Clause 14 (Hansard, 6 April 1973)

§ Mr. Wiggin
I beg to move Amendment No. 26, in page 15, line 24, leave out ' this section' and insert: ' subsection (1) of this section upon application therefor to the Secretary of State; and the provisions of the said Part I shall, subject to the modifications specified in Part II of the said Schedule, have effect with respect to orders under subsection (2) of this section by the Secretary of State without such application being made to him'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this we are to take Amendments Nos. 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69 and 70.

§ Mr. Wiggin
The purpose of the amendments is to provide some flexibility in the organisation of assay offices to serve the public, manufacturers and retailers by enabling the council to establish new assay offices if such a demand should arise. There are certain difficulties about this whole matter of the establishment of new and the closing of old assay offices, and these were fully recognised in the Stone Report.
There is, historically, a necessity to have an assay office in a place where the demands for the services of that office require it, but with modern communications this demand tends to reduce and it is only in the major manufacturing centres that assay offices can operate—and operate economically—as they were originally intended to do.
To have dealt in this legislation with the numerous Statutes which have been put together in the past would have been extremely difficult, and the purpose of these amendments is to ensure that the British Hallmarking Council, which we shall be discussing later, will have some flexibility in recommending to the Government how these matters should be altered.
I do not think there is need to say more, except that this is to some extent a British compromise. It does not completely grasp the nettle, but it enables 820 the council, and subsequently the Minister, to grasp it, and to do so in an effective way which will protect both the public and those who are interested in the matter at some future time.

§ Mr. Emery
My hon. Friend is right. These amendments are all consequential on the division of the clause. The purpose is to provide one procedure to be followed when the Secretary of State receives an application from the council or from an assay office and another when he acts for some other reasons. The clause empowers the Secretary of State to establish a new assay office or, if it is felt necessary, to close an existing one.
It seems right and proper that the procedure which the Secretary of State is to take in every instance should be properly spelled out. That is what the amendments do, in conjunction with the new schedule. It will be for the ease of the general public and for those in the trade and assay offices to know the exact procedure which the Government will adopt if either of the two occurrences which I have mentioned comes about.