HC Deb 10 July 1974 vol 876 cc1510-1
Mr. Onslow

I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 7, line 41, at end insert— '(5) The Registrar shall at all reasonable hours keep available for public inspection, either free of charge or on payment of a reasonable charge, copies of all annual returns sent to him under this section.' It is only right that I should express thanks to the Minister of State for his assistance in ensuring that we got the right words in the right place in relation to this matter. I hope that he did not find it necessary to call in the services of any of those intellectual gentlemen with far-away-sounding names upon whom the Government Front Bench seems to rely so heavily at times. On this occasion Anglo-Saxon logic and a good bit of common sense has enabled us to attempt to improve the Bill.

If the amendment is accepted, as I have every reason to hope it will be, we shall provide in future that back numbers of reports sent to the registrar by trade unions or employers' associations shall be available for inspection in the same way as was pointed out in Committee, as Companies House already makes back numbers of company reports available to anyone with a legitimate interest in them.

The Government accepted the argument which I advanced in Committee that it was desirable that this should apply just as much to trade unions and employers' associations as it does to companies. No doubt the Government, in coming to that conclusion, were much impressed by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Kerr), who volunteered support for my proposition—which is something neither I nor the Minister of State normally expects.

I will not push my luck any further now. I hope no one says that I have got the matter wrong, and I hope that there will be no difficulty in persuading the House to accept the amendment.

Mr. Ronald Brown

I am not quite sure as to the appropriate way in which I should intervene in this matter, but in the Standing Committee an attack was made by the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) relating to the Furniture, Timber and Allied Trades Union. The hon. Member quoted a case which was grossly untrue, and he has since been informed about this. I understand that the hon. Member was written to and was given an absolute assurance on the circumstances of the case. The situation is entirely contrary to what he stated.

Mr. Hayhoe

If the hon. Gentleman looks at reports of the subsequent proceedings of the Committee he will see that my hon. Friend withdrew and made a personal statement to that effect, and that a personal statement was also made by the Minister concerned. As is the normal form on such occasions, those matters were not debateable, but I think that the Committee fully understood and accepted the personal explanations given.

Mr. Brown

I can only say that I have searched through the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee proceedings. Presumably it was caught up in the printing problem. I am satisfied that the House has the true facts.

Mr. Booth

The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) deserves all the credit for the improvement in the Bill that is being made by the amendment. All that has been done by my Department is to bring to his objective a form of words totally compatible with it. We did not have to go to any legal luminaries, professors of any particular persuasion or outside bodies. It was done by the good sense of those within the Department.

I join the hon. Gentleman in commending the amendment to the House.

Amendment agreed to.

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