§ 7.30 p.m.
§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Niall MacDermot)I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 34, to leave out 'and servants'.
Would it be convenient, Mr. Speaker, to discuss at the same time the following Amendments which deal with the same subject matter:
§ No. 2: in Clause 5, page 3, line 21, after 'by', insert 'or on behalf of'.
§ No. 15: in Clause 11, page 7, line 20, leave out 'his officers and his servants' and insert 'and his officers'.
§ No. 17: in Clause 12, page 8, line 22, at end insert '"officer" includes employee'.
§ Mr. SpeakerI have no objection if the Opposition have no objection. So be it.
§ Mr. MacDermotI am obliged, Mr. Speaker. This is a group of four drafting 1359 Amendments to meet a point which was raised by a number of hon. Members in Committee. We are agreed that we intend "officers" where it is used in the Bill to include servants or agents. We believe that this is already the effect of the original word, but to make assurance doubly sure we have put down these Amendments.
The logical way to approach the Amendments is to go first to the fourth Amendment, to the Interpretation Clause, and to say that "officer" shall include "employee". We have used that term rather than "servant" or "agent" because "servant" is not a very apt word to use in relation to people in the employment of the Crown. We wanted a word to cover persons employed, whatever their capacity, who might not be office holders. I have in mind messengers, for example.
Logically we go next to the first and third of the four Amendments, which, in consequence, take out the word "servants" where it appears. The second Amendment, to insert "or on behalf of" in Clause 5, is designed to meet the point of agency which was discussed in Committee. We did not use the word "agent" as such because it has a wide range of meanings. Our intention is that there shall be included within the scope of the investigation of the Commissioner not only the acts of officers themselves and of Departments, but of anyone who is acting as a statutory agent of the Department: that is to say, a person or body which carries out a function on behalf of the Department by virtue of a statutory delegation and which is not simply doing the work by a purely contractual arrangement.
Two examples were mentioned in Committee. One was the Bank of England when operating on behalf of the Treasury in exchange control work. Another was local authorities, which act in an agency capacity on behalf of the Minister of Transport in doing trunk road work. Other examples which have been drawn to my attention are veterinary surgeons in private practice appointed by the Minister of Agriculture to act as local veterinary inspectors and the motoring associations, the A.A. and the R.A.C., when exercising certain functions concerning international driving certificates. This 1360 is not an exhaustive list. I give it merely by way of example. I think that the Amendments now meet all the points which were raised in Committee.
§ Mr. William Roots (Kensington, South)I am grateful to the Financial Secretary for the Amendments. There was considerable discussion of these matters in Committee, when a number of my hon. Friends were unhappy about the wording of the various Clauses. I hope and believe that the Amendments meet the points which we raised in Committee and I do not oppose them.
§ Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth (Hendon, South)Before we part with the Amendment, I should like the Financial Secretary to say whether those who serve in the Commissioner's Department will be his employees or civil servants or what else will be their precise status. With whom will they be in contract? It appears even from this Amendment that the intention is that they should be the employees of the Commissioner. It is of some importance to know what their position will be.
§ Mr. MacDermotI speak from recollection and subject to correction, but the right answer, I think, is that technically they will be civil servants. This is a matter which is of importance from the viewpoint of their pensions. They will be appointed, I think, by means of the certificate procedure which governs their pensions. They will be entirely under the direction of the Parliamentary Commissioner, who is an officer of this House, and it will be only in that formal sense that they will in any sense be civil servants.
§ Amendment agreed to.