NEW CLAUSE.—(Interpretation.) (Hansard, 20 April 1943)

§ Major Petherick
I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
Hon. Members will recall that during the Committee stage considerable confusion existed in the minds of the Committee about the workers who were to be covered by the Bill, and we had some rather intense discussion on the point. When that discussion was ended, the confusion still remained. If hon. Members who are supposed to be experts in legislation are confused in their minds at the end of all this discussion, how much more difficult will it be for employers and employees in the various branches of the trade concerned to know whether they are or are not covered by the Bill. It is to meet that difficulty that I have drafted this new Clause, and I suggest—though perhaps it is not for me to make the suggestion—that it should go immediately after Clause 1, Sub-section (1), in the final draft of the Bill. My idea is to telescope together Subsection (2) of Clause 1 and the original Clause 17, which was previously the interpretation Clause. The drafting has not been easy, but I have done my best.
The Amendment in the name of the Minister which appears on the Order Paper to-day makes it clear that my right hon. Friend has tried to meet the points which were raised in Committee, but after reading my right hon. Friend's Amendment, I frankly confess to the, perhaps unworthy, suspicion that unwillingness to accept my proposal arises from a desire to avoid the gross solecism of accepting in any form an Amendment moved by a Private Member. I, frankly, believe that the words of the proposed new Clause are better than those proposed in my right hon. Friend's Amendment. My first reason for thinking so is that the new Clause would put all the interpretations into one Clause. My second is that the new Clause is in logical order. It first defines the undertaking, in order to show the class of business covered by the Bill, and then it goes on, in Sub-section (3), to say that the workers must be employed in that undertaking and must have a contract of service with it, if they are to be covered by the Bill. I submit that the Minister's Amendment is not in the correct order. It refers first to the workers in undertakings, then says what the undertaking is, then goes on to say what the undertaking includes and finally 1564 goes back to the workers again. In addition, there is the drawback that the interpretations would remain in two different Clauses—in Clause 1 and in the new Clause 19, which is at the end of the Bill and is a very short interpretation Clause. That is rather pointless. It is surely far better to have the whole of the interpretations at the beginning of the Bill. I know the habit has grown up of always putting the interpretation Clause at the end of a Bill, but on certain occasions interpretations are inserted at the beginning. I rather prefer to have my index at the beginning of a Bill, because then one knows what everything means when reading the Bill. For these reasons I hope that my right hon. Friend will not be too insistent that his drafting is the better, and that even if he does not wish to commit, himself now, he will look into the matter further before the Bill reaches another place.

§ Sir S. Reed
I am confident that my right hon. Friend is too big a man to refuse to accept a new Clause because it has been put down by a Private Member. I know that he hopes to get very much out of this Bill, and that therefore he will be quite ready to accept anything which removes ambiguities and makes it easier to operate. I hope that he will accept this new Clause as an honest, serious and perfectly friendly attempt to clear up ambiguities which do exist in the minds of hon. Members, and which must exist outside this House, and that he will accept the suggestion of my hon. and gallant Friend that the matter should have his earnest consideration either now or on another appropriate occasion.

§ Mr. Speaker
I think it might be for the convenience of the House that I should suggest that the two Amendments in the name of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved this new Clause should be considered at the same time as the Amendment in the name of the Minister, so that we could have a general discussion on them.

§ The Solicitor-General (Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe)
I should like to assure my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Major Petherick) and my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) that I have given the most careful consideration to the drafting of this Clause, in accordance with the 1565 promise I made in Committee. It is in accordance with the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Penryn and Falmouth that the definitions affecting the scope of the Bill have been grouped together, under this new plan, at the beginning of the Bill. The reason for this was that I wanted, and I also understood him to desire, to collect these definitions of scope together, so that anyone who wanted to see the scope of the Bill would have them in front of him and see them at the outset. With respect to my hon. and gallant Friend, I do not think it would be an improvement to put with them the definition of a wages board. That is a different matter, and I think it is clearer to keep that in Clause 19, a short Clause which is easy to read and to understand. With regard to my hon. and gallant Friend's draft, I should like to pay my tribute to the trouble which he and those who are associated with him have taken in this matter, but there is a fundamental difficulty in his draft which is not a matter of wording but of the contraction of the scope.
I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend intended it—I do not think he did—but I would like to show what would be the effect of the draft which he has put forward. He defines "undertaking" as meaning, in effect, any business which consists wholly or mainly in the carrying on of catering or hotel activities—I am paraphrasing his words. That would have the effect of putting outside the scope of the Bill virtually all works canteens, because in an engineering factory, for example, that cannot possibly be said to consist wholly or mainly in the carrying on of catering or hotel activities. Clause 1 (2) in the Bill avoids this pitfall, as it makes the Measure apply to all persons employed in any part of an undertaking which consists wholly or mainly in the carrying-on of the listed activities. I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend did not intend to omit canteens from the Bill and that now that this point has been drawn to his attention he will see that the form which is used in the Bill is necessary to carry out its purpose.
With regard to the general lay-out of the matter, I respectfully submit that my right hon. Friend's arrangement is the logical one. First of all, one wants to make it clear what are the catering activities that are in mind. We have them in Subsection (2), which deals with the list—the 1566 supply of food or drink for immediate consumption and the provision of living accommodation for guests or lodgers or persons employed in the undertaking. That is made clear. It is essential, and one must say that the Bill applies to the workers who are engaged in undertakings in these activities. You list your activities. Then you want to say something more about undertakings, to make clear what they are, so we add Sub-section (3), which defines undertakings. This is the point of the instruction which I ask my hon. and gallant Friend to note. I am sure he will recognise that we cannot be content, in the wording of his own new Clause, with the mere statement "employment." We have to extend the definition of workers, and so, coming logically in order, we have Subsection (4), which adds the extended definition of "worker." In this connection I see that my hon. Friend the Member for the Abbey Division (Sir H. Webbe) is here. I am indebted to him, not only in the House but in the correspondence he has been good enough to send me, for suggestions with regard to it. I went into the matter carefully, and we consulted with the Parliamentary draftsman, both in writing and orally, and we could not find more apt words than those which have been used. I am greatly reinforced by observing that the Mover of this new Clause has adopted the same words. I hope I have not taken up too much time, but I wanted to assure hon. Members that these points which were gone into so thoroughly in Committee have been most carefully considered by my right hon. Friend and myself, and we have done our best, while keeping the scope of the Bill as we think it ought to be, to bring it into the clearest possible form and into the form desired by the House.