§ Mr. BarberI beg to move in page 2, line 13. at the end to insert:
and any amount recoverable under the foregoing subsection by the person providing the programme from the other shall (subject to any agreement to the contrary) be recoverable by the other from any person liable to him' in respect of that payment.This Amendment meets a small point which was made in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page). The House will remember that, as drafted, Clause 1 permitted the programme contractor to recover the amount of duty from the person, who is usually the advertising agent, who places with the programme contractor the order for the broadcasting of the advertisement, but it did not allow the advertising agent in his turn to recover the duty from the advertiser.I undertook to look into this matter, and we found that, despite his name, an advertising agent is not in law the agent of the advertiser who employs him, and consequently he could not legally recover from the advertiser an unexpected increase in the amount of duty.
The Amendment accordingly gives an agent the formal legal right to pass on to his customer any variation in the amount of the duty. This puts him in the same position as any merchant who has on hand an uncompleted contract for goods subject to Excise Duty or Purchase Tax at the time there is a change in the rate.
§ Amendment agreed to.