MOTOR SPIRIT (REGULATION) BILL. (Hansard, 25 May 1948)

HL Deb 25 May 1948 vol 155 cc906-97 906

§ 2.39 p.m.

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

§ Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Motion agreed to.

907

§ House in Committee accordingly:

§ [The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair.]

§ Clause 1:

§ Offences by retailers of motor spirit.

§ (2) If any such person as aforesaid—

(a) has in any such pump which is not marked with the word "Commercial" as aforesaid motor spirit which contains any of the prescribed ingredients (hereafter in this Act referred to as "commercial petrol"); or
(b) supplies commercial petrol into the tank of a motor vehicle of such class or description as may be prescribed (hereafter in this Act referred to as a "private motor vehicle");

§ he shall be guilty of an offence:

§ Provided that it shall be a defence—

(i) for any person charged with the offence mentioned in paragraph (a) hereof to prove that the commercial petrol was put into the pump without his consent or connivance and that he did not know that it was there, and that he exercised all reasonable diligence to prevent the petrol being in the pump;
(ii) for any person charged with the offence mentioned in paragraph (b) hereof to prove that the commercial petrol was supplied without his consent or connivance and that he exercised all reasonable diligence to prevent such supply.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK moved, in proviso (i) to subsection (2), to delete "that he did not know that it was there, and." The noble Earl said: Clause 1 makes it an offence to have commercial petrol in a pump which is marked "private." That is an offence in itself. The clause contains very strict regulations of a kind which have probably never before been placed on the Statute Book. That was acknowledged by the Attorney-General when speaking in another place. The conditions are threefold: first, the onus of proof lies on the accused; secondly, automatic penalties result; and thirdly, the only defence is to prove three things, two of which are negative. This is a strictly worded Bill, and it is of the utmost importance, if it is necessary to make the Bill so strictly worded, that it should be entirely logical in its whole effect. I would draw your Lordships' attention to the defences which can be put up by someone who has commercial petrol in his pump marked "private." He has to show, first, that it was put in without his consent or connivance; secondly, that he did not know it was there; and, thirdly, that he exercised all 908 reasonable diligence to prevent the petrol being in the pump. If he cannot prove all those things he is automatically guilty.

§ I think your Lordships will agree that in the ordinary course of events if petrol has been put into the pump without his consent or connivance, and he has taken all reasonable diligence to see that it is not there, he is, in fact, an innocent person, and has no vicious intention in his mind at all. What happens? One day, in the ordinary course of events, he opens his tank and finds red petrol there. From that moment he has no defence whatever, because he cannot provide the three defences of non-connivance, taking reasonable diligence, and not knowing it was there. The automatic results of this clause then follow with inevitable consequences. I do not think that is the intention of the Government. I think it is quite illogical that it should be so. I am suggesting that the words, "and that he did not know it was there," should be omitted.

§ I carry this argument one step further by asking what will happen to an innocent man who finds red petrol in his tank. I suggest that one of two things will happen. He will either pour the petrol out on the ground, or, alternatively, he will throw himself on the mercy of the police. I submit that both those results are highly undesirable. In the first place, petrol would be wasted, and, in the second place, no innocent man should be at the mercy of the discretion of the police. I am sure your Lordships will agree that the situation should not arise where an entirely innocent man has to rely on the discretion of the police as to whether or not they should prosecute, because if they prosecute they inevitably get a conviction, and if they get a conviction the penalty inevitably follows. I submit that the easiest way of remedying this is by omitting the words as I suggest. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 26, leave out from (" and ") to (" that ") in page 2, line 1.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The noble Earl was good enough yesterday to tell me the reasons which actuated him in putting down this Amendment, and I confess that he has made out a powerful case. What I feel about the matter is this. If a man is unfortunate enough, without his consent or connivance, to have 909 red petrol put into a white pump (I shall use that expression all the way through these discussions; your Lordships know what I mean by it) what is he to do? His remedy is to re-mark that pump which is marked "private" with the word "commercial" directly he discovers it. But it may be said that during the short interval of time between the moment he discovers that there is red petrol in the white pump, and the time when he walks away to get the label which has "commercial" written upon it, he may be guilty of an offence. I quite agree that we should not pass a law relying on the fact that the police will have the good sense not to prosecute. If we can we should make it plain that that is not an offence at all. I think your Lordships will agree that the man who finds that he has perfectly innocently got red petrol into a white pump should have our protection.
I am sorry that certain Amendments which we propose to move have not been put on the Marshalled List, but your Lordships will now have copies of them. You will see that we propose substantially to recast this particular proviso with regard to the offending words to which the noble Earl referred. Your Lordships will see that we propose to take out those words. If it is permissible—indeed, it is difficult not to do so—I will discuss the Amendments together for a moment to show how the clause will work. If our Amendments are accepted, the clause will read in this way: Provided that it shall be a defence—

(i) for any person charged with the offence mentioned in paragraph (a) hereof to prove that the commercial petrol was put into the pump without his consent or connivance, or without his knowing that it was commercial petrol "—

That is a further benefit, because the man might agree and say, "Go and put that petrol into the pump" without realising what petrol it was— and that he exercised all reasonable diligence to prevent the petrol being put into the pump: If he afterwards discovers its presence in the pump, he should forthwith take all reasonable steps to secure the removal of the petrol, or the marking of the pump with the word "commercial." I think in that way the clause as so amended will effect a great simplification and make it quite plain that the man who has not a 910 wicked mind is not in danger and is not, as he perhaps may have been before, merely to have the consolation that in a case of that sort presumably a sensible policeman would not prosecute. Although I do not accept the Amendment the noble Earl has moved, I think he will see that in my Amendment I have covered the ground and in fact have gone rather further.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
I would like to thank the noble and learned Viscount for what he has done. His Amendment has met my case in full. I would like to ask one question, and that is with regard to the re-marking of the pumps. Am I to understand that anybody, at his pleasure, can just put a label or board on a pump saying that it is commercial petrol or private petrol, or is there some special way of doing it?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I am dealing only with a case where a man finds that against his knowledge and consent this accident has happened, and that red petrol has been put into a white pump. The remedy is to make it plan to the world at large that that particular pump has now red petrol in it. That can be done just by striking out the word "Private" and putting on the word "Commercial."

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Would the noble and learned Viscount agree that immediately that consignment has been consumed it can be re-marked "Private" again?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Certainly.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I am obliged to the Lord Chancellor for having met us over this matter. I want to raise one practical issue, not in the interest of the man who owns the pump, but in the interest of the people who are supplied by the pump. Take the case of an isolated area, the case the Lord Chancellor has been trying so well to protect, where the owner of the pump is innocent but where, by inadvertence, red petrol has been put into a white pump. Obviously the man himself can be protected by putting his protective label upon the pump. It may happen in a district where that is the only pump serving a fairly wide area People who want to be served with white petrol obviously cannot be served from 911 that pump because it now has parti-coloured petrol—it is a mixture of red and white, like the York and Lancaster roses, and it is clearly a criminal offence to serve "York and Lancaster roses" and also to receive them. What is to happen? The big tankers go round the country districts at rather infrequent intervals. This is a matter which I do not think can be dealt with by Amendment to this clause, but it is most essential that it should be dealt with by regulation or by ministerial direction. If the bulk supplier of petrol has put the wrong kind of petrol into the pump, and that pump is thereby put out of action for the whole area, it ought to be put into action as quickly as possible and another tanker lorry sent along to empty the pump and put petrol of the right colour into it. I would like to have an assurance that that will be done.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
That is an eminently reasonable request, and administratively that will be done. We have made arrangements, and at the present moment this will happen. If the garage keeper finds that this misadventure has happened to him and that his white pump has become contaminated with red petrol his task is simple. He rings up the Petroleum Board or the authorities who have made arrangements to send round at once to drain that pump, to take away from it all the parti-coloured petrol and to put into it the white coloured petrol. Therefore so long as the man is acting in perfectly good faith and keeps the authorities promptly informed of his dilemma they will see, without any loss of time at all, that the matter is put right.

LORD WALERAN
May I raise one practical difficulty in this connection? Take the case where a garage owner's pump has been slightly adulterated with red petrol by some ill-wisher to the garage owner. We know that the addition of a small quantity of the red dye will probably not show in the petrol. But we also know that the smallest quantity of the chemical will show on the test paper which the police use. The garage owner sees the white petrol coming out and he is not in possession of test paper. He may fill quite a number of tanks of motor cars with petrol that looks white but in fact 912 has been adulterated with the chemical. I do not quite see how he will get over that.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
To take the case of the garage owner first, the noble Lord will find that we have provided an adequate defence for him. If he says, for instance, that he did not know it was commercial petrol and that as soon as he found that it was he emptied the pump, he has a defence. Equally when we come to consider in another clause the position of the car owner, the noble Lord will find that if the car owner can show that he did not know, he has a defence too. So I think they are protected all the way down the line.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I beg to move the first Amendment to which I have referred.

§ Amendment moved— Page 1, line 26, leave out from ("connivance") to ("and") in line 1 on page 2 and insert (" or without his knowing that it was commercial petrol.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I beg to move the second Amendment.

§ Amendment moved— Page 2, line 2, leave out (" in ") and insert (" put into.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 2, line 2, at end insert (" and, if he afterwards discovered its presence in the pump, that he forthwith took all reasonable steps to secure the removal of the petrol or the marking of the pump with the word ' Commercial '."—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ 2.58 p.m.

§ LORD CHORLEY moved to add to proviso (ii) of subsection (2): or to prove that the person who put the petrol into the tank of the vehicle (whether it was the person charged or another person) acted in the reasonable belief that it was not a private motor vehicle.

§ The noble Lord said: This Amendment is moved in order to overcome a difficulty which was pointed out in another place, and to protect a garage hand or somebody in charge of a pump who might be misled 913 or possibly tricked into putting red petrol into a car which he thought was a commercial vehicle, but which technically was a private vehicle. It is not likely to happen but it is possible. A jeep was one of the examples given where that situation might arise. The Government are sympathetic to that argument, and the Attorney-General undertook that an appropriate form of words would be put down to cover that case. These are the words. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 2, line 7, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Chorley.)

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
May we have a clear statement as to what vehicles are supposed to have white petrol and what vehicles are to have red petrol? I think there is still some doubt as to what are the categories into which vehicles are to come, and I do not think it is defined anywhere in the Bill.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I pointed out on Second Reading that that matter will be dealt with by the regulations which will be issued under Clause 10, where the Minister of Fuel and Power is given power to make regulations prescribing various matters. One of the matters which it is proposed to deal with is the definition of the word "vehicle." In the Bill as it stands there is no definition.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I appreciate that a number of things must be dealt with by regulation. On the other hand, this is a fundamental matter: what is a private vehicle and what is a commercial vehicle? Surely the Government must know now how they propose to define a private vehicle and how they propose to define a commercial vehicle. After all, the whole of this measure is to operate on June 1—which is not far off—and everybody will be liable to the most frightful pains and penalties, automatically imposed, if they commit an offence. With great respect, the whole structure of offences under this Bill, whether committed by the owner of a car, the person in charge of a car, or by the owner of a pump, turn on whether he has or has not done a wrong act in respect of a motor vehicle. Surely, either now or when we come to discuss Clause 7, the Government will be able to tell us the elementary fact—namely, what, under 914 this Bill, is a private vehicle and what is a commercial vehicle.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I can give the noble Viscount the definition of a private motor vehicle which it is proposed to include in the regulations. It is as follows: A mechanically propelled vehicle intended or adapted for use on roads and constructed solely for the carriage of passengers and their effects to carry not more than seven passengers, exclusive of the driver….

§ VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER
What would be the position of a private car having a trailer behind it? Would it still rank as a private car? I am thinking, for instance, of such a case as a farmer, who drives goods to market in a trailer attached to his car. Would that still be a private car?

§ LORD CHORLEY
I think so.

§ LORD DENHAM
I am the owner of a Hillman utility car, and recently I was gonged for driving at over thirty miles an hour on the open road. The police have decided not to prosecute me and have not done so, since I pointed out that this Hillman car—the sort of car that your Lordships can see any day outside this House—has a private licence and not a commercial licence. Nevertheless, I am told that I am not hereafter to drive at more than thirty miles an hour. There is room behind the driver's seat for several passengers, and room to take, perhaps, a sack or two of potatoes; but the car is used by me solely for private purposes. It would be well if we could be told whether such a car is, in fact, a private vehicle or a commercial vehicle.

§ LORD CHORLEY
It is to protect the garage hand, and not the Lords in Waiting, against the sort of difficulty that may arise, that this Amendment has been framed. The garage hand might well make a mistake by putting the wrong petrol into a vehicle of that kind.

§ LORD DENHAM
I was speaking from a purely selfish point of view, as the owner of the car. What is my position? Have I to treat this as a private of commercial vehicle?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The noble Lord's point—of which I confess I should have liked notice—is this: Is this vehicle a mechanically propelled vehicle intended of adapted for use on roads and constructed solely 915 for the carriage of passengers and their effects to carry not more than seven passengers, exclusive of the driver "? If it falls into that category it is a private vehicle, for the purpose of this Bill, and must have white petrol. If, on the other hand, it does not fall within this category, then for the purpose of this Bill it is a commercial vehicle and must have red petrol. Whether it does or does not fall into either category is a matter on which wild horses would not force me to express an opinion.

§ VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN
Will some statement be made by His Majesty's Government before long? Otherwise, nobody will know for which petrol they are to apply.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
I strongly urge the Government to put into the Bill the definition of a private vehicle. It is absolutely wrong that we should pass this Bill, which carries tremendous penalties of various kinds, without knowing what are the offences under it. As the Bill stands, you cannot tell whether a man is committing an offence or not. Regulations may be altered from month to month, or even more frequently, and I cannot see any great difficulty in inserting in the Bill at a later stage a definition of a private car.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The only difficulty—apart from that of time, which, of course, is important—is that if we put the definition into the Bill it becomes like the law of the Medes and Persians, and it cannot be altered except by another Bill. I suggest that it is better to keep it as a regulation. We are bound to learn as we go along. I cannot now express an opinion in anything like full detail, but these difficulties can be dealt with much more flexibly by means of regulation than by putting the matter into the Bill.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
The definition of a car is different from that applied to coupons. I understand that a circular has been sent to garage proprietors which states that …dealers will normally surrender ' private ' coupons (' L ' and ' N ' unit standard ration coupons and ' E,' ' S,' and ' T ' unit coupons) for deliveries of ' private ' petrol, and ' commercial ' coupons (' F,' ' G,' ' W,' ' X,' ' Y ' or ' Z ' unit coupons) far deliveries of ' commercial ' petrol. 916 I understand that the relationship between the car and these coupons has not a corresponding relationship with offences under this Bill, and I think that is a matter which should be understood. I believe that a good deal of black market dealing has been due to ignorance and a genuine unawareness of the relationship. It would be helpful if the Government could state what the relationship is between the car and the coupons.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The circular which has been sent to every garage proprietor states as follows: Under an Order coming into force on 18th May, and also under the Motor Spirit (Regulation) Bill, if and when it becomes law, it will be an offence to supply ' commercial ' petrol to a private vehicle. ' Private Motor Vehicle ' is defined…"— then follows the definition I read.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
That is to say, there is no offence in supplying red petrol against certain coupons, so long as the car is the right type of car?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Not under this Bill.

§ LORD CHERWELL
Is it possible that a vehicle defined as a private vehicle would be subject to the commercial vehicle speed limit?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
That does not arise under this Bill.

§ LORD CHERWELL
I understand that that was the position which arose in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Denham. He was told he was not to exceed thirty miles an hour as he was driving a commercial vehicle, and yet the vehicle under discussion is to be listed as a private vehicle.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
It is nothing to do with this Bill.

LORD GIFFORD
Is not the crux of the matter whether the vehicle is operating under a C licence or not?

