§ 7.30 p.m.
§ Mr. PETHERICKI beg to move, in page 15, line 43, after "Act," to insert: "or uses such information for his financial advantage."
As the Clause stands, there are penalties for disclosing information which may be obtained under the Act with, of course, particular reference to the Spindles Board. It is obvious that members of the Spindles Board will have access to most valuable information and I suppose, if they were not the right kind of people, they might not only disclose it but, what is even more dangerous, use it to their own financial advantage. The object of the Amendment is to make it an offence to make money out of this information which these members of the board and others operating under the Act may possibly discover. In Committee the Parliamentary Secretary seemed to suggest that it was most improper to put in words of this kind because it would be an insult directed against this nebulous body, which is not yet set up. He suggested that the Amendment cast some sort of slur on people whom we would not wish to disparage. I cannot accept that suggestion at all. If there is any question of casting a slur, what about Members of Parliament? In the second section of the Schedule it is laid down, in rather equivocal language and ill- 1903 drafted words, that a Member of Parliament may not be a member of the Spindles Board. The reason that was put in, presumably, was that they should not be swayed by motives by which one would not wish them to be swayed.
If it is proper for a Member of Parliament to be excluded from membership of the Spindles Board, is it not far more proper to take every possible precaution to prevent members of the Spindles Board or others from disclosing or profiting by information that they may possibly obtain under the Act? There is one way in which they might act improperly. It might be that an employé of the Spindles Board, in examining the accounts of various companies, might find that a certain company was earning extremely good profits, and he might think that shares in that company were a very good buy. It is to deal with that sort of case that we are proposing to insert these words. I do not think it is sufficient for the President of the Board of Trade to say that in every circumstance the people he will appoint are going to be high-minded and excellent people. I am sure they will be but, all the same, when we are setting up a board of this kind it is advisable to take every precaution against malpractices.
§ 7.35 p.m.
§ Mr. REMERI beg to second the Amendment, which I regard as the most important that you, Sir, have selected. I believe that in the cotton industry we may have developments of invention and research which should not be disclosed by some officer of the Spindles Board. The argument used against us upstairs was the creation of a new offence. There was an unholy coalition between the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) and the Parliamentary Secretary. I do not like putting unnecessary words into Acts of Parliament. I know that it has caused trouble, but, knowing that I am speaking to people who have knowledge of the police courts, as the Parliamentary Secretary and the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne have, I do not think there is very much objection to putting into an Act of Parliament a new offence. The knowledge that it is in the Act of Parliament might deter a person from doing something that is improper.
§ 7.39 p.m.
§ Mr. SILVERMANI intervene not because I want to continue an alliance, although I accept from the hon. Member that he is an authority on unholy alliances, especially in connection with this Measure. I did not object to this in Committee on the ground that it created a new offence. I have not the slightest objection to creating new offences. I hope in the course of this Parliament, and certainly in subsequent Parliaments under the control of a majority of another colour, a great man, new offences will be created, but when they are created they ought to be stated in precise terms and they ought to be capable of proof. My objection is not that this creates a new offence, although I am at one with the hon. Member in wanting to prevent that or any other kind of corruption, or the use of knowledge obtained in an official capacity for private, individual, personal advantage. If I thought the Amendment would have that effect I would gladly support it. But I suggest that it does not have that effect. It seems to me that a criminal offence described as this one is would be an offence in respect of which it would be for ever and eternally impossible to obtain a conviction.
§ Mr. PETHERICKIs it not also difficult to obtain convictions under the Local Government Acts?
§ Mr. SILVERMANThere ought not to be any difficulty whatever, because the offences are precise and specific, and are defined. Here it is not precise. You could not call an accused person as a witness and cross-examine him to find out what was in his mind. You would have to prove by external evidence, quite apart from any admission that you could get from him, what was in his mind. Anyone with any experience of the operation of the criminal law knows that you could never hope to prove your case. You have to prove something that is unknowable—the state of a man's mind at a particular time—without being able to get from him any evidence as to the state of his mind. It would be impossible to ask the Court to convict. You could not prove certain offences in that way beyond all reasonable doubt and this, like all other criminal offences, would have to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt. If that criticism is sound, the object that 1905 you have in view would be completely defeated, because nothing is more conducive to the commission of an offence than a general belief in the public mind that you can never be caught and convicted. It would be very much better not to create the offence at all than to create it in such a form of words as to produce either no prosecutions at all or a crop of unsuccessful prosecutions.
§ 7.43 p.m.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALEvery one must sympathise with the object that the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment have in view, but under the Clause as it stands any disclosure of information is an offence. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Relater) said that one of his objects was that information should not be disclosed. That object is already attained as the Bill stands. That means that the use that the Amendment contemplates is a use in which information is not disclosed, that is, that there is no passing on of the information from the person committing the offence to anyone outside. I think, therefore, that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) is accurate when he says that, looking at the Amendment and the Bill, the crime consists in something that has gone on in the man's mind—a use that he has made in his own mind and a motive known only to himself—and it would therefore be almost impossible to prove it in a court of justice. I think it is very undesirable that we should create an offence only capable of proof in a very small number of cases.
I can imagine cases in which it might be possible to prove the use by a person of information to his financial advantage, but I can imagine many cases in which proof of the kind required would be quite impossible. We would be creating an offence which depended on what had taken place in a man's mind, and I hesitate to think of the remarks which might be made by some of His Majesty's judges when confronted with an indictment based on the use made of certain information in a man's own mind. While sympathising with the object of the Amendment, having given the matter careful consideration, we must ask the House to resist the Amendment, and I would even suggest to my hon. Friends that they might withdraw it.
§ Mr. PETHERICKWhile rather unwilling to withdraw the Amendment I do not think it raises a question of principle and I do not propose to press it. I wish to put one point to my hon. and learned Friend. There was a case the other day in which certain people were prosecuted for offences connected with transactions in pepper. It was, I think, proved that a prospectus had been issued which turned out to be false but, in order to obtain a conviction, it was also necessary to prove that the defendants knew of and had in mind certain commitments in pepper. Is not that case similar to the kind of case we are considering and if not in what lies the distinction?
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALThat is quite a different kind of case. In many criminal prosecutions it is necessary to prove knowledge. The case which the hon. Member has in mind in this Amendment however would be a case in which the gist of the offence consisted of the use made of the knowledge. In the case to which he referred just now the jury had to be satisfied that a particular document was false, and my hon. Friend may be right in saying that in coming to their conclusion they had to be satisfied as to whether certain facts were known to the defendants or not. That is so in many criminal prosecutions, but there is no parallel between a case of that kind and a case in which, as I say, the gist of the offence consists of the use made of the knowledge by a man in his own mind.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.