HC Deb 24 October 1956 vol 558 cc779-83
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew)

Does the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) want to move the next Amendment?

Mr. Anthony Greenwood

No, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. In view of the Amendment in page 36, line 35, in the name of the President of the Board of Trade, I should not wish to proceed with this Amendment.

Mr. Walker-Smith

I beg to move, in page 36, line 35, to leave out from "other" to the end of line 37, and insert: organisations or persons (if any) as apply to the tribunal to be made parties to the reference and, in accordance with the next following subsection, are made parties thereto. (3) Where an organisation (whether claiming to be representative of persons requiring licences or not) or a person (whether requiring a licence or not) applies to the tribunal to be made a party to a reference, and the tribunal is satisfied that the organisation or person has a substantial interest in the matter in dispute, the tribunal may, if it thinks fit, make that organisation or person a party to the reference". It might be convenient of we could take with this Amendment a number of other Amendments in the name of my right hon. Friend. In Clause 26, page 38, lines 7 and 18, and in Clause 27, page 39, lines 15, 16, 17 and 27.

In page 39, line 17, after "question", insert: and to every other party (if any) to the application. These Amendments all deal with the functioning of the Performing Right Tribunal whose jurisdiction is defined in Clauses 25, 26 and 27. Those Clauses give the basic jurisdiction of the Tribunal in licensing schemes and the further consideration of those licensing schemes and also individual applications under Clause 27 by applicants who seek to show that they are within a licensing scheme.

The question arose during Committee whether in addition to what might be termed the basic parties to the dispute before the Tribunal under these various Clauses there should also be a right of audience to other interested parties. In Committee the Opposition moved an Amendment which would have given an unqualified right of audience to organisations claiming to be representative of interested persons. On behalf of the Government I said at that time that while I could not accept an Amendment in terms as broad as that, I would undertake to study the possibility of the rules providing the appropriate result within specific cases, without writing a general right into the Bill.

In this case, though in some cases I may have disappointed hon. Members opposite in the result of the consideration which has been given to these matters, I can say that I have done a bit better than I thought would be possible at the time of that undertaking, because what we have now done is to write these provisions into the Bill. We came to the conclusion that the right course was to write into the Bill, and not leave as a matter for the rules, a discretion for the Tribunal to make any organisation or person a party to a reference on application, if the Tribunal was satisfied that that organisation or person had a substantial interest in the dispute.

The result of the Amendments will be that the position is maintained that only the parties to the actual dispute have an unconditional right to be heard, for the reasons I sought to give in Committee. Secondly, although that is so, nonetheless organisations of persons having a substantial interest in the dispute may ask to be heard and at the discretion of the Tribunal may be joined as parties.

It follows, of course, that being joined as parties, they will have all the rights and liabilities of the other parties, for example, the right to appeal on a point of law, which is a right and liability to be condemned in costs, which is a liability. That is the position in short which these Amendments will provide. That is the right approach, because the functions of the Tribunal being what they are, a determination of disputes between parties, the Tribunal ought not to be required in mandatory terms to hear all those representations which, while no doubt of interest and importance socially, are not directed to those issues with which the Tribunal is being established to deal.

If we give an automatic right of audience, we might frustrate the essential purpose of the Tribunal and lay it open to all sorts of pressures. I think that that is appreciated by hon. Members opposite, because, although their original Amendment would have given an unqualified right of audience, their present Amendment of the Order Paper leaves it to the discretion of the Tribunal. So I am glad to say that there is a general consensus between us on this matter, and therefore we have these Amendments to give a discretionary right to the tribunal to join these persons interested as parties.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood

I am very glad that what I hope will be my last contribution tonight can be one of congratulation to the Parliamentary Secretary on the wisdom he has shown in moving this Amendment. As hon. Members who were on the Standing Committee will know, the Tribunal is one of the most interesting and in some ways one of the most controversial aspects of the Bill. Many people outside this House made representations to us that the Tribunal was unnecessary and the rights which were created in other parts of the Bill should be subject only to the limitations specified in the Clauses which conferred those rights.

We on this side of the House rejected that view, and I stated our views during the Committee stage discussions as follows: In the first place, we consider it most important that the Tribunal should have full power to prevent abuses and to protect the legitimate interests of the parties concerned and of the public as a whole. Secondly, we believe that it is equally important that all the interests affected should have full and unfettered access to the machinery of the Tribunal."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 19th July, 1956 ; c. 414.] I agree that in the light of subsequent discussions that was perhaps an overstatement of the case, and that was why my hon. and learned Friend and I tabled our Amendment. We did make our appeal to the Tribunal a qualified and not an absolute right, as the Parliamentary Secretary said. Unfortunately, in our discussions in the Standing Committee the Parliamentary Secretary held the view at that time that normally the only parties to the dispute before the Tribunal would be the copyright owners and the users, and that, so far as he could see, the organisations representing professional or trade interests would have no interest in any dispute before the Tribunal. He persisted in that view in spite of a most powerful contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Randall) who has great experience of industrial and trade union matters.

On our side of the Committee we argued that a trade union like, for example, the Musicians' Union, although not directly a party to the granting of a licence, would have a substantial interest in whether or not a licence was granted, either because it would affect many members of the union, or because it might create a precedent detrimental to the members of the union as a whole. We took the view, which we expressed forcefully at the time, that an important principle was involved in this point and it was one of the few occasions when some acrimony entered into what was otherwise an extremely good-natured and harmonious discussion. We on this side of the House rejoice that the Parliamentary Secretary has, somewhat belatedly, recognised the justice of the case we put forward. We rejoice at his change of heart and hone that the House will accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.