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ On Question, Whether Clause 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I think this is a convenient point at which to raise certain questions of administration of which I have given the Government notice and to which they have been good enough to say that they will reply. Before I do so, 917 may I congratulate the Government upon having removed some of the "tank traps" from Clause 1 of the Bill? I observe that further clearing operations are contemplated in subsequent clauses, as the result of which we shall be a little safer on the roads. There are certain matters, which are, I think, of great importance to people in the agricultural areas and which ought to be cleared up here, both because they ought to know where they stand and also because in the rural areas we are perhaps a little slower at getting full information than are people in the large towns.
The first question I want to ask is: What kind of petrol will a farmer have to use in a car which is used generally with a trailer for his farm purposes? At present, of course, there is only one kind of petrol, white petrol, and the same kind of petrol goes into a tractor as goes into a car. If, in future, the farmer has to have white petrol in his car and red petrol in his tractor, what special ration of white petrol will he get? I know that I may be told (I probably shall be told) that, under the existing law or regulations, the farmer has had to apply for two different kinds of licence or permit—one to get petrol for his car and the other to get petrol for his tractor. But it has all been the same kind of petrol and, using his car as he does almost exclusively for his farm work, the farmer has not bothered very much about going to the nearest petrol pump to get the petrol for his tractor. It is all done with a couple of jerry-cans. The petrol being of the same kind, I do not suppose he has been very particular how he filled the tractor and how he filled the motor-car. They were both being used on the farm for the same kind of purpose. Therefore the farmer has not bothered to apply for an extra ration for his car.
It may well be that that is so. In fact, I know of a case where a farmer farming 400 or 500 acres has been given a quota of two or three gallons of petrol a month for his car. It is not enough petrol for his car. That farmer has never dealt in the black market, either in petrol or in farm commodities. He is one of the best farmers I know. The whole of his time, day and night, he spends on his farm but, as a matter of fact, he uses incomparably more than his two, three, four or five gallons in his car. That car is out on the farm the whole time, 918 carrying petrol to his tractor drivers or carrying seed to the men who are sowing. He uses it to go to market. He bays bullocks and has to go to a market twenty miles away in one direction or twenty-five miles away in another direction, buying cattle to put on his farm. That man, in the course of his work, in his motor-car which has never been used for joy-riding, has greatly exceeded the amount of petrol which he has been technically licensed to have in his car. If in future the farmers must have white petrol, as I gather they must, for their motor-cars, and must have a special allowance for those cars, I ask that they shall be given and rapidly given, what is necessary for them; otherwise, we shall be doing one of two things: either making the farmer commit a crime and put himself in peril, or holding up work upon the farm—and work in the most difficult months.
Would your Lordships observe, further, what an anomaly there may be in this business? Take the case of a farmer who has a commercial vehicle—as the noble Lord, Lord Denman, has—or a semi-commercial vehicle; at any rate, a vehicle licensed as a commercial vehicle. It is a light van. For that he will be able to get the red petrol, and will, presumably, get as much as he wants. But the majority of farmers do not have a vehicle like that. The majority of farmers have a small car, probably a ten horse-power Morris, Austin or Standard, and nine times out of ten it has a trailer behind it. Yet both types of vehicle are doing the same work; both are used in exactly the same way on farm work. Therefore, if in future the farmers who are in this position must have a special permit for what they put into their motor cars, I beg that there shall be given, and given promptly, a reasonable allowance, and that the regional directors to whom the farmers have to apply shall be told to treat those applications as priority applications; and, what is more, that there shall be a reasonable discretion during the first week or two, when this rather cumbrous system is getting under way. I need not point out to your Lordships, 90 per cent. of whom are much better farmers than I am, that June and July are critical months for getting on to the land. That is one thing I ask on behalf of the farmers.
The next thing to which I referred on Second Reading is the case of a parish where there is only one pump. I understand 919 that the Government propose to meet this in what I think is the only practical way. As I understand it, in a single-pump area, the pump will be filled with white petrol and it will be possible for the man to deliver white petrol in return for either white petrol coupons or red petrol coupons. That is all right, and I think it is the only way in which the situation can be met. It is perfectly right and reasonable that watch should be kept to see that this pump does not suddenly have an enormous increase in turnover, but where are these licences to be given? I quite appreciate that one cannot license every single-pump garage. I am told that there are quite a lot of them in London but there are certainly many hundreds of them in these country districts. And those ought to be licensed. I understand that originally the suggestion was that a special licence would be given to a single pump if there was not another pump within ten miles. From an Amendment of the Lord Chancellor on the Paper I now gather that that is reduced to seven miles. But why have this arbitrary limit of either ten or seven miles? Surely here we ought to look after the convenience of the people. Farmers ought to be able to get their petrol from the nearest possible pump. If the weather happens to turn good the one thing you do not want to waste in farming is time, and it is a waste of time to go a long way beyond where you need to go—leaving out the point that it means using more petrol. I thought the object of this Bill was to save petrol. If the object of this Bill is to save petrol, what earthly sense is there in saying that a farmer shall drive ten miles there and ten miles back to get his petrol, if there is a pump in his parish at his door? That does not seem to me to be common sense.
Therefore, I would beg of the Government, when they come to make these regulations, to lay down that wherever in a parish only a single pump is in use that pump shall automatically be licensed to deliver white petrol in the way proposed. No one can pretend that will be an evasion of the Act, or would help anybody to evade the Act or enable anybody to engage in the black market. Appeals are being made to us to-day by the Government, quite rightly, to do two things. We are asked to increase agricultural production. So do not let us put 920 further handicaps in the way of increasing agricultural production. We are also being asked to save petrol. Do not let us, therefore, put handicaps in the way of saving petrol. Do not force a man to go ten miles away to get his petrol. I cannot move an Amendment here because this matter is not in the Bill, but I beg the Government, in the name of common sense, to give us an assurance on both of these points.

§ VISCOUNT ADDISON
On behalf of my colleagues, I must thank the noble Viscount for having given us notice of this matter. We have taken the opportunity of having consultations about it. With regard to the first point, we entirely accept the contention of the noble Viscount that in many cases farmers habitually attach trailers to their motor-cars, and that apart from that they use the motor-car for the purposes of their business (as in the case of a man who is going buying stock, and in many other ways), far more than would be so with the basic ration. On that point the Ministry have had conferences with the National Farmers' Union and they have arrived at an understanding as to how the matter should be administered. Farmers will be given every facility for saying what increased quantity of white petrol they will require for the proper and full use of their cars in the conduct of their business as heretofore, and that will be properly and generously attended to. That is an understanding that has been reached, to the complete satisfaction, I think, of the National Farmers' Union, and arrangements will be made to deal with it promptly. I quite agree that in the first week or two one will have to make the best of a difficult situation.
With regard to the isolated pump it is proposed that in the more remote districts (such as those, say, of Scotland) the petrol which will be delivered in barrels, in the ordinary way, will be white petrol. In the case of the isolated pump, I agree it would be absurd where there is a pump nearby that a man should have to drive seven or ten miles there and back to get a fill-up. That would be foolish, and it must be avoided. Although I would not use the word "automatically", because naturally there must be some qualification, the practice will be quite freely and sensibly to license these pumps for white petrol, which can be used for general purposes, for commercial and more private use.

921

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
There will not be any artificial radius?

§ VISCOUNT ADDISON
There will not, but consideration will have to be given to these matters. We will not give an absolute pledge, but our assurance will be carried out in such a way as to deal freely and sensibly with all these remote pumps to which the noble Viscount has called attention. Apart entirely from the mileages he mentioned in the proposed Amendment, I think he will find that these cases are being sensibly dealt with on those lines.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I am much obliged to the noble Viscount. He has completely satisfied me on the first point, and almost on the second. I would not say that every single pump has to be licensed automatically. The noble Viscount, however, knows a good deal about agriculture in this country, but, quite honestly, it seems to me that whoever drafted this measure can never have been outside a town. As I understand it, the assurance, without giving an absolute pledge, is that every pump will automatically be licensed, and that the general principle will be that if there is a single pump in an area that pump will be licensed unless there is some good reason to the contrary.

§ Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.

§ Clause 2:

§ Offences by private motorists.

§ 2.—(1) If at any time commercial petrol is present in the tank of a private motor vehicle, the owner of the vehicle and the person (if he is a different person) then in charge of the vehicle shall each be guilty of an offence:

§ Provided that it shall be a defence for any person charged with such an offence to prove—

(a) that the petrol was put into the tank without his consent or connivance or without his knowing that it was commercial petrol;
(b) that he did not afterwards discover that the petrol was commercial petrol or had no reasonably convenient opportunity after such discovery of removing the petrol from the tank; and
(c) that he did not neglect to take any step which in the circumstances he might reasonably have been expected to take to prevent the petrol being in the tank.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
Before my noble friend Lord Saltoun moves his Amendment, might I suggest that it would perhaps be convenient if, on that Amendment, we were able generally to discuss 922 the Amendments on the Paper? There are some in my name and others in the name of the Government. It seems to me that they all hang together and it world probably be more convenient if we had a general discussion on Clause 2.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
If I may say so, I think that would be a convenient course, because I have a new Amendment down which radically alters the whole of the clause. I should welcome a wide discussion on any particular Amendment.

§ 3.28 p.m.

§ LORD SALTOUN moved, in subsection (1), after "vehicle" (where that word first occurs) to insert: and the court is satisfied that it was put into the tank with his consent or connivance.

§ The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name aid I am glad to say that since I came into the House this afternoon I have seen an Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, which makes me very happy. In fact, I move my Amendment only to give the Government a choice as to whether they prefer the one I have drafted or that of the noble Lord. I am also happy to feel that I do not have to say in support of my Amendment a great many of the things that I was going to say in the first instance. But there is one point with which I would like to deal. I have had some correspondence with the noble and learned Viscount who kindly wrote to me about it, and there is one point on this clause which I hope will be met by regulations. There is a racket which we are all anxious to stop, and the Russell Vick Report makes quite clear what that racket is. It is made up of the people who are using commercial coupons improperly. There is no question but that if those coupons are improperly used or sold—and the Report points out that considerable pressure has been used to get them sold—the people concerned are being wicked. Those who buy them and the middle-man are in the wrong, and the wretched private motor car owner who gets the commercial petrol in the end may be very wicked or may merely have been careless in a greater or less degree. It may be, as my noble friend put it in his letter, "gross lack of care." But quite venial lack of care, and sometimes not real lack of care at all but confidence in some body one has known for fifty years, may 923 lead to the same result, and put one into difficulty.

§ It is a very serious thing for any Bill to make it a greater crime to be a little careless about observance of a departmental regulation than it is to do what is really a very wicked thing indeed, and that is improperly to sell coupons which have been entrusted to you for certain purposes. There is nothing in this Bill about the wicked man who is the source of this petrol. I think that that is a mistake; even if you cannot catch him I think he should have been mentioned. We have recently been reminded in an eloquent speech by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Winchester that the public attach a sense of guilt in proportion to the penalties exacted for a crime, and under this clause a man for, perhaps, quite a venial act of carelessness may incur a severe penalty, while the really wicked man at the source of the offence is not mentioned at all. That is liable to give the public a distorted view of what is right and what is wrong in the matter under discussion. Finally, I would like to say that I think Lord Chorley's Amendment goes even further in the direction I wish to go than does my own Amendment, and I really prefer it. But I leave it to the Committee and to the general discussion which, no doubt, will now follow. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 2, line 9, after the first (" vehicle ") insert (" and the court is satisfied that it was put into the tank with his consent or connivance.")—(Lord Saltoun.)

§ 3.32 p.m.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
The Amendments which I have on the Paper are designed to meet two points. The first relates to the onus of proof. Quite frankly, I must say, speaking for myself, that I do not think it unreasonable that in the case of petrol of the wrong colour being used or being in a tank the onus of proof should be shifted. Unless that is done there may be difficulty in securing the conviction of the offender who has just been mentioned. It would be very hard, I think, to prove just those cases where the conduct was most reprehensible, because a man who is really engaged in the racket is a man who surrounds himself with every sort of precaution. He is not the kind of man 924 who does something in an out-of-the-way country district. He is much more likely to get his tank filled up in some place in a large town. I do not complain of there being some shifting of the onus of proof, provided that it does not go further than what I may call the "corruption" cases—that is, for example, cases where someone might offer a bribe to a civil servant. I do not know if any of your Lordships are in the habit of doing that, but I must warn you that you are presumed to be guilty of an offence unless you can prove that you did it from some very high motive. The onus of proof, I gather, shifts. But what I want to be sure about is in regard to the chain of things that a person has to prove—though I am glad to see that that chain is being steadily reduced by the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chorley. I want to be sure that the accused person has not got to do more than satisfy a reasonable bench of magistrates that he is probably telling the truth. That is why I have put down the words: "shall satisfy the court" rather than "prove."
I do not think there is anything in the least between us regarding intention in this case, because in another place the Attorney-General said—it appears in Column 1776 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for May 10: What the defendant is required to do under this clause, and hon. Members may think that this is not a heavy burden upon him, is to show that it is reasonably probable that he did not know that there was red petrol in his car, and that it is reasonably probable that he took all reasonable steps to avoid acquiring red petrol. Then the Attorney-General went on to cite what Mr. Justice Humphreys said in what I understand is regarded as the most recent leading case with regard to shifting of the onus of proof in corruption cases. Mr. Justice Humphreys said: …in any case where, either by statute or at common law, some matter is presumed against an accused person ' unless the contrary is proved,' the jury should be directed that it is for them to decide whether the contrary is proved; that the burden of proof required is less than that required at the hands of the prosecution in proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt; and that the burden may be discharged by evidence satisfying the jury of the probability of that which the accused is called on to establish. Speaking for myself, I would say that if it is clear that that is the measure 925 of proof which is to be required of the accused person in these cases, I do not think it is unreasonable. I would submit to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor that he might make it clear to us whether it is the intention that what I may call the "Humphreys' rule" shall apply in all cases of this kind. I would also ask the noble and learned Viscount what he considers are the most appropriate words to make that plain to the benches of magistrates who will have the duty of deciding these matters. If the Lord Chancellor tells me that "prove" is the right word, and that my words do not make the matter any better—perhaps they are not as good as the ones which he has selected—I shall be quite content. I shall be glad if he will advise us whether that is the intention, and whether the words he favours are more appropriately designed to give effect to it.
The other Amendments which I have on the Paper were designed to deal with the owner who is not in charge of the car at the time of the offence. The Bill, as drafted, put almost the same obligation upon the person in charge and upon the owner, whether the latter is in the car or not. I am glad to see that a large number of Amendments have been put on the Paper in relation to this matter, and I express my gratitude for them in advance. I may observe, in passing, that this is rather a good indication of the value of a Second Chamber on these occasions. I did a sum in addition before we had our Meeting, and I worked it out that the Government had forty Amendments on the Paper apart from a number which they have been good enough to indicate they are prepared to accept from us. I am glad to see that there are now further Amendments on the Paper. Our intention in some of these Amendments is undoubtedly the same. If an Amendment of the kind we have indicated is accepted, subsection (2) of this clause will not apply to any person other than the person in charge. The absent owner will not be dealt with at all under Clause 2. Paragraph (b) of Clause 2 (1) is to go out, and now, under the latest proposal of the Lord Chancellor—I am sorry to anticipate him in this matter—he is making some further modifications. What I want to put is from the point of view of the owner who is not in charge of the car at the time 926 of the committal of the offence. I think that the only thing he could reasonably be required to do would be to satisfy Clause 2 (1) (a), under which he has to prove: that the petrol was put into the tank without his consent or connivance or without his knowing that it was commercial petrol. We can disregard Clause 2 (1) (b) because that is to be deleted. I do not know about paragraph (c).

