HC Deb 11 March 1953 vol 512 cc1347-8
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I beg to move, in page 18, line 4, to leave out "any of whose securities are held," and to insert: whose securities are held to a substantial extent. This Amendment also arises out of a discussion during the Committee stage. The Bill provides that these advances may be made where any shares in the company are still held by the Agency. The point was taken in Committee that where the holding of the Agency was negligible, it was wrong to provide that finance from public sources should be available. While I indicated that we could not accept the view of the Opposition that these advances should be limited to cases in which the Agency retained the majority of the shares, I indicated that we might be able to go as far as to provide that they should be limited to cases where the Agency holds a substantial element.

The Amendment is so drafted as to take into account both the absolute size of the holding of the Agency—a comparatively small holding in a large company may involve a considerable sum of money—and the proportion it represents to the total. It does not go as far as some hon. Members opposite would have liked, but it is an indication that we saw some force in their contention that, where the holdings were merely negligible, this power should not be given. It is perhaps a typical Parliamentary compromise between the different points of view, and I think it meets broadly the kind of considerations that hon. Members opposite had in mind.

Mr. G. R. Strauss

I agree that the Amendment goes a little way to meet the arguments we advanced during the Committee stage. We had proposed to move the two Amendments on the Order Paper to line 4, namely, to leave out second "any," and insert "the majority," and after "securities," insert "carrying full voting rights" in the hope that the House would agree to meet us fully. However, again I must look at the clock and say that we are not able to do that. We would have liked much more time to discuss Amendments during both the Report and Committee stages of the Bill, but we have kept to our agreement to limit its consideration and as the House knows, this has meant refraining from moving many Amendments which we thought exceedingly important.

Amendment agreed to.