§ (means that certificates for public houses, not being inns and hotels or premises to be used solely as restaurants, shall only be granted to an authorised public company, and that the surplus profits of such company, after the payment of specified charges, are to be paid to a fund for use for public purposes throughout Scotland in accordance with the provisions of the Act.)
§ —(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI move to insist on the Schedule down to the end of Clause 5.
§ Moved, That this House do insist on the said Amendment.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
1357§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYWith regard to Clause 6 of the Schedule, I propose not to insist upon it, but to make a slight alteration in it and to move it as a new clause. This is done in deference to an opinion which was expressed by the Secretary for Scotland in another place. The right hon gentleman criticised the obligation which your Lordships threw on him and his Office to approve the rules of this Insurance Board, and consequently we seek to relieve the Secretary for Scotland from that responsibility. Instead of leaving it to the Secretary for Scotland, we propose to take the other very well-known method of allowing the rules to lie on the Table of both Houses so that they may have the sanction of Parliament. That is the sum total of the change I propose.
§
Moved, That this House do not insist upon Clause 6 of the new Schedule inserted by this House after the Second Schedule to the Bill, but propose instead thereof the following new clause:
6.—(1) The Central Board shall within twelve months after the passing of this Act, and from time to time thereafter if occasion arises, may make rules prescribing amongst other things—
Provided always that no such rule shall contain anything inconsistent with the provisions of this Act.
§ (2) Before any rule is made under this section a draft thereof shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament during the session of Parliament, and if either House during the next succeeding thirty days on which that House has sat passes a resolution against the draft or any part thereof no further proceedings shall be taken thereon without prejudice to the making of any fresh draft.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ Moved, That this House do insist on Clauses 7, 8, and 9 of the new Schedule.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
1358§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYNow we come to Clause 10 of our new Schedule. I propose to ask your Lordships not to insist on that, because it was criticised by the Secretary for Scotland in another place and we do not think it worth while to proceed any further with it.
§ Moved, That this House do not insist on the said Amendment.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ Moved, That this House do insist on Clauses 11, 12, and 13 of the new Schedule inserted by this House.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ Lords Amendment.
§ Clause 6, page 6, line 18, leave out from ("until") to ("it") in line 19 and insert ("the earliest date when resolutions under the provisions of this Act can come into operation,")
§ The Commons disagree to this Amendment:
§ Because they consider it desirable that the limitation on the power of a licensing court to order structural alterations of licensed premises should cease on a specified date not too long delayed.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNThis Amendment which your Lordships inserted is consequential on what we have already decided to insist upon to-day.
§ Moved, That this House do insist upon the said Amendment.—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ Lords Amendment.
§ Clause 15, page 10, line 13, leave out from ("burgh") to ("and") in line 18 and insert ("which is not divided into wards, or of a burgh the population of which within the police boundaries thereof according to the census for the time being last taken is less than twenty-five thousand, the whole burgh and in the case of any other burgh, any ward or combination of wards or parts of wards, proposed by the town council and approved by the Secretary for Scotland, of which the population shall not be less than twelve thousand").
§ The Commons propose to amend this Amendment by leaving out from ("ward") to the end of the paragraph and inserting ("thereof")
1359THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNThis is an Amendment dealing with the areas, and the Government in the other House propose to restore the wards. I do not wish to detain your Lordships at any length, but I think the Government ought to give us some reason for restoring the wards, because it has been proved ad nauseam that the ward is not a satisfactory area. For instance, in Glasgow there are three wards which converge upon the Central Station, and in almost all big towns the dividing line is frequently down streets. Lord Balfour gave us an instance the other day of Alloa, where the wards are all divided down the middle of streets. It is therefore impossible that a ward can be a satisfactory area. I could prove it to your Lordships, if necessary, by a great many more cases. I know it is exactly the same in the town of Dundee. I think that the Government ought to give us some reason for insisting upon a ward being an area. It is contrary to all experience, and to everybody's knowledge is an unsatisfactory area for this purpose.