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
It goes altogether.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
If that is going to mean that the owner will get off if he satisfies Clause 2 (1) (a) then there appears to be nothing between us, we have all come together. I am beginning to think that this is not quite such a frightful Bill as I originally thought it was.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
May I ask the Lord Chancellor if he could clarify one point? We continue to deal with "the person in charge other than the owner." Must that always be the driver, or can it be some third person? Suppose the car was lent by the owner to his brother and the driver was under the orders of the brother, then the brother would presumably be in charge. Would the driver be taken as being equally in charge and both be held to be jointly in charge? Who is to determine the definition of "in charge of the car"?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Broadly speaking, that is a question of fact. The person in charge is the person in the position to give instructions about what the car is to do and where it is to go—whoever generally dominates the situation. If the owner and the chauffeur are together, it is obviously the owner who is in charge of the car. If the brother is merely being taken to the station, then presumably it would be the chauffeur. But if the car has been lent by the owner to his brother for the day to go where he likes, then it would be presumably the brother, and not the chauffeur, who was in charge of the car. It depends wholly on the circumstances.
May I say a word about the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun? The improper and illegal transfer of coupons is punished by fine or imprisonment, and that is already provided for under existing law. We do not need to deal with that matter here. The reason why we must 927 have this Bill is because we are having this special qualification and we must have these refinements.
With regard to the word "prove," the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has got his law quite right. There are many cases to-day where, as a matter of public policy, the onus in a criminal case is put on the defendant, where some preliminary fact is proved and the explanation for this fact is peculiarly within the knowledge of the defendant. A simple illustration is in regard to the possession of housebreaking tools at night. Another simple illustration is that of a person who is in possession of recently stolen goods. There are many other illustrations—for example, giving a present to a civil servant. In all these cases, the person against whom that preliminary fact is shown has to prove the circumstances were such that his possession of these articles was proper. He has to prove he had some good reason for being in possession of housebreaking tools—that he was taking them to an exhibition of housebreaking tools, for instance. The law is quite plain, and quite plainly here the word used is "prove." Here the onus is cast on the defendant to get out of the prima facie case against him, but he has not to give anything like the extensive proof required of the prosecution. It is enough for him to produce evidence satisfying the jury or the court of the probability, the reasonableness, of the story he tells. The direction to the jury would not be, "If you are going to let this defendant off, the onus is on him, and therefore you must be satisfied he has established his innocence." It would be this:" The onus is on the defendant, but if you think the explanation which he gives is a reasonable one, then you shall let him off." That is established in the case of Carr-Braint in regard to this very word "prove." We are here using the word "prove" and I think it is the appropriate word to use to bring in the Carr-Braint doctrine. I apologise for having to bring this forward at so late a stage, but I applied my mind to it only yesterday morning.
Now I will tell you what I propose to do in Clause 2. I will read it as it is going to be: (1) If at any time commercial petrol is present in the tank of a private motor vehicle, 928 the owner of the vehicle and the person (if he is a different person) then in charge of the vehicle shall each be guilty of an offence: Provided that it shall be a defence for any person charged with such an offence "— whether the owner or the person in charge— to prove— (a) that he was not present or in charge of the vehicle when the petrol was put into the tank, and that it was put into the tank without his consent or connivance "— an owner has only to explain that it was not done in any way with his consent or connivance; his chauffeur did the thing— or (b) that he was present or in charge of the vehicle when the petrol was put into the tank, but that he did not know that it was commercial petrol and exercised all reasonable diligence to prevent such petrol being put into the tank. If he can prove those things in the sense in which we use the word "prove," then he gets off. I think that is a very reasonable way of dealing with this matter.
But I have come to the conclusion that I have gone a little too far. I think your Lordships will agree I have gone too far, and on Report stage I may have to ask your Lordships to consider an Amendment to the next clause. Take this case. Suppose a man lends his car to the district nurse in order that she may take somebody to hospital, and she, being by no means so innocent as she looks, goes to a garage and gets the tank, which contained a very little white petrol—a common enough state in these days—filled to the brim with red petrol. The district nurse returns the car and the owner discovers it nearly full with red petrol. Honesty demands that in those circumstances he should not go on using that red petrol. He would have no difficulty in getting off. But if he does go on using the red petrol and half empties the tank and then has it filled with white petrol, it still contains the red ingredient. It would be like a cask of Napoleon brandy from which some had been drawn off and which had been filled up again with all sorts of liquid during the last hundred years, and is still called Napoleon brandy. It seems to me that in the clause as I have drafted it, we do not deal with that situation, and I should like to stake out a claim so as not to take your Lordships by surprise if, in the still watches of the night, I work out some method of dealing with that matter.
929 For the moment, the Amendment I shall propose deals with the first part of the clause, and I hope deals with it to your Lordships' satisfaction. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, that in this class of case it is quite impracticable to put the onus on the prosecution. Having established the fact that there is red petrol, it is only fair that the onus should shift to the person in charge of the car, provided we give him some reasonable methol of discharging the prima facie case against him.
When we come to subsection (2), which says, If any person acquires any commercial petrol for use in a private motor vehicle, we take out all the succeeding words and insert "he shall" and then continue: be guilty of an offence: Provided that it shall be a defence for any person charged with such an offence to prove— (a) that the petrol was acquired "— and we leave out the words in line 31, "without his consent or connivance or "— without his knowing that it was commercial petrol. That being so, I submit that we have here a very fair and perfectly workable clause, which in its amended form I would commend to your Lordships.

§ 3.50 p.m.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
Would your Lordships allow me to say something on this matter because it is very largely a question of following and appreciating the exact language? I should like to say, first, that I had the strongest objection to the proviso to Clause 2 (1) in the Bill as printed. I thought it was most unfair and required the owner or the person in charge of the vehicle—whatever the meaning of that may be—to do things which he ought not to be bound to do, to escape very severe penalties. Having said that, I would add that, apart from one comment, I would advise the Committee that Clause 2, as amended by the last Amendments which the Government have produced, is far more satisfactory. Speaking with all deference to anyone who takes the other view, I think the Amendments which the Lord Chancellor has read out are reasonable, and do not impose an unfair burden upon the owner or the person in charge of the car.
930 I said that there was one comment which I should like to make on hat. I feel, even now, that the last words of subsection (2) (b) as contained in the last Amendments involve something that is not quite fair to the person charged. The person charged may prove that he did not know that the petrol in the tank was commercial petrol. Then come the words which I do not think are quite reasonable: and exercised all reasonable diligence to prevent such petrol being put into the tank; That raises a point which touches ail of us. We have all been in a car, whether or not we have been in charge of it, which has pulled up at a garage, as near as possible to the place where the pump was working. Somebody has come up, and we have said: "Three gallons"—or it may be more. The pump has then teen connected by the ordinary pipe, and somebody has watched the gauge. It has then been screwed up, and off we have driven. For my part, whatever we put into an Act of Parliament, I do not believe that we shall change that practice among motorists, particularly if is realised that it may be done in conditions of darkness. In such a case the person is doing nothing, except sitting back, having ordered the correct petrol to be put into his car.
I do not in the least object to imposing upon him the necessity of asking for white petrol. But the phrase used suggests that, in addition to not knowing that he is getting commercial petrol, he has to exercise "all reasonable diligence." I ask myself what that means, and I think there are people who will come to the conclusion that it means something more than sitting quietly in your car; and who will say that that is not reasonable diligence? The owner could no doubt get out of his car and put his finger under the tap, or something of that sort. I do not know what it is suggested that he should do. But it is not reasonable to ask him to do that, and it is unlikely that anything will happen to alter the practice of doing nothing more than asking for the right sort of petrol and getting it through the ordinary commercial pump. What I venture to suggest to the Government is that the last words, and exercised all reasonable diligence, ought to be put the other way round, and that there should be a sentence to the effect that a man is not in any way guilty 931 of negligence in connection with the filling of the tank. He ought not to be positively negligent. In the case I am postulating he would not have to prove anything more than that he was sitting quietly while his tank was being filled. The phrase, "and exercised all reasonable diligence," will puzzle magistrates very much. They will not know what it is intended should be done; and if they say the motorist is intended to do anything more than ask for his tank to be supplied with the amount of petrol that he wants, then I say it is unreasonable. For that reason the Committee ought to insist on it being improved.
There is only one thing further I wish to say, and it is something which refers not only to this clause, but also to a number of other clauses. As I am desirous—as I am sure we all are—of making this Bill work, I am inclined to think that the Government ought to put something in to show what they mean by "commercial petrol." The phrase in this clause is, but that he did not know that it was commercial petrol. Suppose that it is 10 per cent., 20 per cent. or 50 per cent. commercial petrol. Is that an offence? I do not know. I think something ought to be inserted in the Bill to show that by commercial petrol is meant a substantial percentage of the fluid which is issued as commercial petrol. If there are only traces of it, there ought not to be any liability or any prosecution.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
I would like to ask the Lord Chancellor one thing. As the matter was explained by the noble and learned Viscount, it was very clear and simple. But these cases are to be tried by very junior courts. The case of Carr-Braint was decided only in 1943, many years after the Statute had been passed. I understood the Attorney-General to say that a previous decision was not affected in the present state of the law in that respect. I would like to quote what the Attorney-General said on May 10 on another point: He does not have to prove affirmatively at all; all he has to show to the satisfaction of the court is that it is reasonably probable that something occurred. Then the Attorney-General said: That is something quite different from proof. 932 With great respect, the word "proof" is the word in the Bill. If it is something quite different from proof, ought we not to change the Bill, or, shall I say, to have some circular which draws the attention of junior courts to this particular provision, because it is not the ordinary, common or garden meaning of the word "proof"?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
With regard to the last point that has been raised, the case of Carr-Braint in 1943 found its way into Stone's Justices' Manual, the book on which Justices rely. It is a very well known case. That is a case in which the word is "proof." It is, therefore, a plain statement of the law dealing with how to construe a Statute casting on to the defendant the onus to prove something. I think we should be ill-advised to depart from that principle, since it has been established by that case. If the Justices do go wrong, of course, there is always an appeal from them on this point, and the matter can go to a higher court. But I am sure they will not go wrong.
I now come to the point of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham. He will find on page 1, line 16, of the Bill that "commercial petrol" is defined as petrol which contains any of the prescribed ingredients (hereafter in this Act referred to as ' commercial petrol '). When the noble and learned Viscount comes to the Interpretation Clause if he looks at the word "prescribed" he will find that it means: prescribed by regulations made by the Minister of Fuel and Power under this Act.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
You think you can do it by regulations?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Yes. With regard to the other point about which the noble and learned Viscount was not happy—namely, the words exercised all reasonable diligence to prevent such petrol being put into the tank "—

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
The words are "and exercised." He has to do both things.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
These are the words we have used at the top of Page 2: …and that he exercised all reasonable diligence to prevent the petrol being in the pump. 933 It seems to me that exactly the same criterion ought to apply. If I go into a garage at night (I will take the extreme case, where it is as dark as pitch and raining like mad) and I give the man the coupons and say, "I want three gallons of white petrol, please," assuming I have drawn up at the right pump then I cannot think that any sensible Bench of magistrates would say that I had omitted to do anything I ought to have done, or that I had not exercised all reasonable diligence. On the other hand, we know that these pumps in remote areas are sometimes attended by a small child. If I found a small child there I should think it only proper to take steps to see that I had gone to the appropriate pump. I should want to see that the pump to which I had gone was marked "Private" and was not marked "Commercial." Although it is, of course, impossible to deal with all the circumstances, I do not think that a Bench of magistrates—because as a rule they are very sensible people—would have much difficulty in deciding on the facts of the particular case, whether or not the motorist had acted reasonably. I do not think it unfair to say that if the person in charge of the car wants to get off when he is found to have red petrol in his tank, he must show, first, that he did not know it was commercial petrol and, secondly, that he exercised reasonable diligence to secure the right petrol. I think that is not an undue onus, and I must ask your Lordships to agree with us in that.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
I would like the Lord Chancellor to consider this further argument. Clause 1 of this Bill relates simply and solely to persons who carry on the business of supplying motor spirit by retail. Those are the men with whom we are dealing and they should know the petrol with which they are dealing. The factors which determine whether they have improperly used petrol are absolutely different from those which should apply to an ordinary private motorist, into whose tank it is said that commercial petrol has found its way. They are as different as chalk from cheese, and I strongly object to the notion that the question of whether a motor dealer has used reasonable diligence should also apply to an unfortunate motorist who may have little experience with regard to driving, who may have recently obtained a licence and 934 as to whom all you can say is that he does what has been the practice of ordinary drivers since motor-cars came into use.
Therefore, I submit and maintain my view that it is not right to say, as it is said in paragraph (b) of the new Clause 2, that he has to prove that he did not know that the petrol put into the tank was commercial petrol, and, moreover, that he exercised what is called "all reasonable dilegence." Ordinarily, he would not know that in the filling up, in the circumstances I have mentioned. The Lord Chancellor himself suggested that if a child came and attended to the pump a motorist might have all sorts of liabilities. I think he visualised a case when it was as black as pitch and pelting with rain. A motorist still has to supervise the actions of this hypothetical child, who comes out at midnight under these circumstances to fill his tank. In all human probability, however, one would not know who was filling it. One is sitting back, somebody is working a pump and petrol is flowing into the tank, as can be seen from the gauge. This is not our Amendment; it is proposed by the Government and is an excellent Amendment, as a whole, but I think they should further consider whether it is necessary that an ordinary motorist should be bound to do something positive, besides ordering it in the proper way, to present the petrol being pound into his tank

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
May I just point out to the Lord Chancellor that in the Bill as drafted he himself drew a distinction between the man who runs a garage—who I think ought to be under very special obligation—and this sort of case? The garage-owner has to use all reasonable diligence, but if the Lord Chancellor looks at Clause 2 (1) (c), as it was originally in the Bill he will see: that he did not neglect to take any step which in the circumstances he might reasonably have been expected to take to prevent the petrol being in the tank. The Lord Chancellor took the view hat the words "not neglect" were good words because it was deliberately made negative and not positive.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will cirtainly look at that between now and to-morrow. I am told that I was responsible for putting it into the negative, yet I must point out that the noble Lord, Lord 935 Balfour of Inchrye, did not like that at all, and put in the words "took reasonable steps."

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I think he was quite wrong.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Of course, I was naturally guided by such a shining light as the noble Lord! However, I will look at it and see if I can devise an Amendment in the negative form and find out whether there is an objection to so doing. I have gone very far in this Amendment, but I will look into it, although I do not promise anything.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
It has been suggested to me by one of your Lordships that perhaps the word "or" might be inserted before "exercised," so that only one thing or the other is necessary. I am not sure whether that would meet the point, but perhaps that is something the Lord Chancellor will consider.

LORD CLYDESMUIR
May I raise one point which might better be raised on the question whether the clause stand part, but which I think would be in order here? I would like to sound a note of anxiety about offences which I think will arise—perhaps from bona fide reasons—owing to the definition of what is a private vehicle. There are a great number of small delivery vans and small border-line estate vans on the road just now with C licences which, under the definition given by the noble and learned Viscount, will become private cars. During the period while these are being classified, it seems likely that there will be some mistakes made and some offences committed. I would sound that note of anxiety, and I hope that the provisions of the Lord Chancellor is now making in the clause will be sufficient to meet such cases.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will look at it.

LORD SALTOUN
I have been looking for an opportunity of withdrawing my Amendment in favour of the Government Amendment, but there is one point I should like to make. Under the first proviso of Clause 2 as it originally stood, I think that, except in very special circumstances, the fact that a man could prove all 936 those things would almost indicate that he was "up to something." I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ 4.11 p.m.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I beg to move this Amendment.

§ Amendment moved—

§ Page 2, line 14, leave out from beginning to end of line 24 and insert— (a) that he was not present or in charge of the vehicle when the petrol was put into the tank, and that it was put into the tank without his consent or connivance; or (b) that he was present or in charge of the vehicle when the petrol was put into the tank, but that he did not know that it was commercial petrol and exercised all reasonable diligence to prevent such petrol being put into the tank; "—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ On question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I beg to move this Amendment.

§ Amendment moved— Page 2, line 26, leave out from (" he ") to (" be ") in line 28 and insert ("shall").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I beg to move this Amendment.

§ Amendment moved— Page 2, line 31, leave out (" without his consent or connivance or ").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.

§ Clause 3:

§ Other offences.

§ 3. If any person—

§ (b) puts commercial petrol into the tank of a private motor vehicle in circumstances which do not make him guilty of an offence under Section one of this Act;

§ he shall be guilty of an offence;

§ Provided that anything done by a person authorised by the Minister of Fuel and Power or the Petroleum Board or done for the purposes of the enforcement of this Act or in connection with any proceedings in respect of an offence under this Act shall not constitute any such offence as is mentioned in paragraph (c), paragraph (d) or paragraph (e) hereof.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE moved to delete paragraph (b). The noble Lord said: I move this Amendment 937 for purposes of clarification. I and other noble Lords were at a loss to understand why this omnibus provision was included. One suspects any Government Bills which set out various matters in omnibus provisions of this sort. It gives rather large powers to the Executive and we should like some information as to why it is required. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 2, line 43, leave out paragraph (b).—(Lord Balfour of Inchrye.)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The object of this provision is to deal with two classes of persons. One is the rather malicious practical joker who perhaps has a syringe containing some of the precribed ingredients and goes round at some race meeting or something of that kind and injects a little of the prescribed ingredient into the tanks of the cars there. That is seriously put up as being a possible danger, and I can conceive that in some cases maliciously-minded persons might do such a thing. Therefore, it is desirable to make plain to anybody of the kind that he is committing an offence if he injects that stuff into the tanks. The second class of person is the garage hand. If your Lordships will look at Clause 1, you will find that it deals only with persons who carry on the business of supplying motor spirit retail. That does not apply to a garage hand. Therefore, if the garage hand commits an offence deliberately we must equally make him responsible. Those are, at any rate, two classes of persons, and I am sure that noble Lords will agree that we must make it plain that if they do these things they are guilty of an offence.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
I thank the noble and learned Viscount for his explanation and beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This Amendment is preparatory to the next. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 3, line 6, leave out (" or ").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY moved, at the end of paragraph (e) to insert: or (f) except in such cases and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed, adds to any 938 motor spirit or removes from any commercial petrol any red colouring matter of a prescribed description.

