PUBLIC HEALTH BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 25 June 1936)

VISCOUNT GAGE
My Lords, perhaps it would be more convenient if the very few observations I have to make should be made on the Motion to go into Committee. As your Lordships may remember, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, drew particular attention to 275 the form of this Bill, and it is true that some special procedure has to be adopted in relation to it. Your Lordships are aware that this Bill is similar to the Act of 1933; that is, it is a further measure to consolidate and clarify the Statutes which relate to public health. As was the case in the 1933 Act, this Bill was submitted to a Joint Committee of both Houses under the Chairmanship of the Chairman of Committees. As the result of close examination of the Bill by this Committee some 300 Amendments have been made. Many of them are of a drafting character; the rest partly represent Amendments suggested by the Minister of Health and partly points suggested by various associations, different classes of statutory undertakers, the Federation of British Industries, and so forth.
The question now arises of the most convenient way to deal with these Amendments, which your Lordships will see it is proposed to insert in this Bill of over 300 clauses. The proposal I have to make is that, although this Bill is not wholly consolidation, the most convenient procedure would be that which was adopted in the case of the 1933 Bill, that is, to have a formal Committee stage and to insert all these Amendments en bloc. This would do away with the somewhat laborious task of moving each individually at this late hour. On the Report stage your Lordships would then have all the Amendments printed and inserted in the Bill, and you would have a much easier task, I think, in moving any Amendments which you might see fit to move. The Government propose to give ample time for consideration of the amended Bill, and they suggest, if your Lordships see fit, that the Report stage should be taken on July 2. I beg to move that this House do now resolve itself into Committee.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW
My Lords, as I happened to be Chairman of the Joint Select Committee which examined this Bill, perhaps I may say one or two words on what passed at the six meetings which the Committee held. In the first place your Lordships will remember that the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, drew attention to the undesirability as a general rule of combining amendment 276 and consolidation, and it was pointed out on the Second Reading that the amendment which was proposed by the Bill was merely to enable the public health law of the country to be consolidated in a form which was reasonable and suitable for working purposes. It did not propose to amend what it may be necessary to amend in the future, but it did propose to consolidate in a useful form the whole public health law of the country, together with certain stock clauses which have been accepted in local Acts; and for that purpose it was necessary to amend the law and not stick to pure consolidation.
My noble friend Lord Salisbury is not in his place to-day, and I am sure your Lordships will deplore the reason for his absence, but I think I can assure your Lordships and those who were concerned at the noble Marquess's observations, that the Committee were very careful to limit the Amendments which they proposed, and which are on the Paper, to those which are absolutely necessary for the purposes which I have indicated. I do not mean to say for one moment that we do not all of us find a great deal in the public health law of the country—which your Lordships will now be able to see in the most convenient form—which requires considerable alteration. I think every member of the Committee felt that there was a good deal to be done both in the way of addition and of alteration to the public health law as it stands, but we did not seek to do more than make the actual public health law of the present time easily understandable by everybody.
There are two points to which I think it is only right that I should draw the attention of your Lordships, in case they may be missed by those who wish to discuss the matter on the Report stage. The Committee of its own volition—it was not proposed by any outside society or by a Government Department—made two more or less important alterations in the Bill which perhaps go a little wider, though not very much wider, than is necessary to amend the law to make it easily comprehensible. They added measles to the list of notifiable diseases. I do not think that is going very much further, although I am told there are difficulties in connection with the notification of measles. No doubt we shall be told by the Department about that on 277 the Report stage. We made one other alteration which has a certain amount of importance—namely, with regard to Clause 267, which deals with the power of local authorities to control the use of movable dwellings. All local authorities have this power except rural district councils, and it did not seem to us that the rural district councils should be under a disability in this respect. By including them we considered we were making the law more simple. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is here and will correct me if I have omitted to mention any other, but I think these are the only two points that the Committee dealt with and put in without any suggestion from outside bodies.
On the Committee we were assisted by the two Departments concerned—the Ministry of Health and the Home Office—and we also had with us the draftsman of the Bill. Sir Harry Pritchard, Secretary of the Association of Municipal Corporations, was also there to help us, and we had representatives of the Federation of British Industries, the National Property Owners' Association, and the Catchment Boards. There may have been others, but I am not quite sure. A good many Amendments were put forward by these bodies, and we did our best to give effect to their wishes. About sixty Amendments were put into the Bill at the instance of the Federation of British Industries, the National Property Owners' Association, and the Catchment Boards, and they were accepted by the Government. We amended the Bill in such a, manner that it is practically an agreed Bill on all major points. I do not think I have anything to add regarding the doings of the Committee, but as we are taking this report so very shortly to-day, I thought I had better give, some kind of explanation which might be useful on the Report stage.

LORD SOMERS
My Lords, I do not intend to keep your Lordships more than three minutes. On the question of the Amendment to Clause 267 I wish to say—I am speaking on behalf of the Boy Scouts Association—that we have been met by the Ministry very considerately and they have helped us out of our difficulties. We were formerly very much opposed to the whole of the clause as it would have applied to us and also 278 to the Girl Guides Association and to the Salvation Army. But we realised that something should be done to restrict bad camping, and we thought that the sheep and the goats should not be mixed up together. We classed ourselves rather as sheep. I now want to say that since we have been met so considerately by the Ministry, and since all our difficulties have been removed, we are now wholeheartedly in support of the measure.

VISCOUNT GAGE
I beg to move that the Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee be agreed to.