THEATRICAL EMPLOYERS REGISTRATION BILL. (Hansard, 2 July 1925)

§ LORD DANESFORT
My Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill. It is an entirely non-contentious Bill, which has come up from the House of Commons, where it was passed with the consent of all interests concerned. The object of the Bill is to deal with a class of theatrical managers, commonly known as bogus theatrical managers, or in other words with the manager who engages a company, takes it round the provinces on speculation and, finding business bad or for other reasons, abandons the company to their fate, not even paying them their fares home and very rarely paying the salaries that they have been promised. In cases such as that the performers very often find that the manager is not worth suing. In some cases, indeed, the manager has disappeared, and they do not know where he is. The extraordinary hardships that result from this practice are obvious. In most cases theatrical employees and performers are not persons of means, and when they have discharged their part of the bargain they find themselves often unable to recover that which they have properly earned, and are left stranded in some remote part of the country. In addition to these financial hardships, the moral damages to women and young girls are too obvious to need elaboration. They are houseless, often friendless and penniless, and they are exposed to temptations and dangers which are deplorable to contemplate.
The terms of this Bill, as I have told your Lordships, have been approved by every Party in the House of Commons. More than that, they have been approved by every organisation in the entertaining business in this country, organisations both of employers and employees. I need not read to your Lordships the list, which 956 is a somewhat long one, of those organisations, but I am quite satisfied that they represent all the organisations, both of employers and of employees, in the theatrical world to whom consideration is due. Moreover, the Bill is strongly backed by all organisations with any moral aim and its inception is largely due to representations made by women and by leaders of Church opinion. When it, was introduced into the House of Commons it was backed by members of all Parties, including such representative members as Sir Walter de Frece and Mrs. Philipson, as well as several Labour members, who in some ways represented the employees.
The special point to notice in this Bill is that it will affect no manager who is conducting his business in a proper and legitimate manner. The main principle of the Bill is that all theatrical managers are to be registered. If they do not register, they cannot carry on their business, and under the Bill as it stands penalties are imposed upon a theatrical manager who abandons his performers in the manner that I have described. I understand that the Home Office are prepared to introduce Amendments in Committee for what I may call a very proper purpose, which the promoters of the Bill and those interested in it in another place are quite willing to accept. The Amendments of the Home Office will be for the purpose of dealing with the case of a manager who deliberately avoids payment of the salaries that he has contracted to pay to his employees.
That being the general purport of the Bill, may I very shortly run through its clauses and explain how it operates? Clauses 1 to 4 provide for registration of theatrical employers in the prescribed form and for the issue of certificates of registration. Clause 5 deals with the offences under the Bill. The main offence dealt with by the Bill is that of the employer who, during the course of a theatrical touring engagement, abandons the theatrical performers. There is also an elaborate definition of what abandonment means. Failing to register is another offence under the Bill. Clause 6 deals with penalties. The penalties are that upon summary conviction there shall be a fine of £50, with or without imprisonment for a period not exceeding three months, with an appeal in due course to Quarter Sessions. 957 Clauses 7, 8 and 9 are administrative provisions, to which I think I need not call your Lordship's attention in detail, dealing with such questions as cancelled and suspended certificates, and so on.
Clause 10 is an important one. It shows to what category of performers the Bill is not to apply. It provides that it shall not apply— To any person or corporation who, or whose agent, nominee or representative on his or its behalf, holds a licence to produce stage plays for a licence for music and dancing from any person or authority in Great Britain lawfully entitled to grant such a licence.… Further, the Bill is not to apply— To any person who not for gain or in the way of business employs or engages theatrical performers for performances made for charitable objects or other similar purposes. Clause 11 gives power to the Secretary of State to prescribe such things as are necessary for carrying the measure into effect. There is an important clause, which has been carefully considered, defining theatrical employers and performers and, finally, there is a provision that the Bill shall not apply to Northern Ireland. The Bill, in effect therefore, provides for these matters only when they occur in Great Britain. Those being the provisions of the Bill and the Bill having been carefully examined and approved by the Home Office, subject to the Amendments which they propose to introduce in Committee, I beg to move the Second Beading.

