Schedule 3 (Hansard, 12 June 1968)

§ Mr. Elystan Morgan
I beg to move Amendment No. 72, in page 60, line 8, at end insert: (a) in paragraph 3(21 of that Schedule the words from 'and shall be accompanied by a copy of the certificate' onwards, and. Again, this is a consequential Amendment. Paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 applies in general the same procedures to applications for the registration of members' clubs as are applied by paragraphs 3 to 9 of Schedule 2 to applications for the licensing of commercial clubs, but registered clubs will not previously have to obtain certificates of consent from the Board. This Amendment consequently deletes reference to such certificates.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
The next Amendment is No. 73, with which it would be convenient to take No. 74 and No. 75.

§ Mr. EJystan Morgan
I beg to move, Amendment No. 73, in page 60, line 12 at the end to insert: and in paragraph 6 of that Schedule the reference to the date appointed under section 52(3) of this Act for the purposes of that paragraph were a reference to the date so appointed for the purposes of this paragraph'. These Amendments, which deal with applications for the registration of clubs or institutes during the initial, transitional period, introduce the same changes as are introduced for the licensed clubs under the previous Amendments made at page 45, line 8, and page 57, line 47, respectively; that is to say, they provide, first, that applications to the justices must be made within six months of the date appointed under Clause 52(3) for bringing the relevant paragraph, that is, in this case, paragraph 3 of Schedule 3, into operation, and, secondly, that clubs which obtain registration during the transitional period, defined by reference to the application of Section 1, which will mark the effective changeover from the old laws governing gaming to the new, will not need to seek the renewal of registration till the following May 12 months thence.
Although in form the same provision is made in this way for the registered as for the licensed clubs the actual time for the operation is likely to be different. Since registered clubs will not have to obtain certificates of consent from the Board before approaching the justices there appears no reason why paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 should not be made operative soon after the Bill becomes law, thus requiring all applications to be submitted before the end of January, 1969, or thereabouts. The corresponding provisions for licences will need to be held back to allow the Board time to deal with certificates of consent, probably for a further five or six months, which will mean that, before they are called upon to tackle the formidable task of licensing, the justices should have had an opportunity to get rid of the bulk of the less exacting work on registration.
By virtue of the second Amendment members' clubs will not then have to seek renewal of registration until May 1971, and the justices, therefore, will be free of all work on renewals during 1970, 354 when they will have other duties under Part III of the Act relating to machines to attend to. We hope thus to be able to achieve a convenient dovetailing of the transitional arrangements.

§ Mr. Buck
This ties in with the timetable which we have had explained to us by the Home Secretary, now relative to registered clubs, which has been explained again, and we have had additional matters put before us by the Parliamentary Secretary.
I had the courtesy of being told what the approximate anticipated timetable would be and, therefore, I have been able to go into it with a certain amount of care. I think that it should work satisfactorily. It is a good thing that there is to be this staggering of the various categories of applications. Otherwise, the licensing justices might be overwhelmed with a spate of work all coming at one time. However, because of the various categories, this is being precluded.
Further, the initial period of licensing is likely to be rather longer. Therefore, there may be some small financial gain relative to registration fees in the initial period. This may or may not be so. I think that is the position. If so, this is possibly a small bonus for the operators in the first period of their licensing. This will perhaps be of some marginal benefit to them. One is glad that the licensing timetable seems to be working out in theory. We hope that in practice it will be fairly satisfactory.