§ The noble Lord said: As your Lord ships are aware, it is the intention that commercial petrol shall be readily and at once distinguishable from private or white petrol, and that for that purpose a red dye is to be added. It was accordingly intended that the red dye should be specified as one of the prescribed ingredients and it would, of course, in that event be an offence to have any petrol containing that red dye in the tank of a private motor vehicle. The clause now, in two of its paragraphs, (c) and (d), deals with the position on that assumption. But it has been found that a difficulty arises because, on the Continent particularly, it is quite common, apparently, to put red dye into all the pumps, and people returning with their cars after travelling abroad might very well have in their tanks petrol which contains the red dye. It has been decided, therefore, that the red dye in the petrol cannot be made one of the prescribed ingredients. Your Lordships will agree that, nevertheless, it would be quite wrong to allow the red dye to be put into the wrong petrol, because that would give rise to all sorts of difficulties and might lead to wrong prosecutions. Therefore, since (c) and (e) will no longer be operative to deal with the position of the red dye, as opposed to the chemical ingredient, it has been found necessary to add a further paragraph—the new paragraph (f)—which it is the purpose of this Amendment to add. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 3, line 8, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This Amendment is consequential on the Amendment already moved to Clause 1 and it applies to employees at garages as that Amendment applies to proprietors. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved—

§ Page 3, line 10, after ("that") insert— ("(i) it shall be a defence for any person charged with the offence mentioned in paragraph (b) hereof to prove that he acted in the reasonable belief that the vehicle was not a private motor vehicle; and (ii)")

§ —(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

939

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE moved, in the proviso, to omit "or the Petroleum Board." The noble Lord said: This Amendment proposes to exclude the Petroleum Board from the provisions of this particular proviso. The proviso, as at present drafted, allows some persons authorised by the Minister of Fuel and Power or the Petroleum Board to commit acts which, if they were not privileged persons, would in fact constitute crime. The Petroleum Board, I understand, are a trade body composed of high officials and members of the oil industry, serving in a voluntary capacity and working under directions from the Minister, who are, indeed, due to be dissolved on June 30. We always have an inherent dislike of delegated powers of exclusion of outside persons or outside bodies from provisions of an Act of Parliament. As the Bill reads at present, it says that any person authorised by the Petroleum Board may carry out with impunity acts done for the purpose of enforcement or in connection with proceedings under this Act—as it will be. In various Government Departments, there have been unpleasant cases of the agent provocateur. We have seen this practice criticised very strongly by the courts, particularly in the case of the Ministry of Food. I am hoping that the Ministry of Fuel and Power will never come to that state, but they may feel it necessary to have an enforcement officer to induce somebody whom he suspects to commit a crime. Under this Bill, the Petroleum Board could equally well do that. I think it is very dangerous to allow this power to go outside the Executive, which is under the direct control of the Legislature. I understand that the Petroleum Board work under the directions of the Minister and, in the interests of trying to restrict the powers given outside the Executive, I beg to move this Amendment.

§ Amendment moved— Page 3, line 11, leave out ("or the Petroleum Board.")—(Lord Balfour of Inchrye.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
I hope the noble Lord will not press this Amendment. What he says, of course, is quite right. The Petroleum Board are to be wound up at the end of next month, and I think he will agree that the fact that the Petroleum Board are mentioned in this proviso, is not a very serious problem from the 940 point of view of the agent provocateur difficulties about which he spoke.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
On principle, yes.

§ LORD CHORLEY
On principle, but not as a matter of practical politics!

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
No, but on principle.

§ LORD CHORLEY
From the point of view of practical politics, since the Petroleum Board are to be wound up at the end of next month, and since the administrative arrangements as between the Ministry and the Petroleum Board are all in existence and will operate during this first and difficult month during which this Act is working, if the Petroleum Board were taken out of this proviso, it would mean that complicated administrative arrangements would have to be made to replace the delegation which is made by the Minister to the Petroleum Board and which would exist during that month. So that, if the noble Lord insisted on this and your Lordships accepted it, it would mean that a complicated administrative position would arise, which would give rise to a good deal of additional work. It is purely on those grounds that I ask the noble Lord not to press his Amendment.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
The noble Lord said just now that he did not wish us to interfere with the delegation by the Minister to the Petroleum Board. I have no objection at all, and I am sure your Lordships have no objection, to the delegation by the Minister to the Petroleum Board. What we object to is the giving of blank powers to the Petroleum Board who need not act through the Minister, if the Bill is passed as at present drafted.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
Why should it not be possible under the existing words? Are not the Petroleum Board the persons authorised by the Minister?

§ VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN
As I understood from what the noble Lord said, the position at the moment is this. There are certain people now in the employment of the Petroleum Board who are to be transferred on June 30 to the Ministry of Fuel and Power, and mention of the Petroleum Board in this clause is in order that those 941 particular individuals should carry on with the job which they are eventually to do under the Ministry.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I speak without wishing to be dogmatic about the matter, but, as I understand it, when the Petroleum Board come to an end, the powers will revert, so to speak, to the individual and distributing companies, and certain delegations or authorities will then be issued to proper officers in these companies. That can be done, of course, because there will be some weeks in which to make the arrangements; but during the intervening period it would obviously be an advantage if the Petroleum Board could continue to operate as they have been doing in the past.

LORD GIFFORD
I think it is a most extraordinary situation. Surely the Minister can make an order to the Chairman of the Petroleum Board authorising certain of his employees to carry out certain duties? If that is done, why need the words "or the Petroleum Board" be in at all? He is not going to tell each individual person; he has only to send an authorisation to the Chairman of the Board.

§ LORD CHORLEY
After the words or the Petroleum Board appear the words or done for the purposes of the enforcement of this Act. That seems to cover the point.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
What is it that the Petroleum Board gentlemen are going to do? I understood that they were not to be concerned with prosecutions, which were to be handled by people appointed by the Minister. Could the noble Lord tell us what are the functions to be exercised by the Petroleum Board? That would greatly simplify the matter.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I cannot tell the noble Viscount exactly what the functions are to be, but obviously some of the people who are responsible for the distribution of the petrol will have to take charge of the arrangements for adding those ingredients and colouring materials.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
But all that would be done for the purposes of the enforcement of the Act, as the noble Lord has just pointed out. Do those words 942 cover anything that the Petroleum Board would do?

§ LORD CHORLEY
Yes, I think they do.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
Perhaps the noble Lord would consider between now and the next stage whether the words are in the least degree necessary.

§ LORD CHORLEY
If the noble Lord insists; but I cannot see that the words are of any great mischief, except theoretically.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
Or of any great value!

§ LORD CHORLEY
Or of any very great value.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment, on the understanding that the noble Lord will between now and the Report stage look to see whether we are not giving greater powers to the Petroleum Board, in the way that I described earlier, than are necessary—and, indeed, than could be given by the Minister under his powers of delegation.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I will certainly do that.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This and the following Amendment, if your Lordships will take them together, are consequential on the Amendments I moved a minute ago to page 3, line 6, and page 3, line 8. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 3, line 15, leave out (" or ").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to

§ LORD CHORLEY
I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 3, line 15, after (" (e) ") insert (' or paragraph (f) ").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD SHEPHERD moved to add to the clause: and (ii) anything done by an inspector of weights and measures, or a person acting under his direction, for the purposes of the Weights and Measures Acts, 1878 to 1936, or any regulations made under those Acts, shall not constitute any such offence as is mentioned in paragraph (a) hereof.

943

§ The noble Lord said: The clause we are now discussing gives a list of five actions, each of which constitutes an offence. As has already been pointed out, the proviso to the clause absolves officers appointed by the Petroleum Board or by the Minister from any action they may take in regard to three of those. There is, however, another set of people in whom I am much interested who think they ought to have similar protection. Before mentioning those people I would like to draw your Lordships' attention to the three actions for which absolution will be given—namely, the removal from commercial petrol of any of the prescribed ingredients; the adding of any ingredients to commercial petrol with a view to neutralising, disguising or producing any chemical change in any of the prescribed ingredients, and the addition of the prescribed ingredients to any motor spirit. I draw your attention to those three points because, it will be apparent that the action taken in connection with them would be deliberate. Any person, whether employed by the Minister or not, would know exactly what he was doing in connection with them. Notwithstanding that, I approve of the absolution that is given in the Bill to those employed by the Minister, and I would like to see it extended now to inspectors of Weights and Measures who, from time to time, are under obligation to make a proper test of the pumps and other appliances used in garages. These inspectors check the accuracy of a pump by withdrawing the quantity indicated on the dial of the pump into a standard measure, and when the pump is driven by a motor they have also to satisfy themselves that the limiting device incorporated in the pump cuts the motor out after the prescribed amount of spirit—which may be eleven gallons or twenty gallons according to the type of pump in use.

§ The spirit withdrawn from the pump in the test is then returned to the tank by the inspector or his assistant, and it enters the suction line of the pump shown to the inspector by the garage proprietor. It will be obvious at once that the inspector or his assistant returns the petrol drawn for the purpose of test into a tank only on direction, and therefore it is not a deliberate act on their part. Because of that, I think that as they are 944 in danger of returning the petrol to the wrong tank, they ought to be protected in the way I have indicated in my Amendment. The storage tank and the petrol pump are, for the purposes of this Bill, part of one piece of machinery, and there are few garage proprietors themselves who are able to decide the precise line those suction pumps may take from the inlet to the tank itself. It may be that they are acquainted with the inlet but, on a busy day, in giving directions to officers of the Ministry or to inspectors of Weights and Measures, they may easily go wrong. If they go wrong and commercial petrol is put into the petrol tank marked "Private," then they have committed an offence. The London County Council, who have interested themselves in this matter, and I believe the Board of Trade, who are responsible for inspectors of Weights and Measures, would be glad if these men could be given protection such as is indicated in the Amendment which I now move. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 3, line 15, at end, insert the said sub-proviso.—(Lord Shepherd.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
I regret that I am not able to accept this Amendment which the noble Lord moved in a persuasive speech, in which he pointed out that it was necessary that the officials and servants of the Minister should have protection. He went on to claim that it was desirable that that protection should be extended to other classes of officials and servants, and not only—

§ LORD SHEPHERD
I beg your pardon: what I said was that it should be extended to inspectors of Weights and Measures, but not "to other persons."

§ LORD CHORLEY
Well, extended to a certain group of other persons—namely, this particular group, the inspectors of Weights and Measures. I think your Lordships will agree that it is undesirable that protections of this kind should be extended beyond the limits which are absolutely necessary, and that officials should be put in a privileged position in this way, unless it is absolutely essential in the public interest. If an exception of this kind is made, obviously it is possible that other claims to exception will be forthcoming and will be pressed. Therefore, 945 unless a very strong case indeed can be made out, your Lordships will probably think that it is unwise that this exception should be given to these particular officers. After all, it is not a very likely event that this will happen, if the officers take care over what they are doing. It is very desirable indeed that all care should be taken. Great obligations to take care are being placed on the general motoring community, and, prima facie, it is right that officials coming to make inspections should equally take care. I point out, further, that an offence coming under this clause is not one which attracts the automatic penalty, so that if the inspector in question were, in fact, prosecuted, he could make his defence perfectly well, and if the court thought that it was just a temporary lapse or carelessness, or something like that, it would be perfectly within their competence to inflict a purely nominal penalty. In those circumstances, I think your Lordships will agree that this is an Amendment which ought not to be accepted.

§ LORD SHEPHERD
I am rather sorry that the Government have not seen their way to accept this Amendment, and I would like to ask my noble friend if he will undertake to give further consideration to the matter and perhaps, to deal with it on Report. There are one or two points involved to which I would like to draw his attention. First of all, in view of the importance of being quite sure whether the proper petrol goes into the proper pump, nobody other than those dealing in petrol should, I suggest, be permitted to put petrol into the pump. Is it not opening the doors widely if persons other than the garage proprietor and the drayman who brings the petrol put the petrol into the pump? I can imagine great difficulties arising out of this matter. If, for instance, I, as an inspector of weights and measures, turned up to-day at a garage, and in carrying out my functions returned the wrong petrol to a pump, and to-morrow another inspector came to test the kind of petrol that was contained in that pump, the garage proprietor and the magistrates would be in great difficulties in bringing the case to a test. I would therefore like to suggest to the noble Lord that in future inspectors of weights and measures should not be permitted to pass the petrol back 946 into the pumps and that that responsibility should be left with the garage proprietor.
The second suggestion I would like to make to the noble Lord deals with the marking of the pumps. At present so far as I can make out, it is proposed only to put a label on the outlet of the pump to indicate whether it contains commercial or private spirit. In view of the importance of the issues which I have raised, would it not also be desirable that the inlet to the pump reservoir should bear a label also so that if inspectors still have to carry through this work the libel may make it quite clear as to the appropriate place in which the petrol should go? I hope the noble Lord will be able to give me some assurance that these matters will be considered on Report

§ LORD CHORLEY
Naturally, I am glad to give the noble Lord an assurance that these matters will be carefully looked at. I think he will agree that, substantially, they are matters which would be better met by administrative arrangements than by clauses in the Bill. I can assure him that, from that point of view, the matters which he has raised will certainly be looked at.

§ LORD SHEPHERD
In view of the fact that I may be able to raise these matters on Report, I beg to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.

§ Clause 4:

§ Disqualification of retail dealers for twelve months after conviction.

§ (6) Where any person appeals against his conviction for any such offence as is mentioned in any of the first three subsections of this section, the court by which he was convicted or the court to which the appeal is made may, if it thinks fit, pending the appeal, suspend the operation of that subsection in relation to that conviction, and, if it does so and the appeal is dismissed, this section shall have effect as if for the references to a period of twelve months after the conviction there were substituted references to a period of twelve months after the dismissal of the appeal.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR had given Notice of a number of Amendments to the clause. The noble and learned Viscount said: I have a group of Amendments to move at this stage.

947

§ The first one is at page 3, line 19, and it reads: "after ' Act ' insert ' then, subject as hereinafter provided '." That and the four following Amendments are merely to prepare the way for what is coming. What is coming is this. We are going, first of all, to correct something that has been pointed out to me. We ought not to talk about "appeals," but about "giving notice of appeal," in order to make clear the position about a stay of execution. The second point which we have put in the clause provides, to some extent, so far as we can, for the case of the isolated garage. If it is knocked out of business a great deal of harm may be done to people in the neighbourhood. These Amendments are merely by way of drafting and as I say, preparing the way for amendment on those two matters. On page 4, line 10, we have an Amendment to leave out (" appeals ") and insert (" give notice of appeal "). I beg to move.

§ Amendments moved—

§ Page 3, line 19, after ("Act") insert ("then, subject as hereinafter provided")

§ Page 3, line 29, after ("Act") insert ("then, subject as hereinafter provided")

§ Page 3, line 42, after ("offence") insert ("then, subject as hereinafter provided")

§ Page 3, Page 4, line 10, leave out ("appeals") and insert ("gives notice of appeal")

§ Page 3, line 13, after ("is") insert ("to be")—(The Lord Chancellor..)

§ On Question, Amendments agreed to.

§ LORD GHORLEY had also given Notice of a number of Amendments to the clause. The noble Lord said: There are two separate groups of Government Amendments on this clause. Those in the group which I desire to move all relate to page 4. They come at line 13, line 14, line 16 and line 19, and there is a further one at line 19. With the Committee's permission, I should like to take them all together. They are really all of a drafting character, except for one of them that is of some substance. That one is to the first part of Clause 4 and it comes on page 4 at line 19. As the clause stands, in the event of an appeal against a conviction carrying a disqualification, the disqualification may be suspended pending that appeal, but if the appeal is dismissed the twelve months' disqualification runs from the date of dismissal. This Amendment provides that the twelve months 948 shall be shortened by the period elapsing between the conviction and the suspension. Therefore, the Amendment is liberal and assists the appellant. A similar Amendment was moved in another place and was accepted in principle by the Attorney-General, who undertook that the necessary Amendment would be moved in due course. The other four Amendments in this group are consequential. Perhaps I ought to draw your Lordships' attention to the last of them, which is also at page 4, line 19. This makes it clear that proceedings by certiorari to quash a conviction are to be treated as an appeal. I beg to move.

§ Amendments moved—

§ Page 4, line 13, after ("convicted") insert ("or any court of summary jurisdiction for the same petty sessional division or place as that court ")

§ Page 4, line 14, after (" appeal ") insert (" by order ")

§ Page 4, line 16, after (" dismissed ") insert (" or abandoned ")

§ Page 4, line 19, after (" dismissal ") insert (" or abandonment ")

§ Page 4, line 19, at end insert (" less the period (if any) between the date of the conviction and the date of the order of the court under this subsection.

§ For the purposes of this subsection, the bringing of proceedings before the High Court to quash a conviction by order of certiorari shall be deemed to be an appeal ").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
Might I ask the noble Lord a question on the Amendment which he has just mentioned? I do not know what an order of certiorari is. It is not an expression which we use in Scotland. If the matter is of any consequence, perhaps he would look at it and will see whether it is not advisable that another word should be used.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I do not think that would apply to Scotland. It is a method of bringing a case from an inferior court to the High Court in order that the decision may be looked at by the High Court and, if necessary, quashed—it might be on some point of law. A defendant might feel that the magistrate's court had gone wrong and that he would wish to have the case taken to a High Court.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
Is that what we call a "stated case"?

§ LORD CHORLEY
It is much the same.

949

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
Is it necessary to state the case? The important issue here is where the appeal starts. I am only asking the noble Lord to look at this matter.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I will certainly do that.

§ On Question, Amendments agreed to.

