§ Mr. Anthony GrantI beg to move Amendment No. 29, in page 35, line 23, leave out from 'to' to end of line 24 and insert:
'give the prescribed information with respect to his connection with the company to the person to whom the invitation is issued'.This amendment, I am happy to say, gives effect to an undertaking given to my hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Nicholas Edwards) in Committee, when we accepted the essence of his Amendment No. 60.The sound point made in Committee by my hon. Friend was that, in many cases, it may be difficult to identify an act which could be regarded as an invitation to enter into an insurance contract. He further pointed out that some parties were in such frequent contact that a separate statement on each occasion might be an unnecessary burden. It seems sensible, therefore, to make the regulation making power sufficiently flexible to permit the Secretary of State to prescribe the manner and the time or times when the information about the insurer intermediary connections is to be given so that the risk both of leaving loopholes and of requiring unnecessary repetition can be avoided. The rewording of the subsection achieves this.
§ Mr. Nicholas EdwardsI am grateful to my hon. Friend for fulfilling his undertaking to move an amendment to meet the object which I sought to achieve with my own amendment in Committee. He has done that in terms of the first part of subsection (1). However, I am less happy about subsection (3).
In Committee on 5th July at column 330 of the OFFICIAL REPORT it will be seen that my hon. Friend gave me an undertaking that my suggested amendment would also apply to the second part of the clause, which was the subject of an amendment which he moved in Committee. I am not sure that my hon. Friend has fulfilled that very specific undertaking.
As I understand it the regulating power applies only to subsection (1) and not to subsection (3).Unless I misread the 395 clause, the regulating power does not go on to deal with subsection (3), which says that when issuing the invitation the person shall inform the person to whom it is issued that the company is not such an insurer "as aforesaid". I do not want to repeat what I said in Committee, but I explained there the difficulties of fulfilling that obligation at the moment of making the invitation—something which is done in a variety of ways—and I still do not see how it will be done in this way under subsection (3).
I am disappointed that in producing his amendment my hon. Friend has not been able to do away with the phrase "issues any such invitation", which has the connotation of handing out a document of some kind. In many cases that will not happen. There will be a verbal exchange which may contain no formal invitation in any sense. I accept the phrase as it stands only on the understanding that it covers such verbal exchanges. I do not believe that my hon. Friend has fulfilled his undertaking in Committee to see that this matter was dealt with in such a way as to affect both parts of the clause.
I draw my hon. Friend's attention to one specific point. The clause applies to insurance brokers dealing with overseas clients in circumstances where they may be placing business entirely with overseas insurers. There are many cases where London brokers acting in the London market place insurance business for overseas insurers with overseas companies. In such a case a broker has to go to his overseas client in placing business in Japan, Germany or any other country and say "Incidentally, you ought to realise that this company is not authorised under United Kingdom regulations". I suggest that this will cause difficulty to brokers, if it does not just make them look extremely silly.
It is a pity that we have finished up with subsection (3) in such an unsatisfactory form. I ask my hon. Friend whether he cannot look at it again with a view to tidying it up a little more before the Bill returns to this House from the other place.
§ 9.45 p.m.
§ Mr. Anthony GrantI am advised that my hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Nicholas Edwards) is under a misapprehension on the first 396 point that he made. Subsection (3) refers to such invitations as in subsection (1). I think that that was my hon. Friend's misunderstanding.
The difficulties that my hon. Friend has described both here and in Committee which are placed in the way of brokers will be carefully taken into consideration in framing the regulations.
On my hon. Friend's last point, it is only right that, as a matter of basic principle, where a broker is going to place or accept an invitation for business with non-authorised overseas companies that information—
§ Mr. Nicholas Edwardsrose—
§ Mr. EdwardsI want to seek an assurance from my hon. Friend. The Bill, as we discovered when dealing with it in Committee, is extremely complicated. I agree that the clause refers to
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. This is not a Committee stage. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to make an intervention. I think that his hon. Friend has given way to him. However, he must make an intervention, not another speech.
§ Mr. EdwardsI was about to say that the clause refers to "any such invitation". Will my hon. Friend give me a categorical assurance that the regulating powers apply to this part of the clause? It is by no means clear.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Mr. Anthony GrantI beg to move Amendment No. 30, in page 35, line 27, after 'person', insert:
'in the course of carrying on any business or profession'.This amendment deals with a point not raised in Committee. It makes clear that a person issuing an "invitation", where he has no commercial interest, is not to be under the obligation to inform the recipient of the invitation of the fact that the insurer concerned is not authorised here. Thus, the obligation would not apply, for example, where a potential policy holder was "invited" by a 397 friend from another country to follow that friend's example of insuring with an insurance company in his country, particularly as the friend could not perhaps be expected to know whether that company was an "authorised insurer" here. I think that this excludes from the provisions of the clause people whom it clearly was not intended to catch.
§ Amendment agreed to.