§ 10.28 p.m.
§ Mr. RHYS DAVIESI beg to move, in page 2, line 14, to leave out Subsection (1).
I have seen a few Bills presented to this House but I have never before seen a provision of this kind. What is meant by the words that the board may accept money from any other person? This is indeed a novel proposition. It looks as if we are running a charity organisation society and begging money for the purpose of carrying on these marketing schemes. Not only is the board entitled to accept money from private individuals but, as I read the Clause, a private individual who makes a grant can actually decide how his money shall be spent. What type of person has the Minister in mind who will make grants of money for this purpose? Are there any people in Scotland who would do this kind of thing? We know there must be many in Wales. This marketing business is far too serious to talk about conducting it on charitable gifts. It may be that these gentlemen might make gifts in the hope of a knighthood or a peerage or something of that kind, but we are entitled to know exactly what is meant by these words. On the right hon. Gentleman's reply will depend whether or not we will divide on my Amendment.
§ 10.30 p.m.
§ Mr. ELLIOTI should think that the Committee would have been surprised if the board administering a scheme had 326 not the power to accept money. The fact is that one would take it for granted, as statutory corporations are limited by Statute, that it is for declaratory purposes and in order to make it clear that they are not in any way contravening any statutory provision that these words are put in. I am sure that no hon. or right hon. Member in any section of the House, and certainly not any hon. Member from Scotland or from Wales, would suggest that if anybody were willing to give money to anybody else, the other person should not be empowered to receive it. That would seem to be an almost unnatural position. I am sure that when the hon. Member thinks the matter over, he will realise that it is simply for this purpose. It is clear that normally one would allow such a thing to happen.
It is necessary, however, that in the case of a statutory corporation one should be clear that it has statutory power to accept a grant if such a grant were made. It is for the purpose of clearing up the matter that we have inserted these words. Otherwise it might be said that although board A had power to make a grant to board B, board B would have no power to receive such money. There is no precedent here, because the power to borrow money is already in the Act of 1931, which is specifically stated to be part of the powers of the board. This simply means that if, instead of a loan, somebody wishes to make a grant, it should not be outside the power of a board to accept it. I am sure that my hon. Friend will not find it necessary to divide against what is obviously a reasonable and desirable provision.
§ 10.32 p.m.
§ Mr. RHYS DAVIESWill the right hon. Gentleman clear up another point? He admits that it would be competent 327 for a board to receive money from an individual, and that the words "any other person" may include an individual as well as corporate bodies. Will he tell the Committee how it comes about that a person making a grant to a board can call upon the board to distribute and use the grant as he desires? It might be against the will of the board. Is not that assumption correct?
§ Mr. ELLIOTSurely, to be trammelled by the limits of a donor is a thing to which every corporation is subjected. If legacies left to individuals are tied up with conditions which individuals may not desire to observe, then their remedy is simply not to accept the legacy. If a person makes a gift under certain conditions, there is nothing compulsory about the matter. If persons do not desire to observe the conditions, they do not desire to accept the gift.
§ Mr. DAVIESI beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ 10.34 p.m.
§ Major MILNERI beg to move, in page 2, line 35, to leave out from the word "them," to the end of the Clause.
The Committee will observe that subsection (3, b) to which my Amendment refers takes away from the producer the right to refer a matter with which he is aggrieved to arbitration. It is a very serious right to take away. The right hon. Gentleman I am sure, in the early days of the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, would have been the first to insist upon—as in fact he did—producers having every protection and right both in the matter of arbitration and many other respects. Here we have the case where, apparently, a person making a grant to a board can dictate to the individual on whose advice the board could act in dispensing the money so granted, and can deprive any producer who is aggrieved of the right to refer the matter to arbitration. That is very much overriding the rights of the producers. No harm could be done by saying that the producer shall have the right to refer the matter to arbitration, and, unless the right hon. Gentleman has some very satisfactory explanation to give, the Committee will be well advised in passing the Amendment.
§ 10.35 p.m.
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton)I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that any alteration of the rights of arbitration in regard to the producer is one which the committee would be well to examine with great care, but I am satisfied in this case that the principle which he is anxious to maintain is not interfered with. We all share his desire that the individual producer should have the right of arbitration, but what are the circumstances under the Sub-section? The matter can best be dealt with by way of example. Take the case of the bacon producers to whom a loan or grant is going to be distributed, with the 'advice of the committee of nine—three from the pig producers, three from the bacon curers and three from the Government. That body will go most fully into the question of compensation. It would hardly be an exaggeration to describe it as a quasi-judicial body. It will be a most authoritative body, and, in a matter of this kind, it should be the final body. It will review the whole of the circumstances. It will know the resources at its command and it will carefully investigate each of the cases. Therefore, to superimpose upon the investigation of that quasi-judicial and very independent body the right of appeal to an entirely separate arbitration of an individual producer in the scheme who is going to be benefited, would be putting an immense super-structure upon machinery which is already complicated, although I think it will be effective. On these grounds, and whilst expressing once again our complete agreement with the emphasis which my hon. and gallant Friend has laid upon the principles of arbitration, I would urge him not to press his Amendment.
§ 10.37 p.m.
§ Mr. T. WILLIAMSWhile we agree that the committee of nine rather tones down the opposition to the Sub-section, we feel that we have done the registered producers a good service in putting this Amendment on the Order Paper and debating the question on Thursday of last week, to let the registered producers see exactly what the Government have at the back of their minds. The chances are that this special committee of nine may not work out exactly as the right hon.
329 Gentleman anticipates. The three pig producers and the three bacon curers, making six out of nine, will always be in favour of spending the least sum of money, and it may very well be that the pig producer and the bacon curer may be a combination of six for the sake of securing loans and spending the money, and they may outvote the three independent and very capable other members. If the optimism of the right hon. Gentleman is not misplaced then the argument of the Under-Secretary is right, and, as we are not anxious to stifle any really sensible scheme, I am not sure that we should be doing right in handing to a registered producer a power to superimpose his will on a committee of nine. The Clause is novel in character and we shall watch with interest the development of this scheme.
§ Major MILNERI beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Motion made, and Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.