§ 4.51 p.m.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to add to the clause: (7) Where any person would, by reason of the disability imposed by any of the first three subsections of this section, be prohibited from carrying on the business of acquiring and selling motor spirit, or acquiring and selling commercial petrol, as the case may be, at any premises, and the court by which that person was convicted is satisfied, on his application, that it is expedient in the public interest, by reason that other facilities for acquiring motor spirit or as the case may be, commercial petrol are not available within a reasonable distance, not being less than seven miles by road, of those premises, that he should be permitted to carry on the said business at those premises, may direct that the said disability shall not have effect or, in the case of a disability imposed under subsection (3), shall not have effect as respects those premises, and in that case the said person shall, without prejudice to the imposition of any penalty under the following provisions of this Act, forfeit the following sums—

(a) in a case where the disability arises under subsection (1), or subsection (3), the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds for each pump used at the time of the com mission of the offence for supplying motor spirit; or
(b) if the disability arises under subsection (2), the sum of one hundred and twenty-five pounds for each pump used at the time of the commission of the offence for supplying commercial petrol;

and the payment of those sums shall be enforced and they shall be applied in the same manner as a fine imposed by the court. The noble and learned Viscount said: It has been pointed out to me that where there is an isolated garage, whether a single-pump or double-pump garage, and the proprietor offends, and in consequence incurs the automatic penalties which follow, very great hardship may be done to perfectly innocent people in the neighbourhood, who have to go round to a garage which is not put out of business but which is much farther away.

§ I realise to the full this difficulty. It seems to me there are two ways in which we can meet it. In the first instance, I am proposing a clause which reduces the period of suspension in this way, that an 950 application may be made to the court and if it thinks proper, the court may reduce the suspension. Secondly, where the court comes to the conclusion that hardship to the people of the neighbourhood will be caused by closing down a garage, they may substitute for the penalty of closure of premises, a penalty of forfeiture. The forfeiture must be severe, as your Lordships will agree. I hope that the possibility of losing their petrol supply will be one reason why all the people in the neighbourhood will see that the law is kept. I propose that the court, if the offence is that of having red petrol in a white pump, may impose a forfeiture to the extent of £250 for each pump used at the time of the commission of the offence. If, on the other hand, the offence is that of putting the red petrol into the tank of a private car (which I regard as the lesser offence), then the forfeiture would be £125 for each pump used at the time of he commission of the offence. Thus the court has discretion. I agree that the forfeitures are severe, and I think it must be a severe penalty. The Russell Vick Committee called attention to the fact that those offences had not been dealt with severely enough.

§ From time to time, when reading the papers and not knowing the full facts, we see instances where the penalty seems quite inadequate. If the court under this Amendment comes to the conclusion that: any person would, by reason of the disability imposed by any of the first three subsections of this section, be prohibited from carrying on the business of acquiring and selling motor spirit, or acquiring and selling commercial spirit, as the case may be, at any premises, and the court by which that person was convicted is satisfied, on his application, that it is expedient in the public interest, by reason that other facilities for acquiring motor spirit or, as the case may be, commercial petrol are not available within a reasonable distance, "— we have tried to qualify that— not being less than seven miles by road, of those premises, that he should be permitted to carry on the said business at those premises, may direct that the said disability shall not have effect or, in the case of a disability imposed under subsection (3), shall not have effect as respects those premises, and in that case the said person shall, without prejudice to the imposition of any penalty under the following provisions of this Act, forfeit the following sums: It then says what the forfeitures are to be, as I have told your Lordships and adds: 951 the payment of those sums shall be enforced and they shall apply in the same manner as a fine imposed by the court. I think that is a real endeavour to meet what I frankly realise is a difficulty. I hope your Lordships will think that this clause, together with the clause giving the court power to reduce the length of suspension, shows that we have done what we can to meet the difficulties to which your Lordships very properly called my attention. I beg to move—

§ Amendment moved— Page 4, line 19, at end, insert the said new-subsection.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I am very much obliged, as I am sure are all your Lordships, to the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor for having done his best to meet this case. Nobody wants to defend the garage proprietor who commits a serious offence. On the other hand, the sins of the garage proprietor will here be visited on all his customers. For that there seems to be no Scriptural warrant, nor does it seem to be justice or common sense. I was anxious to have a provision put in not to penalise the people in a single-station area by putting their one station out of business. I had proposed that the court should of its own motion have the alternative of a higher penalty. I see the difficulty in that. The noble and learned Viscount pointed out to me that we could not very well give the court the power to impose an alternative penalty, which must be of a heavy financial kind, if the criminal himself said he would rather have the alternative penalty described in the Act. I suppose that is good law and fair justice to the criminal. On the other hand, it may be extremely unsatisfactory to the general public. Still, it would be rather an anomaly to force the man to accept a penalty he did not desire. Therefore, I think the clause in the form in which the noble and learned Viscount has it is to be preferred to the one which I drafted. But I would ask him to consider one matter. The Leader of the House has told us, in a very welcome intervention on Clause 1, that as a general rule all single pumps will be licensed.

§ VISCOUNT ADDISON
In all isolated districts.

952

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
Single pumps in isolated districts will be licensed. But I think we should not have any arbitrary geographical limit of seven miles laid down. This is intended to meet the case of licensed isolated pumps, or of stations where there is no alternative. Surely, if it is to deal especially with only these isolated stations, then this alternative subsection of the noble and learned Viscount ought to apply to every isolated licensed station, whether seven, five or four miles from an alternative station. I take it that this means, if there were an alternative station seven miles away, then there would be no discretion.

§ LORD LATHAM
It is not isolated.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
The noble Lord was not here when we were discussing this matter. The Leader of the House said exactly the opposite. He agreed that, except in very exceptional circumstances, if there was a single pump station in a parish area, that was going to be licensed. As I read this Amendment—I am not quite sure that I have got it right—if there is another station within seven miles, then the court will have no discretion. I would like the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor to look at it again. It seems to me that if there are two isolated districts, with a pump here and another pump six miles away, and both of them have been licensed because it is considered right that they should be, you ought not to put pump A out of business because there is pump B six miles away. I venture to suggest that that is inconsistent with the undertaking which the noble Viscount the Leader of the House gave. The other point is one which cannot be provided for in the Bill. On the other hand, supposing the convicted person elects to be put out of business rather than pay this very heavy fine, it is going to be no consolation or relief to all the people in the agricultural area who would normally have bought their petrol from him. I am not much in favour of State trading, but I would like to suggest that if the pump is to be closed down for six months or twelve months, some arrangement should, if possible, be made with one of the petrol companies to try and service from that station in the meantime. That would be very much in the interests of the community.

953

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will certainly consider that point, because, as I have said, I realise that there is a difficulty in this matter. I cannot give any pledge, and I do not want to be regarded as doing so. The noble Viscount the Leader of the House and I will have a word about it. We will also consider this point: that if people in a particular area find themselves compelled to go further to get their petrol, that ought to be a factor to be considered when deciding how much petrol they should be allowed. If a man gets X gallons to-day and, through no fault of his own, a nearby garage is put out of business, then the question whether he should not get X plus Y should be considered. We both think that as a matter of administration—it is a Department which is not ours, of course—that would be the reasonable and proper thing to do.
With regard to the phraseology of the clause, I am afraid I am very much to blame. If your Lordships look on the drafted list of Amendments you will see the words on page 2: not being less than seven miles by road, of those, premises, that he should be permitted to carry on the said business at those premises, may direct…. There is no subject to those words "may direct." Obviously the words "the court" should be inserted. I should like to move the Amendment in that revised form. It is merely a clerical error. There are two other errors. In paragraph (a) you will see these words: the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds for each pump used at the time of the commission of the offence. The word "used" is, of course, too narrow, because it might not actually be in use at that moment of time. Therefore, we must have "used or capable of being used." The same word occurs in the third line of paragraph (b). There again it should be, "used or capable of being used."
On the point of the limit, I draw a distinction between putting in a limit here and the undertaking which my noble friend the Leader of the House gave. In the case of which he was thinking, no offence has been committed before; everybody has done perfectly properly. As a matter of administration, and subject to the discretion of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, without any hard and fast limits, they will in appropriate cases give this 954 licence. But the case with which I am dealing is something different. It is where an offence has been committed and where the discretion which is to be exercised is not the discretion of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, who will be able to exercise their discretion more or less on the same principles throughout the whole country, other things being equal. Here we are dealing with particular benches of magistrates who have the discretion. Frankly, we are not prepared to give them the same measure of discretion, and for this reason. Benches of magistrates must act locally and territorially with regard to their particular area, and it would be unfortunate if we had one Bench applying one sort of Statute and another Bench in a different part of the country applying a wholly different Statute. Therefore, it seems to us that, where we are dealing with a case where an offence has been committed and it is for the magistrates to exercise discretion, we must give them some guidance which would be appropriate in the case. That guidance would be inappropriate if no offence had been committed and the discretion was being exercised by the Ministry, who would be able to exercise similar discretion throughout the whole length and breadth of the land. That is why we have put in this qualification. I now beg leave to withdraw my Amendment and will move it in the amended form.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved—

§ Page 4, line 19, at end insert— ("(7) Where any person would, by reason of the disability imposed by any of the first three subsections of this section, be prohibited from carrying on the business of acquiring and selling motor spirit, or acquiring and selling commercial petrol, as the case may be, at any premises, and the court by which that person was convicted is satisfied on his application, that it is expedient in the public interest, by reason that other facilities for acquiring motor spirit or, as the case may be, commercial petrol are not available within a reasonable distance, not being less than seven miles by road, of those premises, that he should be permitted to carry on the said business at those premises, the court may direct that the said disability shall not have effect or, in the case of a disability imposed under subsection (3), shall not have effect as respects those premises, and in that case the said person shall, without prejudice to the imposition of any penalty under the following provisions of this Act, forfeit the following sums: 955

(a) in a case where the disability arises under subsection (1), or subsection (3), the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds for each pump used or capable of being used at the time of the commission of the offence for supplying motor spirit; or
(b) if the disability arises under subsection (2), the sum of one hundred and twenty-five pounds for each pump used or capable of being used at the time of the commission of the offence for supplying commercial petrol;

and the payment of those sums shall be enforced and they shall be applied in the same manner as a fine imposed by the court.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I appreciate what the noble and learned Viscount has said and I accept it. Even so, I think seven miles is a little too great a distance. After all, it means fourteen miles there and back, in these agricultural districts, which may be hilly districts. I would suggest three miles. That is the distance the bona fide traveller has to go to get something else. Alternatively, if the Lord Chancellor cannot accept three miles, I would split the difference and suggest five.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will think it over.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Before we pass from this Amendment, there is likely to be some misunderstanding as to the form of words used, which are also used in the clause in the Bill. I would like to have the assurance of the noble and learned Viscount that my interpretation is correct. The opening words of Clause 4 are: If any person who carries on the business of supply motor spirit by retail is convicted…he shall not, for a period of twelve months after the conviction, carry on at the premises where the offence occurred the business of acquiring and selling motor spirit. The word "acquiring" makes its first appearance, not only in the original text, but also in the Amendment. The retailer of petrol in the small village can also run the village hire car; he can be the village haulier; he can run the local bus; he can even be the local undertaker and run the village hearse. If the interpretation of this clause is that he cannot acquire petrol, he cannot run any of his ancillary businesses. If the penalty of disqualification applies only to his business of selling by retail, that is correct. I cannot understand why the word "acquiring" has been brought into the clause, because if 956 the disqualification is going to apply to his acquiring petrol to carry on his ancillary businesses, the entire community will simply be robbed of all those services. I do not think that is the intention. If I am right, and as the clause is going to be looked into in the light of the suggestion of the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, perhaps I might suggest to the noble and learned Viscount that it is important also to consider whether the word "acquiring" has anything other than a misleading sense, is quite out of place and has no relevance at all in the original clause or in the Amendment.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will certainly find out whether the view which I formed on looking at these words is right, but I must say that my impression was quite clear. You must not carry on the business of acquiring and selling at the premises. If you are the driver of the local village hearse, there is nothing to prevent you getting petrol elsewhere; you can go round to another station and buy your petrol. You are not then acquiring and selling motor spirit at the premises. Therefore, in all these activities, the haulier, the driver of the village hearse, or the men in the other illustrations which the noble Lord gave, will still be able to go on doing that business. They will have to get petrol from elsewhere, of course, but they will not offend in so doing.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I sincerely hope that the interpretation which the noble and learned Viscount has put upon this is incorrect, because it will effectively put the man out of business. He will have to pay retail price for all his supplies of spirit if he has to purchase them other than from himself. He will buy at a far higher price and will, therefore, be unable to carry out at a profit his business as the haulier, the hirer or the undertaker. I hope that the disqualification will be limited to the selling of petrol by retail—in other words that although he may not supply the public with petrol he may acquire petrol for use for his own business purposes. Perhaps the noble and learned Viscount will look into that, and if I am right, perhaps he will then consider whether the word "acquire" is redundant or not.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Certainly.

957

LORD SALTOUN
I did not want to interrupt the noble and learned Viscount while he was explaining the Amendment, but would not the substitution of the words "in use" for "used" be rather less cumbersome and equally effective? That is in paragraph (a) of the new subsection. The noble and learned Viscount explained that he did not want to confine it to a pump which was actually being used at the time, but if we inserted the words "in use" it would save using the rather cumbersome phrase "capable of being used."

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
I think there is a big difference between "in use" and "capable of being used." I thought the noble Lord intended it to be merely those which were in fact properly used. "Capable of being used "has a much wider definition. I would agree with what the noble Lord said.

LORD CLYDESMUIR
I should like to support the plea of the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, that the quantitative limit should be either abolished or reduced. The noble Viscount said that there was an essential difference between this case and the case in which the Leader of the House gave an undertaking, because here an offence has been committed. The offence has not been committed by the community, and yet the community will suffer. I spoke upon this question on the Second Reading of the Bill, with particular reference to the Highlands and the Islands of Scotland. I am glad to acknowledge that the case has been substantially met by what the Government has done. Yet it contains a definite difficulty if a limit of seven miles still remains. Even with provision for extra coupons, a considerable amount of inconvenience would be caused to people in remote areas and villages. I earnestly support my noble friend in the plea that the limit may be either abolished or considerably reduced.

LORD SANDHURST
May I raise a question on a slightly different point? I am not sure whether I understood it correctly, or whether I read it correctly, but the more severe penalty is laid on the man who gets pink petrol from what should be a white petrol pump. I suggest that that is wrong. Surely, the greatest offender is the man who is prepared to supply pink petrol to a person who is entitled only to white petrol. 958 Having pink petrol in a white petrol pump is not only an offence so far as the man who owns the pump is concerned, because it is to be borne in mind that the man who supplies the petrol is guilty of the offence, too. In my district, three men have been going round sticking on the labels. It takes three men to do this job. I am not quite sure how they employ their time, but I think the first looks at the pump, the second puts some sticky material on the label and affixes the label to the pump, and the third then looks at the pump to make sure that the label is sticking to it. Anyhow, by the time they go away, the pump is labelled well and truly, either "Private" or "Commercial, "until the rain comes and washes it off. If that pump is labelled "Private," and the petrol company insert into it pink petrol, which is "Commercial," surely the petrol company and their employees should be guilty of an offence. Is there not a greater offence in putting pink petrol into a white pump than there is in delivering a mixture of pink and white petrol out of the pump? Surety the greatest offender of all is the man who answers the plea of the private motorist who wants some "buckshee" petrol, and says, "Yes, I have some pink; I will put it in for you." It is no help to the petrol pump owner to have pink petrol in a white pump and the real offence is putting pink petrol into a private tank. I would ask the Lord Chancellor to reconsider that question very seriously. If the Government think it over carefully I am sure they will decide that the real offence is the misuse of commercial petrol, and having the wrong petrol in the tank is as much the offence of the petrol company as the pump owner.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
We take the view that having pink petrol in a white pump is a very serious offence. It is an offence which will probably spread to, and cause at least inconvenience to, a very large number of people. It is a monstrous thing that any perfectly innocent motorist should find himself in the unfortunate position of having it said in regard to him: "Well, you have pink petrol in your car." It is true that we have now made it plain that he can escape, on establishing the appropriate onus and so on, but it is a thundering nuisance, to put it no higher than that, that somebody should be able to say to 959 him, "You have pink petrol in your tank." Therefore, we regard it as a very serious offence indeed. Although I agree that putting pink petrol into a private motor car is a bad offence, yet at any rate, it is an offence which concerns only those two people. It does not land a whole lot of innocent people in trouble. Therefore, we take the view that it is the fact that a man has red petrol in a white pump which is really a bad thing.
If a petrol company come along and put red petrol into a white pump they too are guilty—let the noble Lord be reassured—of an offence. They come under Clause 3: If any person puts commercial petrol into a pump used for the purpose of the supply by retail of motor spirit, not being a pump marked in the prescribed manner with the word ' Commercial '…. There we cover the person who puts the petrol into the pump, the garage proprietor who has a pump with red petrol in it and also the private motorist who has red petrol in his tank. Each of these has a proper definition, which we have now set out in the clause we are adopting. That is why we take the view that this is a more serious offence, which requires a more severe penalty. I am sorry I cannot go further than I have done about the form of the words "pumps in use." I quite agree this may be a severe penalty, but for the small man who often has a single pump it will not be so severe. For the big man it may be severe, and he may prefer to be put out of business for a year or six months.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
AS I understand it, the case is this. There is a petrol station which has four pumps physically in existence, but because there is not much business to do only two of them are in use. Two are completely derelict, and the owner does not make any money out of them; they never have any petrol. What I want is that he shall be fined £250 for each pump actually in use, and not for pumps which never have any petrol in them.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
Innocent pumps.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
If they have no petrol in them all the year round, or if they are derelict pumps, I should think they are pumps which are not capable of being used.

