CIVIC RESTAURANTS BILL. (Hansard, 24 March 1947)

§ LORD HENDERSON
My Lords, what the noble Lord said on the Committee stage will be within the recollection of all of us. I repeat that it is a more or less agreed position. The intention of the Government is that Civic Restaurants should be able to pursue what are normal ancillary activities. I think I made it clear that so far as the Government were concerned the sort of point just mentioned was intended to be covered by the Bill. Therefore there was broad general agreement. This Amendment seeks to put into the Bill something upon which we are broadly agreed. In these circumstances, I have pleasure in accepting it.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
My Lords, the next Amendment is consequential.

§ LORD HENDERSON
My Lords, I think it will be remembered that on Second Reading it was the Government's desire to protect religious premises from any possibility of their being used against the will of the owners for the sale of liquor. On the Committee stage we endeavoured to meet that point by an Amendment to which there was a further Amendment; and as the noble Lord said, there was some little confusion as to whether we had gone far enough, or too far. The point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Perth, I have had checked, and I can assure him that there is no reason for any apprehensions at all. The Amendment as it now stands is an agreed Amendment, as my noble friend said. It meets the general desire that was expressed in this House, and in these circumstances I am very glad to be able to accept it.

§ LORD HENDERSON
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
My Lords, I am not going to keep the House more than two minutes, but I would like to say, in regard to this Bill, that we have—I think in the best traditions of this House—made what I consider are several real improvements since it came to us. We have made them on two grounds. The first was the ground of meeting what many of us realized was the conscience of a great part of the nation; that is to say, a very large section of the population did not wish to see British Restaurants transformed into what I may term just public-houses. The second ground was that a particularly large number of religious 678 bodies did not want to see the possibility of places which they had lent or which had been requisitioned for the purpose of ordinary British Restaurants, being used, or application being made that they should be used, to sell drinks. I think we are right to have met these views in this House in the way we have done.
I consider, too, that we are right to ensure that it is not within the possibility of the Civic Restaurant authority to requisition a place that is an existing catering establishment. I know perfectly well that on one or two of these points, certainly in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Henderson—who, if I may say so, has successfully piloted this measure through the House—gave very full assurances on Second Reading. But Ministers come and Ministers go, and assurances given in this place, or in another, are not so binding in law as if they are written into an Act of Parliament. Therefore, I think we were quite right in this House to endeavour to improve this Bill. I am certain that in sending it back to another place with these Amendments we are quite satisfied that we have improved this measure. It is my wish that Civic Restaurants may in the future be as successful as British Restaurants have been in the past.

§ LORD HENDERSON
My Lords, I would like to thank the noble Lord for the friendly personal remarks he made, and also to associate myself and those on these Benches with the general observations that he has made on this Bill. I would also like to add our thanks to the noble Lord, arid other noble Lords, for the helpful spirit in which they have dealt with this Bill during its proceedings in this House. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, and other noble Lords for the co-operative efforts that have been made, by amendment, to improve the Bill. I think it is generally felt in your Lordships' House that, in certain quite important respects, those efforts have been successful, and I believe that the Bill in its present form meets with a much wider measure of agreement than it perhaps did when it first came into this Chamber. I associate myself with the noble Lord's remarks as to the future of Civic Restaurants. I believe that we have laid the groundwork of a very important social service of the future.