HC Deb 26 January 1956 vol 548 cc403-4
Mr. Turton

I beg to move, in page 20, line 40, at the beginning to insert: (1) Where a registered dentist or a registered medical practitioner who died before the coming into force of section twenty-three of this Act was at his death carrying on a business or practice constituting the business of dentistry, neither that section nor section five of the Dentists Act, 1921, shall operate to prevent—

  1. (a) his personal representatives or any of his children or trustees on behalf of any of his children from carrying on the business of dentistry in continuance of that business or practice during the three years beginning with the coming into force of the said section twenty-three, or
  2. (b)his widow or trustees on behalf of his widow from carrying on the business of dentistry in continuance of that business or practice at any time during her life.
This is purely a drafting Amendment, as I hope the House will appreciate. When moving an Amendment to this Clause my predecessor said that it might require tidying up, and there is, in fact, a loophole at present in Clause 25 which I will explain quite briefly.

It will be seen that subsection (1) permits the personal representatives of a dentist or his widow or any of his children or trustees to carry on … the business of dentistry in continuance of that business or practice during the three years beginning with his death or, if he died before the date of the coming into force of this section, at any time more than three years after his death. As drafted, that would mean that the widow could first carry on the practice and that then the children could do so. That was not the intention when my predecessor first drafted this Bill.

What we are trying to do by the Amendment is to make it clear that if a dentist dies between the date of the introduction of the Bill and the coming into force of Clause 23, then his widow shall be allowed to carry on the business during her life, but that same licence shall not subsequently be granted to the children, because there seems to be no good reason why that should happen.

Mr. Baird

Under the Bill, the position is that a widow can carry on the practice of a dentist who dies before the Act comes into force. She will be allowed to carry on for the rest of her lifetime, and her children after her. I think the intention of the Amendment is to tighten the provisions so that while she could carry on the practice during her lifetime, at her death her ownership of the practice would cease and it must be sold.

Mr. Turton

That amounts to the same position. As the Bill is drafted at present, not only would the widow have the practice during her lifetime but it would also be possible for her children to carry it on. I was explaining, I fear very inadequately, that what we are trying to do is to provide that the widow should have power to carry on the practice during her life but that her children should not have the power to carry it on afterwards.

There are certain consequential Amendments which are of a drafting nature. They are in page 20, line 41; in page 20, line 42; in page 21, line 3; and in page 21, line 15. I am satisfied that these Amendments make the position quite watertight, and that the drafting is better than in the original Bill. The original drafting contains the loophole which I have mentioned.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 20, line 41, after "practitioner" insert: who dies after the coming into force of section twenty-three of this Act.

In line 42, leave out "section twenty-three of this Act" and insert "that section."

In page 21, line 3, leave out from "death" to end of line 5.

In line 15, leave out from "of" to end of line 16 and insert: section twenty-three of this Act, during the three years beginning with that date".—[Mr. Turton.]