§ Mr. MossI beg to move, amendment No. 5, in page 7, line 36, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
'(2) Any person who asks the General Council for a copy of the most recently published register shall be entitled to have one on payment of such reasonable fee as the Council may determine.(2A) Subsection (2) shall not be taken as preventing the General Council from providing copies of the register free of charge whenever it considers it appropriate.'.The amendment will enable the general council to make copies of the register available free of charge when it considers that appropriate. Although the existing wording of the clause might have been sufficient to enable the general council to do that, some doubt may have existed because of an amendment in Committee to clause 19 which concerns the code of practice that the general council will be required to prepare and publish. That amendment was made specifically to ensure that the general council could provide copies of the code free of charge.Taking one's own Bill through Parliament certainly opens one's eyes to the finer points of legislation and especially to the nuances of drafting. Because the Bill is 411 now quite specific in enabling the general council to make the code of practice available free of charge, it could have been argued that because the subsection on the register was not as clear as intended it would not give the general council the same freedom in respect of the register. That is certainly not our intention. I made it clear during the clause stand part debate in Committee that the intention was for the general council to have this discretion. I said that the clause imposed a duty on the general council to publish a copy of the register annually and to make copies available for sale or distribution free of charge as it thinks fit.
The amendment removes any doubt and will give to the general council the statutory freedom that had always been intended.
§ Amendment agreed to.