HC Deb 02 August 1965 vol 717 c1203

Lords Amendment No. 1: In page 2, line 27, after "services" insert: shall include the undertaking and performance by way of business of engagements for any matter other than the supply of goods and".

10.15 p.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Douglas Jay)

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker

Order. The House has further business to transact. I trust that hon. Gentlemen will be good enough to make less noise in withdrawing from the Chamber.

Mr. Jay

This is a minor clarifying Amendment. In this part, the Bill originally used the word "services". That is customarily used by economists as meaning anything other than goods. It has been suggested, however, that it might be taken in its slightly different sense of a service performed by one person to somebody else. In order to make quite clear that it is not implied here that the person supplying the service is doing work for someone else, we have substituted a rather longer but, I think, clearer phrase in which it is made perfectly clear that what is intended is business relating to anything but goods. I think that this is what the House clearly intended.

Mr. Peter Emery (Reading)

I thank the President of the Board of Trade. He will remember that this suggestion was made by me during the Committee stage, and we got an undertaking on Report that if it was seen that this might go further, if an Amendment along these lines was moved in another place, the Government would reconsider it. I thank the Government for so doing. I think that there is a minor improvement in the Bill because of this Amendment.

Question put and agreed to.