960

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
They may be capable of being used but are not in use.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The difficulty of the words "in use" is, I realise, that you look at a particular moment of time. You may get into all sorts of trouble. I will certainly look at it again, but I am afraid that we must ask for the words that we have put down.

LORD GIFFORD
Is it not a fact that some petrol stations have ten or twelve pumps, and that in order to keep them all more or less in running order the proprietor fills up two or three pumps in January, lets them run out, and fills up the next three in February and so on, so that the whole range of pumps is capable of being used, and all are in fact used from lime to time, but that owing to present circumstances not more than perhaps three are in use at a time?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will look at it, as I say. But we want to get at the big man as well as the small man, and we feel that by using the words we suggest we fairly achieve our object.

LORD SALTOUN
May I suggest "in normal use" or something of that sort?

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.

§ 5.25 p.m.

§ Clause 5:

§ Disqualification and special penalties in respect of offences by private motorists, 10 & 11 Geo. 5. c. 18.

§ 5.—(1) If any person, being the owner of a private motor vehicle in respect of which he holds or ought to hold a licence under section thirteen of the Finance Act, 1920, commits an offence under section two of this Act in respect of that vehicle and is convicted of that offence, then—

(a) if he remains the owner of the vehicle at the time of the conviction, any such licence which he holds in respect of the vehicle shall cease to have effect, and it shall not be lawful, for a period of twelve months after the conviction, for him or for any other person to hold or obtain such a licence in respect of the vehicle; and
(b) if he has sold or disposed of the vehicle between the time of the commission of the offence and the time of the conviction, he shall, without prejudice to the imposition of any penalty under the next following section, forfeit such sum as may be determined by the court to be equal to half the value of the vehicle, and the payment of that sum shall be enforced and the sum shall be applied in the same manner as a fine imposed by the court.

961

§ (2) If any person uses a private motor vehicle without such a licence as aforesaid during a period for which he is disqualified by the preceding subsection for holding or obtaining such a licence in respect of the vehicle, he shall be guilty of an offence under this Act and not under section thirteen of the Roads Act, 1920.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is the first of a series of Amendments which are required because of the inter-availability of motor vehicle and road fund licences between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is necessary that a conviction of a motorist in Great Britain involving disqualification should prevent his getting a licence not only in Great Britain but in Northern Ireland also, otherwise he will be able to go to Northern Ireland and after residing there for a short time obtain a licence there and then make use of it in England. This of course would also apply the other way round. This series of Amendments is moved in order to meet that situation. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 4, line 22, after (" 1920 ") insert (" or under that section as it applies in Northern Ireland ").

§ —(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON moved to delete paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1), and the whole of subsection (2), and to insert: the court may order that for a period not exceeding twelve months no coupons for obtaining motor spirit for use in any private motor vehicle shall be issued to him and that during the period of disqualification no other person shall be entitled to the issue of such coupons for use in connection with any private motor vehicle of which the person convicted was at the time of the commission of the offence the owner, unless such other person satisfies the Minister of Fuel and Power that he became the owner of the private motor vehicle by purchase and the purchase thereof was a genuine and not a colourable transaction made with the object of evading the order of the Court.

§ The noble Viscount said: We now come to the famous case in which a car is sent to prison together with the owner. When we discussed the matter last time, your Lordships did not think this to be a very sensible proceeding. This is an Amendment designed to permit the selling of the car to a bona fide purchaser for value who can show that he is a bona fide purchaser. To do so he has to satisfy the Minister of Fuel and Power that: he became the owner of the private motor vehicle by purchase and that the purchase thereof was a genuine and not a colourable 962 transaction made with the object of evading the order of the court.

§ We have accepted all the penalties imposed upon the owner of the car. He will have to pay the fines. He will be refused petrol for the car for twelve months, but he will have the right to be relieved after six months if he can show good cause. But why should we sterilize the car at the same time? Possibly a number of your Lordships are on the waiting list for a car. I expect the noble and learned Viscount gets a preference—I will not say an undue preference—but at any rate it is very difficult for most of us to obtain a car. Why should not a bona fide purchaser, who has need of a car, get this car? This sterilisation of motor cars may be a self-denying ordinance, but it does not seem to me to be a very good "new model." I hope the Government will; see their way to enable the car—which really has not committed any offence—to be used. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 4, line 25, leave out from beginning of paragraph (a) to end of subsection (2) and insert the said new words.—(Viscount Swinton.)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I am sure that this Amendment, in the form in which the noble Viscount has proposed it, will not do. It would have some devastating consequences. Take for instance, the case of a firm we all know by name, a highly reputable firm—I hope it will not be thought that I am making this suggestion against them, because I am not—the Daimler Hire Company, who have a whole fleet of cars which they let out to people. Suppose that one of their chauffeurs has been guilty of some offence; perhaps he has red petrol in his tanks. This Amendment says that for twelve months they would not be able to obtain motor spirit for use in any of their vehicles. If this happened to the Coal Board or to the Transport Board, for instance, goodness only knows what would happen! It is a most drastic penalty. The noble Viscount must have been in his most savage mood when he suggested that any such thing should be done. I would advocate sweet moderation. It will apply to the car, but only to the particular car I do not shelter myself behind them, but that is, after all, what the Russell Vick Committee recommended. They say in their recommendations: 963 The owner of a motor car, whether or not he is the driver, convicted of having commercial petrol in the tank, should be required to surrender all unused coupons to the court and no further petrol should be allowed for that car for twelve months, notwithstanding any change of ownership during that period. If that result is desired—that petrol shall not be available for that car for twelve months—much the better way of achieving it is to withdraw the licence from the car, because if that car is to remain on the road with its licence, it is easy for a dishonest motorist to use petrol which he has obtained in respect of one of his other cars for that car. I quite agree that he would be committing on offence, but, ex hypothesi, he is a man who does not mind committing offences. He could easily dodge it in that way.
Another reason why I regret to say that I think it is necessary is in regard to the sale of the car. In drafting our Statutes now, bearing in mind the Finance Acts for example, we have always to take into account the gentleman who is commonly known as the "tax dodger." There are learned gentlemen in my old profession who quite properly devote themselves to, among other things, writing books on the methods by which we can get round Statutes of this sort. There is nothing more difficult to determine than the question whether a sale is a bona fide sale or not. I do not like that matter to be determined by the Minister of Fuel and Power. The noble Viscount says: unless such other person satisfies the Minister of Fuel and Power that he became the owner of the private motor vehicle by purchase and that the purchase thereof was a genuine and not a colourable transaction. How is the Minister of Fuel and Power going to find out in practice? He cannot look at it by himself. It is the sort of matter that has to be determined by evidence, by seeing the people and so on. It is the sort of matter which can be dealt with by a court of law, but I do not see how it can be dealt with by the Minister himself, even with the best will in the world. How could I do it, for instance? I should have to leave it to one of my officials and he, in practice, would have to rely on correspondence and the like. That is not the least unsatisfactory way of proving whether a sale is a genuine or a colourable sale. Frankly, I am frightened of this Amendment.
964 If there are to be no coupons for that car, the best way of dealing with the problem is to de-license the car, otherwise you will get all sorts of colourable arrangements being made. I do not know whether there is any truth in this at the present time, but I am told that all sorts of curious arrangements are being made, such as the owner of a car entering into an arrangement with a hire company whereby he notionally or nominally sells it to the hire company and then they hand back the car to him with their own chauffeur as driver, it being theoretically the property of the hire company. Very likely there may be some sort of arrangement whereby, when all these difficulties are past, he can buy back the car from the hire company. It is the difficulty of dealing with methods of dodging the law which makes it necessary, in our view, to say that we must put that car off the road. It is not that the poor car has done anything wrong. We want to punish the offending owner by putting it out of his power to deal with that car. He can sell the car before he is convicted, or he can sell the car after conviction pending an appeal, but, if he does that, at the critical time he will not be the owner of the car.

§ VISCOUNT MAUGHAM
That is a terribly severe penalty.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
It may or may not be, but it should be a severe penalty. I do not conceal from your Lordships that we intend to stop this black market, but we shall not stop it unless we subject people to severe penalties. For those reasons, we must adhere to this proposal of ours which follows the recommendations of the Russell Vick Committee with which, as your Lordships will remember, the motoring associations agreed—namely, that the only way to deal with these offences is to say: "If you have offended in respect of a car, that car shall be put out of action by having its licence withdrawn, unless before the conviction or before the appeal (as the case may be) you have disposed of the car to some purchaser, in which case you ought to incur other penalties." Perhaps the noble Viscount will realise that his Amendment as drafted will not do. It is much more severe than mine in many ways, and we think we should follow the 965 recommendations of the Russell Vick Committee.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
I should like to raise one point now, as this appears to be a convenient time to do so. I refer to the question of how this penalisation of the car affects cars under hire purchase agreements As noble Lords know, under hire purchase agreements the hirer does not become the owner of the car unless he exercises his option, which is usually done in the form of making the last instalment payment. I do not think that there is any fear of the hire purchase company committing any offence, because "owner" is defined in the Bill as being the person in whose name the car is registered at the time; but there is the danger of undue penalisation of the hire purchase company, should they require re-possession of a private vehicle through the default of the hirer or otherwise in pursuance of the relative hire purchase agreement. In that case, the hire purchase company would be prohibited from disposing of the car for a period of twelve months from the time when the person who had been hire purchasing it committed the particular offence, although the hire purchase company themselves had nothing whatsoever to do with that offence. Perhaps the Bill will need amending. Perhaps the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor may be able to reassure us on this point. It seems to me, however, that there ought to be some Amendment to Clause 5 to provide that, if the vehicle at the date of the conviction is subject to a hire purchase agreement and before the expiration of the said period of twelve months the person from whom the vehicle was hire-purchased recovers possession of it under the agreement, this subsection shall not apply. I think there are many hire purchase motorists who will be on the roads. I trust that few of them will commit any of these offences, but I think it is necessary that we should protect the hire purchase companies in some way that does not seem clear to me as the Bill is at present drafted.

THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON
May I support what the noble Lord has said, and say that exactly the same position arises under hire purchase in regard to coupons?

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
The position is this. If a car is hired on the hire purchase system, having regard to 966 the definition of "owner" the person who hires the car is the owner. I think that is plain. The hire purchase company might get into trouble in these circumstances. If the owner, the man who hires the car, is unable to go on with his instalments and the company have to take re-possession of the car, they would not, of course, be able promptly to sell the car as a going concern. But this was exactly the sort of case I had in mind when I introduced the clause enabling the twelve months to be cut down to six. It is obvious that in a case like that the court would, without hesitation, remove the penalty at the end of six months. There is some slight inconvenience and hardship to those people, because they have trusted a man who was not able to honour his instalments. Of course, the fact that a person gets into this trouble about his car does not acquit him of his obligation to pay his instalments. If he does pay, there is no trouble. It is a fact that the hire purchase people may experience that difficulty under the Bill, but I hope that the provision regarding six months will meet all reasonable difficulties in this clause.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
May I appeal to the noble and learned Viscount to see whether he can deal with this matter, possibly by putting in an Amendment to the effect that paragraph (a) of Clause 5 shall not apply where the car is under a hire purchase agreement? He has mitigated the unfairness and hardship by the provision regarding six months. It is true that that is of help. But supposing someone had bought a car under a hire purchase agreement at twelve monthly instalments, and before the fir it instalment becomes due the man commits an offence. The car is put off the road for, at any rate, six months. The hire purchase company obtain repossession of the car (as indeed they have a right to do under the agreement), and they are then penalised for five months from selling that car. It might be an out-of-date model by the time it is free for re-sale, if it is in the autumn when new models are marketed. It seems rather harsh, and perhaps the noble and learned Viscount (who is very sympathetic in trying to get away from unfairness) would look at the matter again, and see if he can deal with it specifically.

967

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I will look at it again, but the next stage conies on to-morrow and I have not very much time in which to get deep into the intricacies of hire purchase.

LORD SALTOUN
Surely, the payments on hire purchase are only hire payments until the property is actually transferred at the end. Therefore, the man who has got into trouble is not liable for any further hire payments so long as he returns the car, although he might possibly be liable in damages.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I must, of course, accept full responsibility for all the drafting which goes down in my name. I did not know that I had made this assault upon reputable companies. That was not my intention. But if the Lord Chancellor had been in a more accommodating mood, I am sure he would have taken my Amendment, which is so admirable in its spirit, and made it correct in its letter. I must say that he has gone a very long way on the other clauses of the Bill; we seem to have obtained a great deal, and this is a much less bad Bill than it was. Therefore, I think I must exercise the Englishman's genius of compromise and, without compromising my principles at all, I will do what all the best Englishmen do—namely, abandon their practice.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD CHORLEY moved, in subsection (1)(a), after "if," to insert: "the court decides that." The noble Lord said: This is one of a further series of five Amendments which deal with the position of the case coming before the court—what I may call "the court decides" Amendments, as opposed to the Northern Ireland Amendments with which they are rather mixed up. As your Lordships see, under Clause 5, which is the disqualification clause, there are two possibilities. One is that the person convicted remains the owner of the vehicle at the time of the conviction, and the other that he has sold or disposed of it. Obviously, some difficulty might arise in the minds of the magistrates before whom the case came as to whether or not the person remained the owner. In order that that may be cleared up, this Amendment is proposed. It makes it perfectly clear that it is for the court to decide. In those circumstances, instead of reading if he remains the owner of the vehicle, 968 I the clause will read if the court decides that he remains the owner of the vehicle. In other words, they will hear the evidence and deal with the case according to the decision that they have reached.

§ Amendment moved— Page 4, line 25, after (" if ") insert (" the court decides that ").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is consequential upon the last Amendment. It is a "court decides" Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 4, line 32, leave out from the beginning to (" he ") in line 34 and insert (" in any other case ").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK moved, in subsection (1) (6), after "vehicle" (where that word occurs a second time) to insert: but not more than five hundred pounds. The noble Earl said: This is an Amendment in regard to the penalty imposed under Clause 5. The noble Lord has explained that if the car remains the property of the owner certain automatic consequences follow. If, on the other side, the owner has parted with the vehicle, certain automatic consequences follow. In the second case, he will pay a sum equal to half the value of the car. I am going to submit quite frankly, that sometimes he will do that when he is entirely innocent. I am going to ask your Lordships to look at the duty he has to discharge, which is in the Amendment to Clause 2. He has to show, according to the definition of proof, that he has exercised "all reasonable diligence." If he fails to show that beyond reasonable doubt, in the circumstances he is guilty. The penalty imposed is a ferocious penalty. It implies that the severity of the crime varies according to the type of motor car with which he is dealing; that is to say, to put red petrol into a 10 horse-power Austin is a much less serious offence than putting it into a Rolls-Royce. With great respect, I submit that that is not sense at all. The offence is just as bad in one case as in the other.

