INTERPRETATION (Hansard, 31 March 1969)

§ Mr. Nicholas Ridley (Cirencester and Tewkesbury)
I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
The two Amendments which you, Mr. Speaker, have selected, go with the new Clause.
I will move the new Clause briefly. It arises out of a point raised on Second Reading, namely, that the Bill as drafted defines all monetary limits in terms of sterling. The reason why it is necessary to have the Bill at all is that these monetary limits were defined in sterling, that devaluation has reduced its value and, therefore, brought the amounts below those which we should have been providing under the International Conventions upon which the parent Act is based.
The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum states: 168 … the devaluation of sterling makes it necessary to amend certain financial limits for compensation, because these were expressed in terms of sterling in the principal Act while the Conventions express them in terms of international units of account, effectively tied to gold. I believe that the House would have been saved a lot of trouble and might well be saved a lot of trouble in future if these international units of account had been used instead of sterling to define the financial limits in the original Act.
It seems silly that we should be troubled with this small Bill and perhaps be troubled with another small Bill if the parity of the £ sterling in relation to gold is changed again at some later stage. It seems more sensible to import into our legislation the use of international units of account, in this case the European Monetary Agreement Units of Account which are based on gold, although they contain an amalgamation of several European countries' currencies as well.
Therefore, all that the new Clause and the two Amendments seek to do is to substitute European Monetary Agreement Units of Account for £s sterling, and the amounts will have to be corrected by the factor of 2.4.
I suppose that the Parliamentary Secretary might say that there are other bodies who have financial limits upon them in terms of £s sterling and that it would be breaking new ground to make this change. Indeed, that is the argument that he has tended to deploy on previous occasions. If so, I ask him to name these other bodies, to tell us what they are, and why it would not be more sensible to move towards using currencies based on gold for delimiting these international financial limits in all this legislation and not just in the Bill.
10.30 p.m.
It seems a natural conclusion to which one should come. We are entering a period of much more erratic rates of exchange. All the currencies are under strain, not only between the dollar and gold on the one hand and the £ on the other. The rates of exchange between all international currencies have been going through a period of ever-increasing strain, resulting first in our devaluation, and then pressure on the franc which is so manifest at the present time. This might lead to changes in parity at any time in the future. I am not trying to 169 make a political attack on the Government. I am merely saying that there is this period of movement towards a break up of the official parity system, and therefore it seems odd that we should continue to define limits in terms of £s sterling which, as we have seen, are so vulnerable.
It shows what a nonsense the system of fixed parities has turned out to be. I should be out of order if I were to pursue that, and I content myself with saying that to save the House from being troubled by legislation of this sort in future it would be more sensible to try to find a new way of defining financial limits based on gold rather than on the value of the £ sterling.

§ Mr. Tim Fortescue (Liverpool, Garston)
I support what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). The issue raised by my hon. Friend is not something which is entirely within the say-so of the British Government. We all know that it is more than likely that towards the end of this year the German mark will be revalued against the £ at the wish and on the authority of the German Government. This will be nothing to do with us, and we shall have no say in it.
My hon. Friend's proposal, which seems to be eminently sensible, will be in line with what is done by other Governments against the £, or in relation to the £, without taking into account anything the British Government of the day say about the value of the £ in relation to the other currencies. If we do not do something like this in this small Bill then, as my hon. Friend said, there will be many more small Bills every time the international rates of exchange are altered.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. Reginald Freeson)
It is perhaps a little odd that this matter should be pursued here when it was not pursued in Committee, but I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Fortescue) have spoken.
I can only say that the point which has been raised in relation to the international monetary system and its effect on the legislative position in this country, 170 and indeed in every other country, was taken in Committee. If the hon. Gentleman reads the OFFICIAL REPORT he will see that I took the point there. I do not believe that tonight's debate on this Bill is the occasion to pursue the general issue which has been raised, any more than I considered it appropriate when we last spoke on the matter in Committee. Therefore, while there is a point of a more general kind at issue here, I cannot accept the Amendment in relation to this Bill.

§ Mr. David Price (Eastleigh)
The reason why my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) was not able to move an Amendment along these lines in Committee was that he was representing the House at the Council of Europe at the time. I think that my hon. Friend did the right thing in withdrawing the Amendment and that he is right in raising it again now.
As has been said, I raised this issue in a modest way on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill, and I think that the Government accepted our point. When I replied to the Minister I acknowledged that there was sense in the suggestion that this is not unique, that there are other Acts of Parliament which, like this Bill, implement International Conventions to which we are signatories, which conventions are in some stable unit, whereas we express the sums in our legislation in sterling.
I advise my hon. Friends to accept the argument put forward by the Parliamentary Secretary in terms of this Bill, but I should like an undertaking from him. I realise that he is not the dominating figure in these matters. I have been a junior Minister and I do not want to exaggerate his position. But I counsel the Government, through the hon. Gentleman, seriously to consider this point: when we sign conventions such as those which are the basis of this legislation, when the sums referred to therein are expressed either in gold or dollars—or, as here, in European Monetary Agreement Units of Account—the Treasury and the Foreign Office should see that we use the same language in expressing figures in our legislation. This does not lead us into arguments whether we should devalue or up-value the £.
171 As I said in the Second Reading debate and in Committee, we are entering a stage in which even the most dogmatic of us would not dare forecast the parity arrangements five years hence. Therefore, keen as I know my right hon. and hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite are not to have unnecessary amending legislation, it seems sensible that when the Government—of whatever colour—present legislation in support of international agreements that we have signed they should use figures in something a little more permanent than sterling. Let us be optimistic and suppose that we up-value the £. This would still require amending legislation.
With those words I hope that my hon. Friend will feel content that he has made an important point. I know that this Measure was not conceived by the Parliamentary Secretary; it was the proper act of the Civil Service to remind the Government of their obligations, so that we could keep our legislation up to date. It is right, but let us not carry out this exercise too often.

§ Mr. Freeson
First, I accept the explanation for the absence of the right hon. Member for Circencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) from the Committee and the reason for the withdrawal of the Amendments on that occasion and their retabling tonight. I take note of what the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) has said. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be the one to counsel the Treasury on many things. I am sure that that could also be said for my right hon. Friend. He is not much more dominating in that respect than I am, as a junior Minister. But the hon. Member's point is well taken.
On his last point, I think that I indicated in Committee that while neither my right hon. Friend nor I was involved in the drafting of the Bill, we went over this question. I personally went over it very carefully in the Department before the Bill went to Committee, and came to the conclusion that this was the best way. But we shall draw the attention of 172 the necessary parties to what the hon. Gentleman has said.

§ Mr. Ridley
With the leave of the House, I thank my hon. Friend for defending my honour. Incidentally, I am not a member of the Council of Europe. I was in Europe, but I was not attending the Council. However, I am obliged to my hon. Friend for his gallant attempt to explain my absence from the Committee on that occasion; not that any crime was committed by my being absent, and for this reason I see nothing improper in having tabled Amendments for this stage of the Bill.
I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for writing to me about certain points which I raised in Committee. It is nice to know that what one says is followed up and considered. It seems that the Government accept the logic of this Amendment, although they are not prepared to use this occasion to put the matter right. If we are to move towards the use of a more stable unit of currency in drafting legislation, why not start now? Since I admit to never having understood the workings of Whitehall in these matters, and in view of the Parliamentary Secretary's reply, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.