock, and no one will be able to get anything to eat after that hour.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The Clause says, "Nothing in this Act or in the provisions of the Shops Act, 1912, as to the weekly half-holiday". The hon. Member is only shifting the position of the words.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
If the words I suggest were accepted, the Clause would be open to a different interpretation. The promoters told me this morning that this Amendment was necessary. I do not think the comma is sufficient to show it.

§ Mr. BRIANT
I beg to move, in Subsection (1), to leave out the word "of" ["provisions of the"], and to insert instead thereof the words "as to the closing of shops on the weekly half-holiday contained in".

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I think this Amendment carries out what I want.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I beg to move, in Sub-section (1, i), after the word "premises", to insert the words "or, in the case of meals or refreshments sold on railway premises for consumption on the trains".
Unless an Amendment of this kind be inserted, it would be impossible for anyone travelling on a train to obtain any refreshments after seven o'clock at night.

§ Mr. BRIANT
I accept the Amendment.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I beg to move, after Sub-section (1, iii) to add the words "or to a shop being a railway bookstall on or adjoining a railway platform."
This Amendment will enable newspapers to be sold on railway bookstalls.

§ Sir K. WOOD
Some further explanation will be required from my right hon. Friend, because obviously it would be be unfair to newsagents in a particular town if, for instance, every railway bookstall were accessible to the general public after the ordinary hours of closing. If my right hon. Friend has in mind some of the big railway stations, where people are passing constantly at night, I think something could be done in that direction, but to have a simple Clause exempting railway bookstalls generally would not be fair to the ordinary newsagent or vendor.

§ Sir F. BANBURY
I think this Amendment is extremely necessary in the interests of the public. It is quite true that it might, under certain circumstances, do some harm to one or two people. I can conceive that it would be possible that, if certain people found that they could get a newspaper at a big London terminus, they might go on to the platform in order to get it. It would be quite impossible to find means by which the railway company could tell whether the people who went on to the platform to purchase a paper were genuine travellers or not. It is true that the practice has grown up of charging a penny for admittance to a railway platform, but even if the companies charged a penny for admission to any part of the station, anyone who wanted a paper would not mind paying a penny for admission in order to achieve his object. But are we going to put the public and the newspaper trade to all this serious inconvenience because certain shops happen to be in the vicinity of a railway station? I do not think it can be advanced as a feasible proposition. A good deal of hardship is going to be inflicted by many of the provisions of this Bill; but whatever you do you cannot prevent, under certain circumstances, certain hardships being inflicted, and my own belief is that the advantage which would be gained by my Amendment is far and away greater than any little harm that would be done should the Amendment be carried.