CLEARING OFFICE (TURKEY) (No. 2) ORDER, 1936. (Hansard, 18 December 1936)

§ LORD TEMPLEMORE

My Lords, on the Motion that this Order be approved, an explanation is, I think, due to your Lordships. This is an Order made by the Treasury on the 27th November, 1936, under Section 1 of the Debts Clearing Offices and import Restrictions Act, 1936, and on the 2nd September, 1936, a Trade and Clearing Agreement was signed between the United Kingdom and Turkey which came into force on the 17th September, 1936. On the 8th September, 1936, the Treasury made an Order under the Debts Clearing Offices and Import Restrictions Act of 1934, setting up an Anglo-Turkish Clearing Office in London and providing that the sterling collected by the Clearing Office should be applied in accordance with the Anglo-Turkish Agreement of 2nd September, 1936. When Parliament reassembled in October after the Summer Recess, steps should have been taken, in accordance with the Act of 1934, to lay the Order before Parliament and to submit it for the approval of each House within 28 Parliamentary days, that is, by the 20th November, 1936. Unfortunately, by an oversight, which is very much regretted by my right honourable friend and by His Majesty's Government, these steps were not taken and the Order accordingly lapsed on the 29th November, 1936. The Act provides, however, that such lapsing of an Order shall be without prejudice to anything done under it or to the making of a new Order. The Treasury accordingly made, on the 27th November, a new Order which would operate from the 30th November, the date following that on which the earlier Order lapsed. Except for the necessary changes of dates, the new Order, which the House is now being asked to approve, repeats the provisions of the Order of the 8th September. I beg to move.