HC Deb 02 July 1937 vol 325 cc2374-7

1.53. p.m.

Mr. Alexander

I beg to move, in page 35, line 10, to leave out: such date as the Board of Trade may by order appoint, and to insert: the first day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight. The only point that I wish to make on this Amendment is that it is admitted by the Government that the changes in the law which will be operative when this Bill is passed are extensive in principle, and, indeed, there are some very extensive changes in details as well, but here is a Bill of 33 Clauses and four Schedules and frill of references to previous Acts, and it is exceedingly difficult for the people concerned to be able to follow all these changes. I understand—perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can tell me about this—that it is the case that there is in preparation a consolidating Measure of the trade marks enactments. If that be so, it seems to me to be a reasonable thing to fix a date when these things are to come into force and, if possible, to arrange that that consolidating Measure, which would go through this House without opposition, as all consolidating Measures do when you have established the principle, should be passed before 1st July, 1938. Under the Bill a date is to be fixed and announced by the Board of Trade. I do not want to cast any suspicions upon a Department of which I was once a junior Minister, but I say with great respect that the number of decisions which the Department has to make and which it has to publish from time to time in the Board of Trade Journal and other newspapers, makes it exceedingly difficult for traders to follow all the liabilities and commitments which they have to meet If we had a firm date such as I am suggesting in the Bill, and if it be understood that if that firm date is inserted we will give a passage to the consolidation Measure which will put the requirements into a commonly accessible form in which there would not have to be so much legislation by reference, I think it would he a reasonable proposition to make.

1.57 p.m.

Captain Wallace

The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly correct in stating that we are hoping to introduce a consolidation Measure as soon as possible, and to bring this Bill and the consolidation Measure into force in such a way that the new rules which we shall have to make in connection with this Bill will be based upon the consolidation Measure and will, therefore, eliminate a number of those references to which the right hon. Gentleman sensibly objected. In circumstances of this kind we are very anxious to keep the date on which this Bill shall be brought into operation elastic. We are grateful for the offer of assistance which the right hon. Gentleman has just made to pass the consolidation. Bill through the House, but I am sure he will appreciate that although a great deal of work has been done on it, it will, in the present circumstances, take a certain amount of time to complete. Then we have to make up the rules. At the same time, I must admit that we do not want to delay the coming into force of the present Bill any longer than we can help. The Departmental Committee, whose report was really the genesis of this Bill, was appointed as long ago as 1933 and reported in April, 1934. It has taken some time to prepare this Measure, but it is one which is generally admitted on all sides to be urgently required in the interests of trade, and perhaps not least in the interests of the export trade. Therefore, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is anxious to bring this Bill into force as soon as it can be done. I am prepared to give an undertaking that it shall not be brought into force before the end of six months, at any rate. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be prepared to leave it at that, and that if we find we are able to get the consolidation Measure through the House and to get the rules made, he will leave us with the option of bringing it into force as soon as possible.

2 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Davidson

The last words of the Parliamentary Secretary were very welcome, because the suggestion of my right hon. Friend is one that should be followed up by the Government. It would be bad if it went out from the House that the Government were always asking for elastic legislation. The Government ought always to be able to tell the House on question such as this how long the Department concerned will take to do the necessary work and to give a definite date. It is unfair to ask the House to give a sort of elastic doctor's mandate to the Government to decide when decisions of the House shall become operative. We welcome the Parliamentary Secretary's undertaking, and I would like to ask him whether, if the Department finds that the Bill can be operated before the date mentioned in the Amendment, it will take the necessary steps.

Captain Wallace

That is the whole point of my remarks in asking the right hon. Gentleman not to press the Amendment. It is because I think we shall be able to operate the legislation before the date that he suggests that I am anxious for him not to press the Amendment. We will not start it within six months, but, if it is possible to do so, we would like to bring it into operation before the date suggested by the right hon. Gentleman.

Amendment negatived.