GAMING BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 10 April 1922)

§ LORD MUIR MACKENZIE

My Lords, this Bill is in exactly the same words as the Bill which passed your Lordships' House about four months ago. I think there was not a dissentient voice with 139 regard to that Bill in the shape that it had reached when the Third Reading of the Bill was moved. Therefore, I do not think there is any occasion for me to say much about this Bill.

But there are two things which I should like to mention to the House. One is that a good many actions, I regret to say, have been brought as a result of the position that was disclosed by the Judgment of this House in the case of Sutters v. Briggs. One case was brought by the trustee in a bankruptcy case before a Judge of the Chancery Division. I have no doubt your Lordships have seen a report of the case in the newspapers. The application was one on the part of the trustee to recover the money that had been paid by the bankrupt in cheques, and the Judge said that he would not allow an officer of the Court to do that which no honest man would do. I think that after such a pronouncement as that from the High Court of Justice the case that I put before your Lordships last session seems stronger than ever, and I should think there was no one in the House who would not wish to put a stop to actions being brought in what the Judge called a dishonest manner.

The other thing I desired to say was this. Unfortunately, being taken by surprise on the Committee stage of the Bill last session, I consented to an alteration of the Bill which took away the power of stopping the bringing of any action under the section, and left the Bill in the position in which I have put the present Bill—namely, that the mischievous section under which these actions are brought would be removed from the Statute, and also that trustees, the Official Receiver and such persons would not be in danger of having proceedings brought against them because they did not proceed under that section. Strongly as I disagreed with the noble and learned Lord who persuaded me to consent to this Amendment, I did not feel that I could go back upon what I then consented to in bringing foward the Bill again, and therefore it is in a form in which I very much regret to find it. If any member of your Lordships' House would move an Amendment in Committee to restore the Bill to its original form I should be very glad. As far as I could judge the feeling of the House last session, the noble and learned Lord—as, indeed, the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, said at the time—was probably alone in his objection to the Bill as it then stood. I beg to move.