INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES (AMENDMENT) BILL. (Hansard, 11 August 1913)

§ LORD STRACHIE

My Lords, I hope the House will give a Second Reading to this Bill. It is the same Bill as that which was introduced into your Lordships' House last session by Lord Ashby St. Ledgers. In the Bill as introduced into the House of Commons this session there were provisions as to a limit of holdings of shares and also as to exemption from Stamp Duty, but strong objection was taken to both of these clauses in the House of Commons and as a result both have been dropped out of the Bill. The Bill, therefore, is once more in the shape in which your Lordships passed it last session. It has been taken up by His Majesty's Government at the request of the Co-operative Union, Limited, which numbers 1,550 societies with a membership of nearly 3,000,000, and has been drafted in consultation with and has been approved by the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies.

The chief alterations made by this Bill, alterations which were accepted by your Lordships last year, have reference to, first, the auditing of accounts. In future one of the auditors must be a public auditor, so that there shall be a proper audit under public control. Clause 4 provides that there shall be a list of shareholders made triennially. The most important clause is Clause 5, which amends the principal Act as to nominations. It is provided that a member of a registered 1750 society may nominate any person or persons to or among whom there shall be transferred at his decease such property in the society as may be his at the time of his decease, but if on the death of the nominator the amount of his property in the society comprised in the nomination exceeds£100, the nomination shall be valid to the extent of£100 but not further or otherwise. This clause sanctions the practice which has been adopted by co-operative societies of treating the nomination as taking effect, not when the nomination was made, but when the person making the nomination died.