TERMS OF REFERENCE (Hansard, 18 June 1975)

§ Mr. Lane

I beg to move Amendment No. 60, in page 30, line 27, at end insert— '(5) The terms of reference, and any revisions to the said terms, shall be made public before the commencement of any authorised investigation'. The intention of this amendment is to make clear what I take it is the Government's intention anyway—that is, that the terms of reference or any changes in the terms of reference for these investigations should be publicly known. We may assume that from the wording of, among other things, Clause 52(3), which says It shall be the duty of the Commission to give general notice of the holding of the investigation"— and so on. I take it that the Government intend this, but we should like to add these two lines to make it absolutely certain.

I want to repeat briefly a point frequently made in Committee. Those of us who are in general in support of the Bill are all agreed that if it is to work smoothly there must be maximum public support for its aims and public under standing of what is going on. That applies particularly to the admittedly difficult and delicate area we are entering into here, especially having set up the Equal Opportunities Commission and given it fairly important powers to investigate and roam widely over considerable areas of national life.

I am sure that this will avoid misunderstandings, distortions or misrepresentations if it can be clearly and publicly known, not merely among a magic circle, what the Commission is doing when it starts a formal investigation. We think that it is a common sense, improving amendment. I hope that the Government will immediately accept it.

§ Dr. Summerskill

Clause 52(3) provides for general notice to be given in the case of investigations of a general nature, whether undertaken at the request of the 1589 Secretary of State or at the commission's own volition. "General notice" means a notice published by the commission at a time and in a manner appearing to the commission suitable for securing that it is seen within a reasonable time by the persons likely to be affected by it.

It is important that these people should be aware that they are being investigated, especially given the commission's powers in relation to formal investigations. But where the investigation is confined, by its terms of reference, to the activities of certain named persons it is unnecessary that the existence, or terms of reference, of the investigation should have to be made public, because the person under investigation will have received under subsection (3) notice of the investigation. The time for publishing the fact is when the investigation has determined either that the person in question has not discriminated or that he has, and a non-discrimination notice has been served on him. The notice will then appear in a public register.

We do not think it will necessarily help combat discrimination if such investigations as I have mentioned are carried out publicly. Under the Race Relations Act there is no obligation on the Race Relations Board to make known the fact before hand that it will investigate an individual complaint brought to its notice.

I am confident that the provisions in the Bill relating to publication or notifications of terms of reference are fair, and are the fairest that we can compile at the moment. I hope that what I have said will reassure the hon. Gentleman.