§ LORD DESBOROUGH
My Lords, perhaps it might save time, in view of the fact that an important debate is shortly to take place, if I were to state in a very few words the position of the Home Office regarding this Bill. They have felt for some considerable time that there is very great hardship imposed upon the young men and women who are enticed away with the hope of gain by some bogus theatrical manager and are then left stranded without wages, without money for food and without any means of getting to their homes. This Bill proposes to deal with this matter in three ways. The first method is to make it compulsory for all these managers, or would-be managers, 958 to register their names. In many cases it has come to the knowledge of the Home Office that those who have been employed are absolutely ignorant of the real names and addresses of their employers, and their only remedy is to bring a civil action, which is very expensive and productive of no result, as the man is very often impecunious. So, in the first place, registration is made compulsory; in the second place, certain criminal offences are created; and, in the third place, in certain cases registration can be refused.
Several attempts have been made to introduce a Bill of this character, but hitherto they have not been successful. They have been supported from time to time by the Actors' Association but have not received the support of the managers. In this case both sides of the profession are agreed to the main provisions, at all events, of this Bill. The measure was originally prepared by the Entertainments National Industrial Council and it is supported on the employers' side by the Society of West End Managers, the Theatrical Managers' Association, the Association of Touring Managers and the Entertainments Protection Association, and on the employees' side by the Actors Association and the Variety Artists Federation, so that it comes before this House with the consent, as you may say, of both sides, and, further, it is supported by the Home Office as a measure which is necessary and one which in their opinion the sooner it is passed the better. There will be certain Amendments which it will be my duty to put down supposing your Lordships give a Second Reading to the Bill.

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
My Lords, the statement of the noble Lord has satisfied me that the Home Office have looked into this Bill closely. The purpose is admirable and my only misgiving is as to the protection which Clause 10 affords; whether paragraph (b) of Clause 10 affords sufficient protection to people who may be getting up an entertainment for charitable purposes in a very wide sense and doing it, not for the sake of making a profit to put into their own pockets, but for the purpose of helping a charity. It seems to me that possibly there may be some legal traps which may turn up under paragraph (b) and I 959 should be glad if the noble Lord and the Home Office will look into that with the official draftsman a little more closely. Otherwise I think the purposes of the Bill are excellent and I have no opposition to offer to it.

LORD RAGLAN
My Lords, I do not rise to criticise the principle of the Bill, but to call attention to the wideness of its scope. In my opinion Clause 12 will have to be very carefully considered. It provides that The expression 'theatrical performer' includes any. … performer of any kind employed to. … play or perform in any. … place of public entertainment. Let us take the case of the Oval. It is a place of public entertainment. A number of well-known cricketers are employed to play or perform there. Hobbs, under this definition, is a theatrical performer and the Surrey Cricket Club are theatrical employers.

§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM
My Lords, I have no doubt that there are cases of hardship, as there always will be in this wicked world, but I doubt whether it is advisable to try to meet every case of hardship in this wicked world by an Act of Parliament. You cannot by Act of Parliament prevent people being wicked, and if theatrical employees are foolish enough to engage themselves with a man whom they ought to know is impecunious and will only pay them if the play which he is going to produce in a provincial town is successful, they ought not to come down to Parliament and ask it to say what people may or may not do.
Clause 3 says that every theatrical employer must register, and he is to register with the borough council or the county council or some other tribunal of that sort, and to register on a prescribed form. There is nothing in the Bill about what that form is going to be. But in Clause 12 it is stated that the expression "prescribed" means prescribed by rule made by the Secretary of State. Who on earth knows what the rules are going to be or who the Secretary of State is going to be in the future? If we had a Secretary of State sitting beside the noble Viscount, (Lord Haldane) opposite, who knows what foolishness he might not commit? He might make rules impos- 960 sible for anybody to carry out. I hope my noble friend Lord Danesfort, who has an extremely kind heart and sometimes allows it to take possession of him, will endeavour, on the Committee Stage, at any rate to let us know what it is that these people have got to sign.

THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON
My Lords, I should like to say a few words on this Bill. As a matter of fact the associations, the list of which was read out by Lord Desborough, have taken four years to get into line on this Bill and therefore in one sense it is an agreed Bill as to part of the provisions. There are, however, a great many loopholes in it, and when the Committee stage comes I propose to move a series of Amendments for the purpose of strengthening the Bill. For instance, offences under the Bill were dealt with in the original Bill in Clause 6 and by this clause some kind of protection was provided for the artists, and organisations like the Actors Association could still deal with the "bilker." Paragraph (b) was a particularly valuable provision and really dealt with the actual causes of stranding—namely, the recurrent failure to pay salaries and failure to pay the artistes' railway fares to their homes.
In the Bill as it passed through the House of Commons offences under it are dealt with in Clause 5 and the clause is no safeguard at all, more especially as subsection (2) nullifies the whole clause as far as the stranding of artistes is concerned. To abandon or strand his company the manager must absent himself without paying the performers. Therefore it appears that so long as he remains with the company he need not pay one penny and he will still be innocent of any offence under the Bill. I will not waste time, but I propose to move when the Committee stage is reached if your Lordships give the Bill a Second Reading—and this Bill has been wanted for many years—that Clause 5 shall be left out, and that in its place shall be inserted the following new clause:—