HIRE PURCHASE AND SMALL DEBT (SCOTLAND) BILL. (Hansard, 27 June 1932)

§ THE EARL OF LUCAN

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill, which passed through another place, I understand, without opposition. It is a Bill to carry out the recommendations of a Departmental Committee, appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland in the 207 year 1930, to enquire into the law and practise as to hire-purchase contracts in Scotland, and it deals with certain cases of hardship which arise under the hire-purchase system. The most important provisions of the Bill are contained in Clauses 4 and 7. Clause 4 removes a hardship which occurred in many cases in Scotland. Those were cases, for instance, where a man, say, in Aberdeen had entered into a contract under the hire-purchase system with a trader in Glasgow, and there was put into the contract a stipulation that if he had at any time to appear before the court he would have to appear before the court in Glasgow. That, to a man of small means, was quite impossible. It is considered that the hirer-purchaser suffered unduly from having such a stipulation in his contract.

Clause 7 deals with a question of imprisonment. Here again there have been cases of hardship. Where a hirer-purchaser had agreed to hire or purchase any article on the hire-purchase system by payment of instalments and had failed to keep up the instalments, the trader from whom he had the goods was able to enforce a decree of the sheriff and to imprison the person forthwith. This Bill ensures that such a defaulter in instalment payments cannot be imprisoned except on a warrant by the court to which the trader with whom he is dealing applies, and in order to get a warrant to commit the man to prison by this court the trader has to prove that the defender is wilfully refusing to comply with the decree. Those are the two principal cases arising out of the recommendations 208 of the Departmental Committee. I may add that the Committee's recommendations are limited to hire-purchase contracts regarding articles of not more than £20 in value. I do not think that any further explanation is required, but if any noble Lord should require information I shall be glad to give it.