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Clause 5, page 5, line 36, at end insert—
(3) Not less than three members of the Board, including the Chairman and Deputy Chairman or one of then shall be required to render whole-time service to the Board.
§ The Commons disagreed to the above Amendment for the following Reason—
§ Because a statutory requirement as to the number of whole-time members of Aiea Boards might unduly restrict the constitution of those Boards in the future.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORI beg to move that this House do not insist on the said Amendment.
§ Moved, That this House do not insist on the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONMy Lords, this is an Amendment in which we asked that there should be three whole-time members of the Board. This has rather a curious history. The Minister himself does not at all deny that this provision is right; in fact, he was good enough to say that he found himself personally in entire agreement with the arguments which I had advanced, and with the kind of Board which I thought would be tie right kind of Board; and that he had 1291 every intention of appointing in accordance with these principles. The Heyworth Report was still more emphatically in favour of it. Therefore, the only point between us is this: Ought this provision to go into the Bill or ought it not? Frankly, there are no politics in this question at all. I should have thought that, where the great consensus of opinion in both Houses of Parliament was that this was the right thing to do, and where the great body of commercial opinion on the Heyworth Committee, who had examined the whole industry, was in favour, it would have been a wise thing for Parliament to give a general directive of that nature in the Bill.
I should have thought that that is what the Bill is for—to lay down the general principles while leaving a pretty wide latitude. We understand that the Minister will follow what we all agree is the right course when making the first appointments to the Board, but I am bound to say that I think it extremely improbable that he, or any other member of his Party, will be in a position to make the second set of appointments to this Board when the time comes round. I think it is a pity that we do not set out in the Bill a course which apparently not only the better opinion but practically the unanimous opinion in both Houses of Parliament seems to support. But it is not a principle for which I would ask your Lordships to die in the last ditch.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.