§ As your Lordships know, the price of cars to-day can rise to a very high level. Some cars may be worth £5,000 or more, 969 quite out of proportion to anything else, and a man may get himself into the position of paying an automatic penalty of halt that amount. I submit, with great respect, that a man selling a vehicle between the commission of an offence and prosecution may well do so in complete ignorance of the fact that he has actually committed any offence. I do not think the noble Lord can deny that. It may be that he is ignorant of the fact that he has not exercised that degree of diligence which is laid down in the Statute. He might sell the vehicle, and in time he would be charged. It might be a technical offence, due to the negligence of his chauffeur, but he will be charged with half the cost of the car. In line with the rest of the Bill, I am submitting that the forfeit should be £500, the sum that is laid down for any other offence under Clause 6 of the Bill." It is quite clear that besides that forfeit the court is at liberty to impose a fine of £500 and three months' imprisonment. Therefore, even if this Amendment is accepted, under this particular clause there is a £1,000 fine and three months' imprisonment at the disposal of the court. I think that is fairly ferocious, but at least it is fairer. The same offence will be brought within measurable distance of the same type of punishment. I would like to add this. A great deal has been said about the Russell Vick Report. I do not know whether we tend perhaps to attach too much importance to it, but at all events this proposal does not come in the Report. I think that in the way in which it is framed the clause is more ferocious than is in the circumstances necessary, because no discretion of any sort is allowed, and the penalty varies automatically with the type of vehicle which is concerned. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 4 line 37, at end insert (" but not more than five hundred pounds ").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
I am afraid that we cannot accept this Amendment. With regard to the Russell Vick Report to which the noble Earl has just alluded, it certainly does not envisage the case of a man going off and disposing of his car before proceedings are brought against him. I think that the Committee will agree that that clearly is a situation which has to be dealt with, and I submit that the way in which it is dealt with in the 970 Bill is the only effective method. The noble Earl, I think, rather confused the seriousness of the crime with the appropriateness of the penalty. It is true that the crime is equally serious, whether the car is a cheap one, an old model or its last legs and worth may be only £50 or £100, or a very valuable car worth several thousands. The crime is, no doubt, exactly the same. What we are concerned with here is; establishing a penalty. Surely it has always been the view that justice requires that the penalty shall be effective to deal with the punishment of the individual offender, and, therefore, in fining an offender it has always been the practice of the courts to pay attention to his social position and his wealth. Surely that is the position in a case of this kind. In my submission, it would be quite inappropriate to deal with the case of a poor man who has a can not worth much in substantially the same way as the case of a rich man.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
With great respect, surely the noble Lord does lot contend that rich men always drive expensive cars; that no rich men drive cheap or inferior cars. I suggest that you need to see their Income Tax sheet if you realty want to know their financial position.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I am not contending that at all. Obviously it is not so. But, by and large, a valuable car is more likely to be owned by a rich man than by a poor, man. A poor man, clearly, does not own a Rolls Royce or a Daimler or any other of the valuable makes of cars. The object of one part of this clause is to equate the position in respect of the two situations which arise, according to whether a car has been disposed of before or after the committal of the offence. When there has been a conviction it will not be disposed of by reason of the operation of this clause, for no one will buy a car the road book of which has the offence marked upon it. That means that the man loses the use of his car for twelve months. The object of the other part of the clause is to deal with the man who disposes of his car before he is convicted. In much the same way, the view is that the forfeiture of half the value of the car very much equates his position with the position which arises after conviction, when a man will not be able to dispose of his car. The car will, in fact, be sterilised 971 for that period. The noble Earl, I hope, will agree that this is a rough and ready-but equitable method of dealing with the position. If we do not adopt this method then the rich man who owns the car will get off, I will not say scot-free but much more lightly, with a much more lenient penalty than this type of offence calls for. It is just possible, as the noble Earl has suggested, that a man might dispose of his car without knowing that he was going to be charged with an offence. But that is not just a technical sort of case. Clearly, a bench of magistrates are not going to convict a man—

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
It is automatic.

§ LORD CHORLEY
The penalty is automatic; the conviction is not automatic. If the man makes out his defence, if he establishes that he did not connive and that he exercised reasonable care, then clearly he will be acquitted. It is only if he is guilty of this very serious offence that this forfeiture will apply. I hope that the noble Earl will see his way to withdraw this Amendment.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
There may be good reasons which can be put forward in support of the Government's proposal. Indeed I think that the Government can put forward very forceful arguments in favour of the proposal for what is, in effect, a fine amounting to half the value of the car. But equally forceful arguments, I suggest, can be put forward against it, and I do not think that the Government can stand on the justification of the proposal which has just been given by Lord Chorley. He said in fact—and I do not think that I am paraphrasing him unfairly—that a man can be fined according to his means, and that his means can be judged by the size of the motor-car which he is driving; that is to say, if he is driving a big car he is a rich man and should have a big fine imposed on him, but if he is driving a little car, an inexpensive car, then ipso facto he is a poor man and should have only a small fine inflicted upon him. Does the noble Lord really try to substantiate the Government's case upon that? If so, I am amazed that such ah argument should be put forward seriously by one of the Government spokesmen. I very much hope that we may have the benefit 972 of the Lord Chancellor's view as to whether a man is fined according to his wealth and whether his financial position should be judged on the basis of the motor-car he drives. It is a completely new standard; one which I think we ought not to let pass in this House without some further explanation from the Government.

§ LORD CHORLEY
The noble Lord has quite overlooked my argument that this is really intended to equate the position of sale before conviction with that on conviction, when a car is sterilised. Clearly, a man whose car is sterilised is, in effect, having so much capital lying sterile for twelve months. If it is a very valuable car then he has a much large amount of capital made sterile for twelve months by its forfeiture than if it is only a cheap car. This forfeiture balances that, and I suggest that justice will be done in that way. I think that the noble Lord took me up rather more ferociously on this than he ought to have done.

THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON
What about the case of a motor hearse?

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
I do not want to stress this too much. Actually a rich man comes off very well under this clause as it is drafted. All he has to do is to buy a new car, and get a whole lot more basic ration. I am not really putting this in the interests of the rich man at all. The point I am emphasising is why there is such a difference between the penalty which is imposed—and quite rightly imposed—on a man who is properly convicted and remains the owner of the car, compared with that imposed on a man who sells his car. May I ask the noble Lord this? Does he consider that 50 per cent. of the value of the car is equivalent to twelve months' use of it—in other words that the car's value is two years' purchase? Is that the argument? If you consider that a car's value is two years' purchase then 50 per cent. of the value would be equivalent to twelve months' use of the car. But that is not the case. Why should there be such an immense difference between these two penalties? Is it considered wrong, for instance, to sell a car between the time when a crime is committed and conviction? Is that considered a special crime? 973 It has not been explained. Maybe it is. Why should the penalty be out of all reason?

§ LORD CHORLEY
I do not agree that it is out of all reason.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
Indeed it is. Half the value is very much more than the depreciation of a car over twelve months. On those grounds I hope the noble Lord will reconsider this again.

§ VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN
The noble Lord has made some case on behalf of the interest on the capital sterilised, but as for the capital itself, that is quite another matter.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This Amendment deals with Northern Ireland. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 4, line 46, at end insert (" or under that section as it applies in Northern Ireland ").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is a "court decides" Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 5, line 5, at end insert (" he shall forthwith produce to the court the registration book of that vehicle and, if the court makes a decision under paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section,—").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is a Northern Ireland Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 5, line 8, after (" 1920 ") insert (" or under that section as it applies in Northern Ireland ").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is a "court decides" Amendment. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 5, line 8, leave out from ("vehicle") to the end of line 9.—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This Amendment is consequential on the last. I beg to move.

974

§ Amendment moved— Page 5, line 11, leave cut (" subsection (1) of this section ") and insert (" the said paragraph (a) ").—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is another drafting Amendment, paving the way to the new clause relating to appeals. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 5, line 14, leave out from (" during ") to the second (" the ") in line 15 and insert (" the period of the disqualification ")—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 5, line 23 after (" 1924 ") insert (" or section four of the Finance Act (Northern Ireland), 1924 ")—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 5, line 30, after (" 19430 ") insert (" or Part I of the Motor Vehicles (Traffic and Regulation) Act (Northern Ireland), 1926 as amended by any other Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland ")—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I beg to move the next Amendment.

§ Amendment moved— Page 6, line 5, at end insert (" or under section three of the Motor Vehicles (Traffic and Regulations) Act (Northern Ireland), 1926.")—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY
I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 6, line 8, leave out (" under section thirteen of the Finance Act, 1920.")—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to

§ LORD CHORLEY
I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 6, line 10, leave out (" under Part I of the Road Traffic Act, 1930.")—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
This Amendment leaves out subsection (8) to make way for the new clause which I am going to move presently. I beg to move.

975

§ Amendment moved— Page 6, line 17, leave out subsection (8).—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD CHORLEY moved to add to the clause: (9) Subsections (1) and (3) of this section shall not apply in relation to the conviction of any person for any offence unless either—

(a) within twenty-eight days of the commission of the offence, notice was given to that person warning him that the question of prosecuting him for an offence under Section two of this Act would be taken into consideration; or
(b) within three months of the commission of the offence a summons for the offence was served on that person."

§ The noble Lord said: This Amendment, which deals with the position to which the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, was directed, is a result of the undertaking which the Attorney-General gave when the Bill was in another place, to consider whether there should be inserted a provision like that in Section 21 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, under which a person shall not be convicted for certain driving offences unless he is either warned at the time that a prosecution will be considered, or a summons is issued or at any rate a notice of intended prosecution is served on him within fourteen days. A provision exactly on those lines is not regarded as suitable for offenders under this Bill, because much more substantial investigation will be necessary before a prosecution can be decided upon. Even where the offence is for having commercial petrol in the tank of a private car, it would be desirable to give the owner an opportunity of explaining and possibly of making his own analysis of the petrol, so that some time will be taken up.

§ I think the only cases in which hardship may be caused are those which involve the special penalties laid down in Clause 5 (1), where the owner of a car who thinks a prosecution may be brought against him will be in a difficulty about selling his car, because in the circumstances we have just been discussing that may involve him in forfeiture of half the value of the car. Accordingly this Amendment goes some way to avoiding hardship in cases of that kind. It provides that Clause 5 (1) and the ancillary subsection (3) are not to apply unless the defendant has either been given within 976 twenty-eight days a warning that prosecution is under consideration or has been served with a summons within three months. I would remind your Lordships that in the ordinary way the time limit on proceedings of this kind in a court of summary jurisdiction is six months. That is the type of prosecution which will be brought under this Bill, except in the one case where the accused may be indicted—the offence of tampering with the quality of the petrol. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 6, line 40, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.

§ 6.9 p.m.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after Clause 5 to insert the following new clause:

§ "Provisions as to appeals.

§ .—(1) Where any person appeals against his conviction for an offence under Section two of this Act, or of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the commission of such an offence, the court by which he was convicted or any court of summary jurisdiction for the same petty sessional division or place as that court or the court to which the appeal is made may, if it thinks fit, by order provide for suspending the operation (so far as applicable) of paragraph (a) of subsection (1), subsection (3) and subsection (4) of the last preceding Section in relation to that conviction and for requiring the return to that person of any licence delivered by him to the court by which he was convicted and for cancelling any thing done or deemed to have been done under any of the said provisions.

§ (2). Where an order is made under the last preceding subsection and the appeal is finally dismissed or is abandoned, a court of summary jurisdiction for the same petty sessional division or place as the court by which the said person was convicted, or any justice of the peace acting for that petty sessional division or place, shall, on the application of the prosecutor, issue a summons or, in default of appearance, a warrant requiring or compelling that person to appear before a court of summary jurisdiction for that petty sessional division or place, and thereupon—

(a) if the order suspended the operation of paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of the last preceding Section, that subsection and subsection (3) of that Section shall have effect as if the said person had just been convicted by the court before which he appears; and
(b)subsection (4) and subsection (6) of the last preceding Section shall in any case have effect as if he had just been convicted by the court aforesaid:

§ Provided that the period of any disqualification imposed by the said paragraph (a) or 977 the said subsection (4) shall be reduced by the period (if any) between the date of the conviction and the date of the order made under the last preceding subsection.

§ (3) For the purposes of this Section, the bringing of proceedings before the High Count to quash a conviction by order of certiorari shall be deemed to be an appeal.

§ (4) Any person who forfeits a sum under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of the last preceding Section may appeal against the determination of the amount to be forfeited in like manner as against the conviction."

§ The noble and learned Viscount said: This new clause is to take the place, with modifications, of subsection (8), which we have already agreed to omit. May I move the Amendment in slightly modified form, owing to a point which the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, was good enough to indicate to me yesterday? The new clause starts: Where any person appeals… I think it should be, Where any person gives notice of appeal. And in the sixth line, where it says to which the appeal is made. it should be to which the appeal is to be made.

§ With these modifications, may I explain the features of the clause? If anybody, having been convicted of an offence, with the penalties which we know now result, is minded to appeal, the court may in the ordinary way suspend any question of penalty at all until such time as the appeal is heard. Therefore, the court will return his licence to the man convicted and he will carry on with his car, and all the rest of it, just as though he had not been convicted. Then the appeal comes to be heard. Let us assume a case where the appeal is dismissed. What is to happen? You have always to remember this. The question as to whether you have the automatic penalty of suspension or the forfeiture of half the value of the car depends upon who at the appropriate time is the owner of the car. Under the Bill as drafted, the appropriate time is the time of conviction. It seems to us that that is wrong, because if there is to be an appeal, and you give the man back his licence, he may then sell in a perfectly legitimate manner. In the circumstances, the new clause proceeds on this basis. If the appeal has been dismissed, the case goes back to the petty sessional court which 978 heard the original case—though not necessarily established in the same way—to determine whether at that moment of time when the case comes before the court for the second time, the man is or is not the owner of the car, and to decide whether the penalty must be forfeiture or the suspension of the licence. That is the effect of this clause. It is a more convenient way of dealing with the other, and it preserves in the clearest way that the man is not prejudiced in any way until his appeal is finally disposed of. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved—

§ After Clause 5, insert the following Clause—

§ (" Provisions as to appeals.

§ .—(1) Where any person gives notice of appeal against his conviction for an offence under Section two of this Act, or of aiding, abetting, counselling on procuring the com-mission of such an offence, the court by which he was convicted, or any court of summary jurisdiction for the same petty sessional division or place as that court or the court, to which the appeal is to be made may, if it thinks fit, by order provide for suspending the operation (so far as applicable) of paragraph (a) of subsection (1), subsection (3) and subsection (4.) of the last preceding section in relation to that conviction and for requiring the return to that person of any licence delivered by him to the court by which he was convicted and for cancelling any thing done or deemed to have been done under any of the said provisions.

§ (2) Where an order is made under the last preceding subsection and the appeal is finally dismissed or is abandoned, a court of summary jurisdiction for the same petty sessional division or place as the court by which the said person was convicted, or any justice of the peace acting for that petty sessional division or place, shall, on the application of the prosecutor, issue a summons or, in default of appearance, a warrant requiring or compelling that person to appear before a court of summary jurisdiction for that petty sessional division or place, and thereupon—

(a) if the order suspended the opera ion of paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of the last preceding section, that subsection and subsection (3) of that section shall have effect as if the said person had just teen convicted by the court before which he appears; and
(b) subsection (4) and subsection (6) of the last preceding section shall in any case have effect as if he had just been convicted by the court aforesaid:

§ Provided that the period of any disqualification imposed by the said paragraph (a) or the said subsection (4) shall be reduced by the period (if any) between the date of the conviction and the date of the order made under the last preceding subsection.

§ (3) For the purposes of this section, the bringing of proceedings before the High Court 979 to quash a conviction by order of certiorari shall be deemed to be an appeal.

§ (4) Any person who forfeits a sum under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of the last preceding section may appeal against the determination of the amount to be forfeited in like manner as against the conviction.")—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
I am quite sure that the explanation given by the noble and learned Viscount has convinced any who may have had doubts about whether this new clause constitutes an improvement to the Bill. There is, however, one small point, which was contained in an Amendment which I did not move, and which I expect the noble and learned Viscount will be able to clear up in a moment. If a man gives notice of an appeal, the clause as drafted says that "the court may ". In what circumstances would the court not suspend the penalties, and not give back the man his documents and allow him to continue his livelihood, if he had given notice of appeal? That is the reason why I put down the Amendment to insert for the word "may" the word "shall". I expect there are good reasons for it. It may be a question of entering into obligations for a proper appeal and so on. I would like the noble and learned Viscount to clear up that point.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Normally when you give notice of appeal the court want to be satisfied that it is genuine and that you are going to appeal. Therefore, in cases of that sort, you generally enter into recognisances to prosecute your appeal. There are all sorts of cases which I can visualise. It is always a matter for the discretion of the court as to whether to grant what is called a stay of execution, pending appeal. Courts are always, and should be, very ready to grant a stay if it is a genuine case. On the other hand, suppose that you have a case where you are fairly well satisfied that the person convicted desires to get out of the country. Then you would not grant him leave to appeal unless you had strict recognisances. For that reason it is always left in the discretion of the court, and that is why we want the word "may".

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, after Clause 5 to insert the following new clause:

980

§ " Power to remove disability and disqualification.

§ .—(1) Any person upon whom a disability is imposed by any of the first three subsections of Section four of this Act or a disqualification is imposed by subsection (1) or subsection (4) of Section five of this Act may, if the disability or disqualification has been in operation for a period of not less than six months, apply to a court of summary jurisdiction for the same petty sessional division or place as the court by which he was convicted to remove the disability or disqualification, and on any such application the court may, if having regard to the circumstances at the time of the application, the court thinks there is any good reason for shortening the term of the disability or disqualification, by order remove the disability or disqualification as from such date as may be specified in the order.

§ (2) Where a disqualification imposed by subsection (1) of Section five of this Act in respect of a motor vehicle is removed under this section, the court shall order that particulars of the removal shall be endorsed on the registration book of the vehicle, and shall send particulars of the removal to the council of the county or county borough with whom the vehicle is registered.

§ (3) Where the court removes the disqualification imposed by subsection (4) of Section five of this Act, the court shall send particulars of the removal to any council of a county or county borough to whom particulars of the disqualification were sent, and any such council to whom a licence held by the disqualified person was forwarded under the said subsection (4) shall, on a demand in writing by the holder, return the licence to him, and if any part of the period for which the licence was issued remains unexpired, it shall have effect for that part of the period."

