HL Deb 25 June 1947 vol 149 cc220-5

11.38 a.m.

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Hall.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly:

[The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair.]

Clause 1 [Power of competent authorities to obtain information]:

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (VISCOUNT HALL)

The first Amendment is purely a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 16, leave out ("estimate or return is") and insert ("estimates or returns are").—(Viscount Hall.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 [Returns for the purposes of census]:

VISCOUNT HALL

This also is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 35, leave out ("in the last foregoing subsection") and insert ("therein").—(Viscount Hall.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

VISCOUNT HALL

This again is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 2,line 37, at end insert ("A notice issued by a competent authority in pursuance of powers delegated to that authority shall state that it is so issued").—(Viscount Hall.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 4:

Offences relating to returns.

(3) If any person in purported compliance with a requirement to furnish such estimates or returns as aforesaid, knowingly or recklessly makes any statement in those estimates or returns which is false in a material particular he shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds or on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or, in either case, to both such imprisonment and such fine.

LORD HAWKE moved, at the end of the clause to insert: Provided that no such person be liable to fine or imprisonment if he shows he had, within the previous three months, given substantially the same information in compliance with the demand from another Department of Government other than the Board of Trade.

The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend. This Bill gives power to the Board of Trade to delegate to competent authorities the collection of information from trade and industry. These competent authorities are some fourteen or fifteen in number, and the purpose of the Amendment is to try to ensure that there will be some co-ordination in the demands of these various competent authorities, and that one Department may not have the power to ask for precisely the same information as has already been furnished to another Department.

To anybody who has ever occupied a desk in Whitehall it is well known that it is very much easier sometimes to go direct to trade and industry to obtain figures than to search through the warrens of Whitehall to find whether they are there already. Our Amendment seeks to remove that temptation from the competent authorities. Perhaps while the noble Viscount is accepting our Amendment he might, at the same time, be able to give us some assurance that there will be an attempt at co-ordination between the competent authorities under this Bill and the development councils under the Industrial Organisation Bill, for under that measure certain heavy industries are to have development councils and those development councils are to be empowered to ask for information which, in many cases, will be precisely the same as the competent authorities will have acquired under this Bill. In the circumstances, I hope for an acceptance and an assurance. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 3, line 23 at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Hawke.)

LORD WOLVERTON

I should like to support my noble friend on this Amendment because we, on this side of the House, feel it is very important that trade should not be asked for the same information by different Departments. I think we all agreed on the Second Reading that extra information was necessary for the statistical departments, but it should be collated through one department, if possible. For that reason, I should like to support my noble friend on this Amendment.

VISCOUNT HALL

His Majesty's Government are very conscious of the anxiety in industry concerning the collection of statistics, a practice which inevitably grew up during the period of the war, and still exists. But your Lordships will remember that on the Second Reading I expressed the fervent hope that there would be some lightening of the burden of the filling in of forms as com- pared with the recent past, and I want to assure both Lord Hawke and Lord Wolverton that His Majesty's Government will do anything and everything possible to prevent overlapping. I am afraid we cannot accept the Amendment because it is going to be difficult to define what might be regarded as "substantially the same," but I can repeat the assurance which I myself gave, and which was given by my right honourable friend in another place when this matter was being considered. With that assurance, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment.

LORD HAWKE

I thank the noble Viscount for his assurance, and I am perfectly certain that trade and industry will be very happy to hear of it. I wonder if he can perhaps say a word on the question of the development councils, as to whether there is any chance of co-ordinating their demands with those of the competent authorities under this Bill?

VISCOUNT HALL

It is very difficult to say, because development councils exist with various responsibilities in different parts of the country, and it is impossible to give what might be regarded as a very wide promise. But I will convey to the President of the Board of Trade the wish of my noble friend, and I certainly will ask him to consider it.

LORD HAWKE

I thank the noble Viscount, and with that assurance I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Clauses 5 to 8 agreed to.

On Question, Whether Clause 9 shall stand part of the Bill:

LORD HAWKE

Noble Lords on this side of the House are pleased to see that there is a very severe penalty clause in subsection' (6) of this clause. The original clause was strengthened in another place, and we feel that it will have a very good effect on those persons who may be called upon to handle the statistics collected, which they might, through familiarity, tend to treat with undue levity. Another point which was altered in another place gives us much pleasure, and that was that information collected under the Bill can be used only for prosecutions under this Bill; previously it could be used for prosecutions in a much wider field. In those regards we think the other place has greatly improved the Bill.

Clause 9 agreed to.

11.49 a.m.

Clause 10:

Information from persons entering or leaving the United Kingdom by air.

10.—(1) The Board of Trade may by order make provision whereby persons entering or leaving the United Kingdom by air may be required to give such information, in such form and manner, and to such persons, as may be prescribed.

VISCOUNT HALL moved in subsection (1) to leave out from "whereby" to the end of the subsection and insert: any person entering or leaving the United Kingdom by air may be required to give, to such person and in such form and manner as may be prescribed, particulars of his age, sex and marriage and of the nature of his occupation and particulars of the country in which he last permanently resided and the country in which he intends next permanently to reside. (2) If it is not reasonably practicable to require any such person to give any such particulars as aforesaid any other person in whose company and under whose care he is travelling may be required to give those particulars on his behalf.

The noble Viscount said: This Amendment gives effect to a promise made by the President of the Board of Trade in another place that he would make more specific the nature of the information that can be required from persons entering or leaving the United Kingdom by air. The Amendment provides that the information to be obtained from passengers shall be substantially the same as that which can already be obtained from passengers travelling by sea. This Amendment is, I think I can claim, an agreed Amendment, because noble Lords on the Opposition Benches have agreed that it does indeed cover the points which were raised. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 6, line 40, leave out from ("whereby") to the end of line 42 and insert the said new words.—(Viscount Hall.)

LORD HAWKE

This Amendment meets the wishes of my noble friend, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, who has asked me to convey his apologies to the noble Viscount for being unable to be present in person to thank him for it.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 10 as amended, agreed to.

Clause 11 to 16 agreed to.

Clause 17.

Interpretation

(3) For the purposes of this Act each of the following Ministers and authorities shall be a competent authority, that is to say, the Treasury, a Secretary of State, the Admiralty, the Board of Trade, the Minister of Fuel and Power, the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Labour and National Service, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Supply, the Minister of Food, the Minister of Works, the Minister of Civil Aviation and the Minister of Pensions.

VISCOUNT HALL moved, in subsection (3), after "Minister of Food" to insert "the Minister of National Insurance. "The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment to Clause 17. The purpose of the Amendment is to name the Minister of National Insurance as a ompetent authority under the Bill. Under the existing law, the Ministry of National Insurance have no power to obtain information for statistical purposes, though naturally in the course of their administration of the National Insurance Act a great deal of information useful for statistical purposes will arise, as it has done in the past out of the administration of the Unemployment Insurance Act and the National Health Insurance Act.

The Minister of National Insurance is being added as one of the competent authorities under this Bill so that if statistical information is needed about the insured population additional to that becoming available as a result of the administration of the National Insurance Act, the Minister should be able to collect it. Therefore it is neessary to insert these words in the Bill. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 9, line 37, after ("Food") insert ("the Minister of National Insurance").—(Viscount Hall.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 17, as amended, agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.

Schedule agreed to.

House resumed.