OFFENCES UNDER PART II (Hansard, 18 October 1968)

§ Mr. Elystan Morgan
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

§ Mr. Speaker
I suggest that with this Amendment we take Lords Amendments Nos. 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16 and 17.

§ Mr. Morgan
These again, are largely drafting Amendments which do not bring about any substantial change in the character of the Bill. The only substantial 752 Amendment is Amendment No. 9. The others are consequential. As subsection (1) now stands, only a licence holder may be prosecuted for breaches of the law on licensed premises and only a club officer for breaches of the law on registered premises, and they are given the defence that they had no knowledge of the contravention and had exercised all reasonable care against its occurrence. There might therefore be flagrant offences committed by an employee of a club for which neither the offender nor anyone else could be penalised.
The Amendment accordingly extends liability for contraventions beyond the licence holder or officers of the club to whoever may have been concerned in the organisation or management of the gaming in question. It does not touch the mere participants in the gaming, because they are more likely than not to have been the sufferers from the offences which have been committed.

§ Mr. Carlisle
I agree entirely that it is sensible and right that those who are responsible should be held responsible. I am glad to see that we are avoiding the error which has been fallen into in some other recent Bills, of creating absolute criminal offences. As far as I can see we have managed to avoid that error throughout the Bill. I hope that the Home Office will always give careful thought to these questions and will provide defences to the people concerned and not create absolute offences as was done in some other unfortunate legislation.

§ Mr. Elystan Morgan
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

§ Mr. Speaker
With this Amendment we can take Amendment No. 14.

§ Mr. Morgan
The Amendments deal with penalties to be imposed on licence holders or officers of clubs and institutes for infringements of the conditions of licensing or registration provided under Part II.
753 At present subsection (3) provides for summary proceedings only, with a fine of up to £400 and imprisonment up to three months, or both. The Amendments, which were foreshadowed on Report, remove all liability to imprisonment on summary conviction and provide an alternative of proceedings on indictment and allow for an unlimited fine and to imprisonment up to two years, or both. I sincerely trust that this meets with the wishes of the House.