HC Deb 14 February 1966 vol 724 cc1028-9

Amendments made: In page 4, line 36, after "other", insert "body or".

In line 38, leave out "said period of one month" and insert: period mentioned in the last foregoing paragraph".

In line 39, leave out "of one month".—[Mrs. Hart.]

Mrs. Hart

I beg to move Amendment No. 36, in page 5, line 5, to leave out subsection (2) and to insert: (2) In the case of a resolution relating to matters mentioned in paragraph 2 or paragraph 4 of Part II of Schedule 2 to this Act, the University Court may at a meeting by a majority of not less than three-fourths of the members of the University Court present and voting determine that on the ground of extreme urgency the procedure set out in paragraphs (a) to (e) of the foregoing subsection in relation to that resolution should be dispensed with, and where the University Court so determine the resolution may be passed forthwith. We now come to the question of emergency resolution procedure. The Amendment will ensure that this procedure shall apply only in the case of resolutions dealing with regulations for degrees and for the founding of new professorships and that emergency resolutions, once passed, shall be displayed publicly within the university like any other resolutions.

In Committee, some of my hon. Friends tabled Amendments designed to remove the emergency procedure from the Bill entirely, or, failing that, to ensure that any resolution passed under the emergency procedure should be subject to the normal rules of publication once it was made. We discussed that very fully in Committee, and sensibly came to the view that it was unlikely that there would be need for emergency procedure except in one or two cases. I think that the Committee accepted fully—certainly I did—the argument that emergency resolutions, once made, should be subject to public display in the usual way.

I gave an undertaking to reconsider the terms of subsection (2) with a view to framing an Amendment to meet the point. This we have now done.

Mr. Hannan

I thank my hon. Friend for the attention she has given to the Amendment. She generously undertook to do so because of the concern about the procedures in Clauses 4 and 6. She recognised that there was an emergency procedure in Clause 6 and has now given effect to the points we tried to make in Committee.

Amendment agreed to.