§ 5. A member of the Commission shall, within three months after his appointment, sell or dispose of any interest or securities which he may hold in his own name or in the name of a nominee for his benefit in any undertaking carrying on the business of coal-mining or supplying or selling coal or the manufacture or sale of by-products of coal or machinery or plant for coal-mining.
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THE LORD CHANCELLOR had given Notice of an Amendment to insert after paragraph 1:
2. At least two of the members of the Commission shall be persons who have had practical experience in the coal-mining industry.
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, whether this paragraph is a happy one is a matter of opinion, but I can assure your Lordships that I and those assisting me spent quite a long time trying to get words here which would carry
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out precisely the object of the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, who I think was chiefly concerned, and perhaps also Lord Hastings, to make sure that the Commission should contain two persons who have practical experience and who, according to the suggestion made, should also have had positions of responsibility in the coal-mining industry. The difficulty we had was in finding words which would carry out what I think everyone desired without excluding persons it could not be intended to exclude. When you put in the words "practical experience and responsibility" as suggested in the next Amendment by the noble Marquess, you are in this difficulty. Responsibility to whom? What sort of responsibility? Everybody connected with a mine has some sort of responsibility, and yet that is not what is intended. If you mean persons who are engaged in the actual conduct of the work in the mine, the difficulty is this, that you do not want to confine the choice to persons who have occupied the post of mine manager.
§ You do not want, I think, to exclude people who are eminent experts in connection with the coal-mining industry, who have been in it all their lives, but who, as it happens, have not been mine managers, but occupied, perhaps, some higher position or some consultative position such as those eminent experts whom your Lordships are accustomed to consult on questions relating to mining. You do not want also to exclude persons whose business has been mainly in connection with helping the persons engaged in the industry to carry on their business to the best advantage without having held actually the position of ordering coal miners what to do or seeing in a practical way whether the mine is conducted according to the rules of the Act and according to the best principles of avoiding accidents. After making three or four efforts we came to the conclusion in the end that the simplest and most satisfactory was the paragraph which stands in my name and in that of the Leader of the House. We do not think that the word "responsibility" carries out what is really intended. Therefore we are not able at the moment to accept the suggestion of the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, but consider that the paragraph we have suggested carries out the object we all have in view. I beg to move.
120§ LORD GAINFORDMy Lords, the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, was unable to remain in the House to discuss this question, but he asked me to say a word in connection with this particular Amendment. He thought that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack might accept these words as an alternative to his own proposal:
At least two of the members of the Commission shall be persons who have had administrative or other practical experience in the coal-mining industry.If the noble Lord would accept those words I am sure it would meet with the wishes of the noble Marquess.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I had not previously been aware of these words. I think they will be quite satisfactory to the Government and I am prepared to accept them.
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Amendment moved—
Page 51, line 8, at end insert: ("(2) At least two members of the Commission shall be persons who have had administrative or other practical experience in the coal-mining industry").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ LORD HASTINGSMy Lords, before the noble and learned Lord puts that to the House, may I remind him that amongst those who supported my noble friend Lord Lothian in originally questioning the proposals of the Government was myself. I desired to be quite sure that the Coal Commission could not be packed with civil servants, and we were given to understand that words would be drafted to exclude civil servants from the sole occupation of the positions on the Coal Commission. Is the Lord Chancellor able to tell the House that the inclusion of these words "administrative experience" does cut civil servants out of membership of the Coal Commission? If not, I shall oppose the Amendment.
§ EARL STANHOPEMy Lords, may I point out to the noble Lord that it is "administrative…experience in the coal mining industry."?
§ LORD HASTINGSMy Lords, I asked the noble and learned Lord Chancellor if he could assure me that these words did exclude civil servants from the occupation of the posts on the Coal Commission. If he bears out what the noble Earl the Leader of the House says I am delighted to accept the Amendment, but not otherwise.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, this is a qualification which is not of a negative character but of an affirmative character. The persons must have had administrative or other practical experience in the coal-mining industry. It is not whether somebody will be excluded because he has once been some sort of civil servant. He might have been a postman in the County of Durham who had become by a series of accidents a person with administrative or other practical experience, and whether such a man is intended to be excluded I do not know, but I do not think the present clause would exclude him. What the clause is intended to do is to say that if people are to be appointed they must have this qualification, and therefore, prima facie, an ordinary civil servant will be outside the clause, but the fact that there may occasionally be someone who not only has these qualifications but who also has been at some date a civil servant seems to me to be a matter which need not greatly trouble the mind of the noble Lord.
§ LORD HASTINGSMy Lord, the noble and learned Lord is quite correct in saying it need not necessarily trouble me, nor would it. What I want to avoid is the insertion of words which would enable civil servants with administrative experience in the Department concerned with mines to occupy all the positions on the Coal Commission. That is all I desire to be assured about, and the words which the noble and learned Lord himself first moved "shall be persons who have had practical experience n the coal-mining industry" clearly does exclude such persons, but the words he has accepted, suggested on behalf of the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, might conceivably let them in, and that is why I object to the words. I like the noble and learned Lord's own Amendment better than I like Lord Lothian's.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, it is difficult to satisfy everybody. On the whole the Government have done their best here to meet the wishes of the House. If the noble Lord wants my opinion, my opinion is this. It may be right or it may be wrong, but it is my opinion that persons who are merely civil servants and have acquired an experience in that capacity are not persons who have 122 had per se an administrative or other practical experience in the coal-mining industry.
§ LORD HASTINGSI am quite prepared to accept the suggestion made by the Lord Chancellor.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORThe next Amendment on the Amendment Paper, in the name of Lord Lothian, is not moved. There is then an Amendment to leave out from the word "coal" in line 3o to the end of line 31, in paragraph 5. That Amendment appears in the name of the Marquess of Lothian.
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERMy Lords, I think there has been some error in the printing of the Amendment Paper. This Amendment should stand in the name of the Lord Chancellor. Your Lordships will recollect that during a previous stage of this Bill my noble friend Lord Crawford raised the question of the membership of the Commission, and as to the securities which the members might hold. After a prolonged debate on the Committee stage I moved to leave out the words "or the manufacture or sale of by-products of coal or machinery or plant for coal-mining." We have considered this matter again, and those words in our judgment are the best words to omit from that paragraph to meet the point raised by my noble friend Lord Crawford.
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Amendment moved—
Page 51, line 3o, leave out from ("coal") to the end of line 31.—(The Earl of Munster.)
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ LORD HASTINGSThe next Amendment, in the name of Lord Darcy, to add a sub-paragraph to paragraph 9, would have been a consequential Amendment to the Amendment as to mineral agents' compensation, had it been carried, but as that Amendment was defeated this Amendment cannot be moved.
§ EARL STANHOPEMy Lords, I suggest that perhaps this would be a convenient moment to adjourn our debate until to-morrow. I see that there are on the Paper a good many Amendments proposed to the Second Schedule, and therefore this is rather a convenient point at which to stop. If that is the wish of your Lordships, I will move that the debate be now adjourned.
§ Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Earl Stanhope.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.