HC Deb 18 June 1952 vol 502 cc1449-50
The Solicitor-General

I beg to move, in page 72, line 36, to leave out "making of," and to insert: date on which the said Bill was ordered by that House to be printed with. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) commented during the Committee stage on that part of subsection (1) which allowed … the provisions of the Bill for this Act, and any amendments made therein before the passing thereof … to be retrospective to the date of the introduction of the Bill or the making of the Amendments, as the case might be. His comment was to the effect that it really would be extremely difficult to determine on what date the Amendments were passed. We thought there was considerable force in that observation, and, while it would clearly be wrong to make the whole of the Bill as amended retrospective to the date of the introduction of the Bill in its original form—because that might prejudice and penalise innocent transactions—it is also essential that the Amendments made in the Bill should have a retrospective effect.

Therefore, for the purpose of clarity in this rather unusual situation, we are making the Bill retrospective to the date when the Bill was ordered to be printed with the Amendments. As everyone knows, it is necessary only to look on the outside of a Bill to see the date when that particular copy was ordered to be printed, and that will determine the date to which the Amendments contained in the Bill are retrospective. I think that gets us out of a rather considerable difficulty.

Amendment agreed to.