FINANCIAL AND OTHER ASSISTANCE TO VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS ETC., FOR SOCIAL WORK (Hansard, 17 July 1968)

§ Mr. MacArthur
I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 7, line 37. leave out 'sums' and insert 'grants'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this Amendment it will be convenient to discuss Amendment No. 4, in line 39, leave out 'those sums' and insert 'such grants'.

§ Mr. MacArthur
We shall be very happy to take the two Amendments together. Amendment No. 4 is purely consequential.
In Committee I moved an Amendment to omit subsection (2). The Minister said that he would consider the matter. I am obliged to him for writing to me a few days ago in some detail explaining that the advice given to him, which we accept, was that subsection (2) should remain.
There is a further point which is rather more than a drafting matter. Subsection (2) says: The conditions on which any sums are paid"— that is, grants and loans— … may include conditions for securing the repayment in whole or in part of those sums. If "sums" refers to a payment which is a loan, the conditions required under subsection (2) are unnecessary, because a loan, by its very nature, implies some condition of repayment. The Minister said this in his letter to me: I agree that a loan clearly contains its own conditions of repayment. Apart from that, we believe that the word is superfluous, if it embraces both loans and grants, because subsection (1) says this: The Secretary of State may make grants and loans of such amounts, and subject to such conditions, as he may with the consent of the Treasury determine … Therefore, "sums" is unnecessary for two reasons. The first is that, on the loan aspect, there is no need for this condition, because the fact that it is a loan suggests that there would be a condition of repayment. The second is that in any event the Secretary of State has power to impose conditions under subsection (1).

§ Mr. Millan
The wording is all right as it is, but it would be more logical to accept the hon. Gentleman's wording. Therefore, I am perfectly happy to accept the Amendments.

§ Mr. Millan
I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 8, line 8, at end insert: () On the commencement of this Act, the power of the Secretary of State to give financial assistance and of local authorities to give financial and other assistance under sections (Financial assistance by the Ministry of Health and the Secretary of State to certain voluntary organisations) and (Financial and other assistance by local authorities to certain voluntary organisations) of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 shall cease in so far as any such assistance may be given under this section.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I suggest that it would be convenient for the Committee to discuss with this Amendment Amendment No. 13, Amendment No. 176, and Amendment No. 188.

§ Mr. Millan
These four Amendments are necessary to make the necessary repeals of the Health Services and Public Health Bill when it is enacted in so far as these provisions of that Bill overlap the provisions of this Bill. The difficulty has been that the Health Services and Public Health Bill has been going through the Parliamentary process at the same time as this Bill. There are some of these provisions which are virtually the same, but it is necessary to have the provisions in both Bills because there may be a difference in the operative date. If there were not the provisions in both Bills, there would be an unfortunate gap.
That is why we have this overlap of provisions. What we provide for in these Amendments is that when the Bill comes into operation the provisions of the Health Services and Public Health Bill which overlap with this Bill will be repealed.