FOOD AND DRUGS BILL [Lords]. (Hansard, 13 July 1938)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward
On a point of Order. There is a somewhat unusual Motion on the Order Paper in the name of the Minister of Health, to the effect that the proceedings of 12th July in relation to the Third Reading of the Food and Drugs Bill be null and void. No doubt an explanation will be forthcoming from my right hon. Friend, but in the meantime I shall be glad to know whether it is in order that a decision arrived at in this House yesterday should be rescinded to-day.

Mr. Speaker
It is in order if the House chooses to do it. It is a matter for the House to decide, and the House can decide it in any way that it likes.

§ Sir A. Lambert Ward
Does not this open the way to a rather dangerous precedent? Suppose that, when the Third 1481 Reading was carried, the Government had been defeated, would they still be in order on the following day in moving that the decision should be rescinded?

Mr. Speaker
A mistake has been made, and this is the only way in which it can be corrected. It would not be to the credit of the House to send out a Bill which was imperfect, and this is the only way to do it.

§ The Minister of Health (Mr. Elliot)
beg to move, That the Proceedings [12th July] in relation to the Third Reading of the Food and Drugs Bill [Lords] be null and void. I think that, especially in view of the question which has been raised, a word or two of explanation will be desirable. It will be within the memory of the House that the Food and Drugs Bill was considered in Committee last evening, and, by an unfortunate oversight, an Amendment which appeared on the Order Paper in my name, to leave out Sub-section (4) of Clause 103, was not brought before the Committee. The Sub-section in question runs as follows: [(4) Nothing in this Act shall impose any charge on the people, or vary the amount or incidence of, or otherwise alter, any such charge in any manner, or affect the assessment, levying, administration or application of any money raised by any such charge.] The House will be aware, of course, of the reason which led to the insertion in another place of this Sub-section, because the reason is set out in a note printed at the head of page 1 of the Bill, as follows: [NOTE.—The words enclosed in brackets and underlined were inserted by the Lords to avoid questions of Privilege.] It is, of course, unnecessary to remind the House that for the House of Lords to insert in a Bill provisions imposing or varying a charge on the people is a breach of the Privilege of this House, and to meet this difficulty two procedures have been devised. The more usual procedure is to indicate, by underlining or otherwise, each provision of the Bill which may impose or vary such a charge; but Measures of this kind—consolidation Bills with slight amendments—re-enact large masses of existing law with minor alterations, and consequently this device cannot be adopted, since it would be impracticable to specify the Clauses under which, in theory at least, some slight imposition or 1482 alteration of a charge may occur. Hence the method has been devised of the House of Lords inserting a general provision on the lines of Clause 103, Sub-section (4), with the intention that it shall be moved out in the House of Commons. This is not a new procedure. It was adopted in the case of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Amendment) Bill in 1935. It was also adopted for a Bill, the title of which will be familiar to both Oppositions—the Land Drainage Bill, 1930, which was introduced when a Labour Government was in office, as it so happened, by a former Minister of Health, the present Lord Addison, and supported by the Opposition. Therefore, this is not a new or unusual procedure, though it is not so often used as the procedure of underlining each specified instance.
The Departmental Committee prepared the Bill. I do not need to go again into the very thorough and long examination the Bill had, both by the Departmental Committee and the Joint Committee, and I do not need to go—nor could I—over any general arguments on the Bill. I merely thought it desirable to lay before the House the reason for the insertion of this Sub-section and the circumstances in which it was not removed, as it should have been, before the Bill left this House finally. I believe I am entitled to say that this was an oversight in procedure for which the Minister is not responsible. Therefore, I hope the House will adopt the admittedly somewhat unusual procedure which I have suggested to-night and allow the Bill to be re-committed, in order that we may move out the Subsection and the Bill may leave this House as a workable measure.

Mr. Alexander
As this has been quite a genuine mistake in procedure, I think the House would not wish to prevent the Minister from having the Bill re-committed in order that the matter may be put right. Therefore, one ought not to oppose the Motion. But I must say that I do not like to see the Minister bucking his responsibility. I should have thought that, however the procedure is devised, those who so well advise the Minister as a general rule would have probably given him a note pointing out that it was necessary to delete this Sub-section, and therefore the Minister ought to have seen that the deletion was made. In the circumstances, we should merely say 1483 "Don't do it again," and proceed to recommit the Bill.