REPAYMENT OF ADVANCES OF REMUNERATION PAID TO DECEASED EMPLOYEES (Hansard, 10 May 1976)

§ Mr. Strang
I beg to move Amendment No. 45, in page 30, line 21 after '12', insert 'and Part II'. This is a drafting amendment, which has become necessary consequent upon the inclusion of the family succession clause in the Bill.
The family succession provisions in Clauses 16 to 22 apply to England and Wales, but not to Scotland. Clause 25(5) requires amendment accordingly.

§ Mr. Peart
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
The hon. Members on the Committee which considered this Bill played a constructive part. It was not possible for me to attend the Committee at all times. There is no need for "Haw-haws" from the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin). I had to attend important meetings.
When I was in opposition, I was always courteous to Ministers, and always recognised that their first priority was to attend Cabinet meetings, or, as I have been doing in recent weeks, to negotiate in Europe. I did not want to miss the Committee meetings and I am surprised that an Opposition Front Bench spokesman should be so silly as to suggest that.
I pay tribute to both sides of the Committee. My ministerial colleagues played an important part and the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling), who led for the Opposition, was constructive, as was the Liberals' representative, the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr Howells).
The Bill still has to go to another place. but I hope we are agreed—whatever arguments we may yet have on the Bill—that it is an important measure and that the succession provisions are the most important part.

§ Mr. Jopling
We have come a long way since 1st September, when this Bill was first debated on the Floor of the House, and the measure that has emerged is a very different creature from the one we debated on that occasion. We have a number of reservations on matters that are still to the forefront of our minds and will have implications for the agriculture industry—especially the new clauses added by the Government in mid-stream.
I hope the interruption of my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-superMare (Mr. Wiggin) in the Minister's speech will not cause hard feelings or hot tempers. It was not malicious, but we are disappointed that the Minister could not come to the Committee as often as he undoubtedly wished to. He is the senior Minister, and any Opposition naturally want to see the senior Minister as often as possible. He understands this; he has had to put up with it himself. I hope that the Minister appreciates—I believe that his remarks implied this—that we understood why he had to be absent. I trust that he will agree that we did not make ourselves tiresome by insisting that he attended. We tried gently to nudge him once or twice, but he will agree that that is fair enough.
I thank the other two Ministers, who took the brunt of the work in Committee. It would be wrong for me to pretend that we always got the answers we wanted—indeed, we got very few answers that we wanted—but they did their homework reasonably well, although I wish they had learned the lessons of our speeches better than they did.
No doubt we shall consider the Bill again after it has been to another place. Some of the battles enjoined today may well be enjoined again, but time alone will tell. Parts of the Bill will be helpful to the industry, parts will be less helpful, and parts will be positively damaging. However, we must wait to see in what form the Bill emerges from another place. I hope that when it reaches the statute book the parts that do good will outweigh the parts which do bad.

§ Mr. Norman Buchan (Renfrewshire, West)
It would not be right to allow the Bill to pass without thanking my right 191 hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues for introducing some of the most important parts of it. It has been a good lesson in parliamentary democracy. The Government appreciated points made on Second Reading and incorporated them in the Bill. Having been critical of some of the finer points and details of the new measures, I wish to say how pleased I am that the Bill was introduced, and to thank my right hon. Friend for it.
We have gone through Second Reading 19 sittings in Committee, the Report stage and now the Third Reading, without finding out whether the Opposition support the principle of the Bill. This is unique in my experience. The Opposition deserve congratulation on the most effective and continuous piece of fence-sitting that I have known in my 12 years as a Member.
With those kind words to both sides of the House, I resume my seat.

§ Mr. Geraint Howells
Being the only Liberal Member and the only Member representing the minority parties who served on the Committee, I should like to say that I am very grateful to the Minister and his colleagues and to the Opposition for listening to me when I expressed my views in Committee. I thoroughly enjoyed the two or three months during which we debated the Bill in Committee. I hope that when the Bill is on the statute book relationships between landlord and tenant will improve and that food production will increase.