HC Deb 14 May 1964 vol 695 cc713-5

(1) In this Part of this Act— conditional sale agreement" and "seller" have the meanings assigned to them by section 21(5) of, and paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to, this Act; disposition" means any sale or contract of sale (including a conditional sale agreement), any letting under a hire-purchase agreement and any transfer of the property in goods in pursuance of a provision in that behalf contained in a hire-purchase agreement, and includes any transaction purporting to be a disposition (as so defined), and "dispose of" shall be construed accordingly; hire-purchase agreement" and "owner" have the meanings assigned to them by section 21(1) of the Hire-Purchase Act 1938; motor vehicle" means a mechanically propelled vehicle intended or adapted for use on roads to which the public has access.

(2) In this Part of this Act "trade or finance purchaser" means a purchaser who, at the time of the disposition made to him, carries on a business which consists, wholly or partly,—

  1. (a) of purchasing motor vehicles for the purchase of offering or exposing them for sale, or
  2. (b) of providing finance by purchasing motor vehicles for the purpose of letting them under hire-purchase agreements or agreeing to sell them under conditional sale agreements.
and "private purchaser" means a purchaser who, at the time of the disposition made to him, does not carry on any such business.

(3) For the purposes of this Part of this Act a person becomes a purchaser of a motor vehicle if, and at the time when, a disposition of the vehicle is made to him; and a person shall be taken to be a purchaser of a motor vehicle without notice of a hire-purchase agreement or conditional sale agreement if, at the time of the disposition made to him, he has no actual notice that the vehicle is or was the subject of any hire-purchase agreement or conditional sale agreement.

(4) In this Part of this Act "the hirer or buyer"—

  1. (a) in relation to a motor vehicle which has been let under a hire-purchase agreement, means the person who at the material time (whether the agreement has before that time been terminated or not) is the hirer in relation to that agreement for the purposes of the Hire-Purchase Act 1938, including a person who at that time is, by virtue of section 13(1) of that Act, deemed to be a bailee of the vehicle as therein mentioned;
  2. (b) in relation to a motor vehicle which has been agreed to be sold under a conditional sale agreement, means the person who at the material time (whether the agreement has before that time been terminated or not) is in relation to that agreement the buyer (as defined by paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to this Act), including a person who at that time is, by virtue of section 13(1) of the Hire-Purchase Act 1938 (as modified by paragraph 4 of that Schedule), deemed to be in possession of the vehicle as therein mentioned.

(5) In this Part of this Act any reference to the title of the owner or seller to a motor vehicle which has been let under a hire-purchase agreement, or agreed to be sold under a conditional sale agreement, and is disposed of by the hirer or buyer, is a reference to such title (if any) to the vehicle as, immediately before that disposition, was vested in the person who then was the owner in relation to the hire-purchase agreement, or the seller in relation to the conditional sale agreement, as the case may be.

(6) In the application to Scotland of subsection (4) of this section, for the word "bailee" there shall be substituted the word "custodier".—[Mr. D. Price.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause be read a Second time.—[Mr. D. Price.]

Mr. Silkin

I should like to return to the physical from the metaphysical of new Clause 1, and to ask the Parliamentary Secretary why, in the interpretation Clause, "disposition" includes a "contract of sale"? At an earlier stage I hinted at what I believed might be the