§
Moved, That this House do not insist upon the words which the Commons propose to leave out of the Amendment inserted by this House in Clause 15, page 10, line 13 of the Bill, but propose to add to the Amendment as proposed to be amended by the Commons the following words:
("unless the Secretary for Scotland after an application in that behalf made by the town council makes a regulation (which it is hereby declared he shall have power to make) constituting any combination of wards or parts of wards of such burgh an area for the purposes of this Act"),—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPI regret that His Majesty's Government are unable to fall in with the wishes of the noble Earl and agree to this Amendment. I may say, however, that opinion in another place seems very decided upon this question, as the voting was only 77 in favour as against 214 in opposition to the Amendment of the noble Earl. It is true that the difficulties are as mentioned by the noble Earl in places such as Alloa, hut, as I think we said on previous occasions, they are almost sure to arise whatever kind of division is accepted. The difficulty that arises in connection with this would be the setting up of ad hoc areas for this special purpose, which we think undesirable when there are already well defined areas which everybody knows and which in our opinion are quite suit able for the purpose. The making of these artificial areas would result in creating still further confusion in local government.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNI think the reason given by the noble Earl is a very bad one. He says the ward is a well-known area. It is; but it is equally well known to be perfectly unsuitable for this purpose. I ask your Lordships not to insist on the Amendment as originally drafted and as rejected by the House of Commons, but to insert an Amendment which slightly differs from it. In my original Amendment I proposed that an area in these towns should be such ward or combination of wards or parts of wards as was proposed by the town council and approved by the Secretary for Scotland. I now propose that the ward should be the area except in very exceptional cases—I go to that extent to meet His Majesty's Government—and that where the town council applies to the Secretary for Scotland to make a different area he should be empowered to make a regulation constituting such a combination of wards as may seem fit.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHI do not think the noble Earl quite understands the position in which we are as regards this matter. The case of Alloa does not come in here, because Alloa has a population of under 12,000. The area for one district under this clause is a burgh of 25,000; it is only those that are above 25,000 that are to be divided into wards.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHThe point is whether burghs above 25,000 should have the power of joining wards for this purpose. I think there is a very strong case for this Amendment. There is a particularly strong case for it in Glasgow, and this Amendment was supported in another place by the Member for Glasgow, who gave very good reasons for it. He said that in the Central division of Glasgow there was a daily population of 200,000 or 300,000, whereas the resident population amounted to only 2,500. That number of voters, who would be mostly caretakers and that class of individual, would have the power of saying whether these 200,000 or 300,000 people should be allowed intoxicating liquors or not in the district where they carry on their business. It does seem to me an absurdity that the 2,500 resident there at night should have the power of controlling the habits of the 200,000 or 300,000 who come in in the course of the day to do their business. The 1361 same thing would happen in the City of London. Your Lordships cannot be expected to know what is connoted by the Central division of Glasgow. That division is the business division of Glasgow. Buchanan-street, for example, has the Exchange and all the great places of business, the insurance offices and so on, and it really is the height of absurdity that the 2,000 or 3,000 people who live there in quite a subordinate position should have the right of voting as to whether the 200,000 or 300,000 who come in for the day to carry on their business should or should not be able to get reasonable refreshment with their luncheon.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMay I say one word upon this subject? The noble Earl in charge of the Bill expressed just now a great dislike to what he called ad hoc areas. He said that ad hoc areas were not suitable for the purpose of this Bill. Does the noble Earl go so far as to say that all existing wards are suitable for the purpose of this Bill? My noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh has cited cases in which obviously the existing divisions are not suitable, and all that my noble friend Lord Camperdown desires is, in cases of that kind where the existing divisions are not suitable, that upon the application of the town council and with the approval of the Secretary for Scotland there should be a fresh grouping of areas. I never heard a proposal that seemed more entirely reasonable on the face of it, and I cannot understand why His Majesty's Government, if only for the improvement of their own Bill, do not accept the proposal with alacrity.
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPI can only speak again on this question by the leave of your Lordships' House. We have gone as far as we possibly could, and I have no doubt that the noble Marquess, and certainly the noble Earl behind him, will agree that we did go a very long way towards meeting the wishes of noble Lords. The original figure in the Bill was 10,000, and we increased it to 25,000.
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPWe do not see our way to go further in this direction. It has been pointed out, not unfairly, that this Amendment contains not only wards but parts of wards, so that we should 1362 distinctly get a new area which might be used for no other purpose than this particular purpose. I should not commit myself to the further proposition with regard to areas which the noble Marquess put to me. I will content myself with saying that His Majesty's Government, having considered this question in another place and also here, regret that they are unable to meet the wishes of the noble Earl.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ A Committee appointed to prepare Reasons for the Lords insisting on certain of their Amendments: The Committee to meet forthwith.