§ The noble and learned Viscount said: This is a clause which I am sure will commend itself to your Lordships. It is the clause giving the court power, after the suspension has been in force for six months, to say: "We will now bring it to an end." I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— After Clause 5, insert the said new clause.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
We fully support this Amendment.

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Clause 6:

§ Penalties.

§ (4) If the person convicted of an offence under any provision of this Act is a body corporate, every person who at the time of the commission of the offence was a director, general manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or was purporting to act in any such capacity, shall be 981 deemed to be guilty of that offence unless he proves that the offence was committed without his consent or connivance and that he exercised all such diligence to prevent the commission of the offence as he ought to have exercised having regard to the nature of his functions in that capacity and to all the circumstances; and if the offence is one to which any provision of Section four of this Act applies, he shall be deemed for the purposes of that provision to have been carrying on at the time of the commission of the offence the business of supplying motor spirit by retail at the premises where the offence occurred.

§ 6.17 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, in subsection (4), to omit all words from "connivance" down to, and including, "circumstances." The noble Lord said: As the noble and learned Viscount has accepted, by his Amendments to Clauses 1 and 2, practically the whole of the principle underlying this Amendment, I hope he will see his way clear to accept it. The Amendment seeks to remove from Clause 6, which deals with the responsibilities of members of a body corporate, the obligation to prove that they exercised all such diligence to prevent the commission of the offence as they ought to have exercised having regard to the nature of their functions. On the Second Reading of this Bill I raised a case which is typical and common in this particular trade. I would remind your Lordships that you are here dealing with about 30,000 very small businesses, curiously composed. I would say that in no other trade in this country do you get so many inactive directors—accountants, lawyers, and people acting for widows of proprietors.

§ The case I cited on Second Reading was the case of a widow who comes into one of these businesses and owns all the capital. She knows nothing about it. She turns the business into a small limited liability company, puts two or three people in to run it, and goes away into the country. According to this clause, she has to prove two things. First, she has to prove that the act was done without her knowledge and consent; and, secondly, that she took all reasonable precautions and exercised all such diligence having regard to her functions, to see that the offence was not committed. I say that it is almost an impossibility for an inactive director to be able to prove that, and I do not think it should be necessary. The first part of this clause, which requires a person to prove that the offence was done 982 without his knowledge or consent, should be enough. The clause as it stands lays itself open to various interpretations by ill-advised and ill-informed Benches of magistrates. They could very well say to anybody who owns all the capital in one of these small businesses, whether he is active in the business or not, that owning the capital places upon him a burden to see that these things are not done. Are you going to force these people actively into a business about which they know nothing?

§ The deletion of these words may not meet the case. The penalties as outlined are very fitting for those who are active managers in the business. If a director is a manager or takes any functional part in the business, I have no quarrel with making the penalty and the burden of proof high, but I cannot see why this burden of proof should be made so onerous upon negative directors, or why they should be brought into it when they have nothing whatsoever to do with the conduct of the business. It may be cited against me that this requirement is no new departure; that it is in our Statutes. I understand that the majority of Statutes stop at making the defendant prove that the offence was carried on without his knowledge or consent This battle was fought under the Companies Act, and in view of the fact that the Government have practically eliminated this onus in Clauses 1 and 2 by the Amendments which they have accepted, I lope that they will accept this one also. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 7, line 28, leave out from (" connivance ") to (" and ") in line 31.—(Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
I do not think the noble Lord will be surprised when he hears that we cannot accept his Amendment. The alleviations which have been accepted in respect of the earlier clauses are really quite different from the one which he is proposing here. The effect of his Amendment would be that it would be necessary for a director or officer of a corporation convicted of an offence only to show that he had nor consented or connived at the offence. Indeed, he would not be under any obligation to show that reasonable care had been taken in the laying down of precautions in connection with the work of the business or in any other way. In other words, if 983 the Amendment were accepted, directors and officers of a company or corporation would be placed in a privileged position as compared with any other people who are owners or users of motor vehicles.
I think the noble Lord overlooked the actual words as they appear in the clause, and I would like to draw his attention to them. They are: …unless he proves that the offence was committed without his consent or connivance and that he exercised all such diligence to prevent the commission of the offence as he ought to have exercised having regard to the nature of his functions in that capacity and to all the circumstances… In other words, the court before which this inactive director is prosecuted is entitled to look at his position in the company and see what his function is, and to take all the circumstances into account. If it is a case where he was, so to speak, not concerned with the particular part of the business of the company which was concerned with the management of the fleet of lorries, or whatever it was, then no doubt the court would find that he was not guilty of the offence. The noble Lord has pointed out that there are a substantial number of other Acts in which a subsection appears in this form, and I think he would agree that it would be most inadvisable to alter its form in the present case, even if the other arguments which I have addressed to him do not completely convince him.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I should like to make a suggestion about this matter. I was rather horrified when the noble Lord said in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that if a director who had no sort of business responsibility for the motor cars was brought up in court and showed that it was no part of his business, he would then be acquitted. Surely he ought not to be brought there if it is no part of his business. Let me take the case of the Transport Board which, quite rightly, is to be treated on all fours with any other company. It would be quite fantastic for Sir Cyril Hurcombe and all his colleagues, who have nothing whatever to do with the details of the transport business, to be carted off to some police court whenever a functionary of the corporation was being prosecuted. They have then to say, "But this was not my business "; and the court would say, "No, it was 984 not your business; therefore you are acquitted."
As I understand it, what is meant here is that in an organisation there is some director or senior executive whose business it is to see that the officials are instructed and directed to carry out the Act. Now that director is quite rightly brought before the court if he has not exercised proper diligence, issued the instructions and seen that the chain of responsibility is properly laid down. But these prosecutions will be instituted by the police all over the country, and they have to know whom to prosecute. Even from the noble Lord's speech, as delivered just now, I think it would be the duty of the police in Cornwall, for instance, to prosecute every director of a company which is concerned in one of these cases. Now that is not what is intended, and I suggest that a directive should be given to the police as to who is the right person to prosecute. If the noble Lord would insert after the word "and," the words, "if the nature of his functions was such as to require him to exercise diligence" and then "that he had exercised all the diligence which was right and proper in the circumstances," that, if I may respectfully say so, would meet the intention. I have had an opportunity of some discussion with the Government and I know that that is the intention. The Companies Act is not in the least a precedent in this case, because company prosecutions are instituted by the Board of Trade and the Director of Public Prosecutions. There we know exactly the person who is responsible. In that case we came to a perfectly satisfactory arrangement that each director should exercise his proper functions. That really is not a precedent for this very curious Bill, where persons of every sort and kind are to be prosecuted for strange and novel offences and where the prosecutions are to rest with local police all over the country.
If the noble Lord would accept those words now, I will move them as a manuscript Amendment. If it would be more convenient to move the Amendment on Report, he or I could do so. May I repeat them again? It is to make perfectly plain that the man who is to be prosecuted is the man upon whom there rightly rests a duty of diligence. I would propose to insert after the word "and" the words: "if the nature of his functions 985 was such as to require him to exercise diligence." Then the man in the company who is the director or executive responsible for this part of the business will be prosecuted. When the actual man who has done the wrong deed is prosecuted, then, if there has been some negligence, the director or the executive officer will also be prosecuted.

LORD RENNELL
May I intervene? I think that the offending words are the words "every person" in the second line of the subsection. When the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, made his point that it would be the duty of the police to bring everyone into court, I think the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, shook his head; but the offending word is "every," and unless the addition which the noble Viscount suggested is made, it will be the duty of the police under this clause, as I read it, to prosecute every person, and the persons will then have to prove two things: (a) that they were not conniving at it, and (b) that they did exercise diligence. That is an impossible situation.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I have no desire to alleviate the responsibility of the persons actually responsible, but I am anxious to prevent the person who is not responsible, and who cannot be held to be responsible, being put to all this inconvenience. I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, for putting the point so clearly. I am quite willing to withdraw my Amendment, because all I desire to do is to put the onus and burden of proof on the right shoulders and, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennell has said, not drag everybody into court and make them all prove that they are not responsible.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
Of course it is quite wrong to say that there is a duty on the police to prosecute everybody. There is a discretion on the police, which they are perfectly entitled to exercise sensibly and reasonably. The trouble, I have always felt, is that it is not within the knowledge of the prosecution as to which director is concerned with matters of this sort, and you cannot make it in effect part of the onus of the prosecution. I am quite prepared to look at this matter between now and to-morrow. I will read what has been said and see whether there is anything we can do. But I must give your Lordships plain warning that if the question in any way involves the prosecution 986 having to show which of the directors was the director who really dealt with this matter, it is an impossible onus to place upon the prosecution and we cannot have it. Subject to that consideration, I am quite prepared to look into it again

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
I quite understand that. On the other hand, if it is left as it stands, I do not know how the police could deal with the matter. I do not know how I should deal with it were I a policeman. I presume that I should go to the company and ask who was responsible. If the company said they would not tell me, then I should feel that I was justified in summoning the whole board of directors. If, on the other hand, they said, "The man who was responsible for this is such-and-such a director; he has got ten thousand men under him to whom he has issued an instruction," it would be a different matter. If it were a case, for instance, of a transport undertaking, and I were the chairman of it, I should see the director responsible for personnel, and so forth, and say to him," You must bring this new Act of Parliament specially to the attention of your officials and drivers, and to all others concerned, and must issue a general order to these persons explaining in simple language what they have to do, what they are not to do, and that they have to take care." If it can be shown that that has been done, if the director whose business it is to show diligence, has shown diligence, then, I think, the police would not prosecute the director but only the man concerned. I do not say that they have to prove who is the man, but I want to be sure that we get at the non responsible, the officer of the company whose duty it is to deal with this particular matter.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
It looks as if we may be able to meet each other. I certainly think that the right course to take in an ordinary case would be to write to the company and ask which director is concerned. The company would then have the opportunity of saying, "This matter falls within the province of Mr. Jones, but he personally knew nothing about it." If Mr. Jones were able to show that he had done what was required of him, he would presumably get off. But, of course, you might often have to deal with the case of the not so reputable 987 company who would not say anything at all; and in that case it would be right that we should prosecute the lot, and find out which of them was responsible. I think we must keep that right, but I will look at the whole matter again.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
I am very grateful to the noble and learned Viscount, and in the light of his undertaking I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD CHORLEY moved to add to subsection (4): In this subsection, the expression ' director,' in relation to any body corporate established by or under any enactment for the purpose of carrying on under national ownership any industry or part of an industry or undertaking, being a body corporate whose affairs are managed by the members thereof, means a member of that body. The noble Lord said: This Amendment has been put down to meet a point which was raised during the discussion in another place, as to whether the word "director" in relation to a body corporate covered the members of the so-called nationalised boards. There is a good deal to be said for the view that they are, in fact, already covered. It is not in any way the intention that they should be exempted from the obligations of a director or of an ordinary trading company. In order that there may not be any doubt on the point, this Amendment has been put down, and under it they will be covered. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 7, line 36, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Chorley.)

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE
This Amendment covers a point which has exercised members of both your Lordships' House and another place. I had put down an Amendment, but the Government Amendment meets the point completely and is better drafted.

§ LORD CHORLEY
Perhaps I may add that the noble Lord's Amendment was rather too widely drafted. It would have covered officers of a local authority, which was really not the point, and therefore we put down our own Amendment, which we think covers the position more clearly.

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

988

§ Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.

§ Clause 7 agreed to.

§ 6.38 p.m.

§ Clause 8:

§ Power of entry and taking of samples.

§ (3) Any person who obstructs any person exercising powers under this section shall be guilty of an offence.

§ LORD CHORLEY moved, after subsection (2) to insert: (3) Where a sample is taken by any person in the exercise of powers under this section, then—

(a) if the sample is taken from a motor vehicle, he shall if practicable take it in the presence of the owner or person for the time being in charge of the vehicle;
(b) if the sample is taken on premises which he has a right to enter under this section but not from a motor vehicle, he shall if practicable take it in the presence of the occupier of the premises or the person for the time being in charge thereof;

and shall, in either case, on taking the sample, then and there divide it into three parts, each part to be marked and sealed or fastened up, and shall—

(i) deliver one part to the owner or person in charge of the vehicle or, as the case may be, the occupier or person in charge of the premises, if he so requires it;
(ii) retain one part for future comparison; and
(iii) if he thinks fit to have an analysis made, submit one part to an authorised analyst.

(4) Where it is not practicable to comply with the requirements of paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of the last preceding subsection in taking a sample, notice shall be served in the prescribed manner on the owner or person in charge of the vehicle or, as the case may be, the occupier of the premises or the person for the time being in charge thereof informing him that the sample has been taken and that one part thereof is available for delivery to him, if he requires it, at such time and place as may be specified in the notice. (5) Where the result of an analysis of a sample taken under this section is given in evidence in any proceedings in respect of an offence under this Act, the part of the same retained for future comparison shall be produced at the hearing. (6) The result of an analysis of a sample taken under this section shall not be admissible as evidence unless the requirements of the three last preceding subsections have been complied with in relation thereto. The noble Lord said: This Amendment is intended to deal with the position in respect of sampling, and has been put down in pursuance of an undertaking given by the Attorney-General in another place.

989

§ The Amendment follows closely the provisions of the Food and Drags Act of 1938, Sections 70 and 80. The only departure from those provisions arises from the fact that it may not always be practicable to take the sample in the presence of the owner or person in charge of the vehicle. Your Lordships will remember that under the Food and Drugs Act prosecutions, the sample is taken in the shop, where there will always be a person in charge, who will see what is going on and to whom part of the sample can be handed. Under this Bill it may be necessary to take samples from a car which has perhaps been left in a garage, or, more often in a parking place at a cinema or race meeting or something of that kind, without waiting for the return of the person in charge. Generally speaking, however, the practice will be for the sampling officer making the preliminary test, and finding that it shows that there is something in the petrol which ought not to be there, to wait until the person in charge returns, and in the presence of that person he will then take the sample which is to be analysed and divide it up. Occasionally, however, there may be a case where the man coming back to his car sees somebody standing there who looks like a sampling officer and makes off. In those circumstances it would be absurd if the officer had to remain there indefinitely. Therefore subsection (4) is inserted to provide for that particular type of case.

§ There is an Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, to my Amendment, but the Amendment that I am moving is more comprehensive and more satisfactory than his in its terms. I think it covers the case where the sample is taken from a vehicle, even where it is not practicable to do so in the presence of the owner or of the person who is in charge of the premises. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 8, line 10, at end insert the said subsections.—(Lord Chorley.)

§ LORD SELSDON moved to amend the above Amendment by omitting, in the proposed new subsection (4), all words from the first "sample" to the next following "that ", and to insert: an adhesive label shall be affixed to the windscreen of the vehicle or upon the door of the premises as the case may be containing a notice to the effect.

990

§ The noble Lord said: I have an Amendment to the new subsection (4) which I think might be of use and benefit to the police, and it would save a certain amount of time. It would notify the owner of a car in a much shorter time that a sample had been taken from his tank. Let us take the case of a large public car park, containing many motor cars. The police are interested only in those tanks in which they find red petrol. They find a car which has red petrol in its tank, and they affix a sticky label to the windscreen of that vehicle inviting the owner to call at the police station. If that owner has a clear conscience, he will go round to the police station and it will save the police the trouble of finding out who is the owner of that can I am assured that it takes, on an average, about four or five days to trace a motorcar. It may be that that car has red petrol in its tank, but that it is there for the very good reason that the car is entitled to it. The owner could then present his credentials to the police and satisfy them that it was a genuine case. In that way, much time would be saved which would otherwise be occupied in taking that owner to court. I beg to move.

§ Amendment to the proposed Amendment moved— In subsection (4) leave out from (" sample ") to the first (" that ") and insert (" an adhesive label shall be affixed to the windscreen of the vehicle or upon the door of the premises as the case may be containing a notice to the effect ").—(Lord Selsdon.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
I am obliged to the noble Lord for this interesting and useful suggestion which, as a matter of administrative practice, is well worth consideration, and may well be adopted. However, I think that noble Lords would agree that it would not be satisfactory to make it a statutory obligation to use this method in all cases. I hope that the noble Lord will not insist upon his Amendment.

LORD SELSDON
In view of the noble Lord's remarks, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment to the proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ LORD SELSDON moved, in subsection (3), after "who" to insert "wilfully."

991

§ The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment purely to find out exactly what the word "obstructs" means in the working of this subsection. Does it mean that somebody who has a car in a public car park, and who has a lock on his petrol tank when the police wish to take a sample is taken as intending to obstruct the police? I move this Amendment purely because I want to make sure that it is wilful obstruction and not innocent obstruction. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 8, line 11, after (" who ") insert (" wilfully ").—(Lord Selsdon.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
I can give the noble Lord an assurance that the sort of case which he mentioned is not covered by those words. It means actually obstructing an officer. I do not think that the word "wilfully" adds anything to the word "obstructs," although if the noble Lord insists very hard upon his Amendment I shall be prepared to accept it.

LORD SELSDON
On the noble Lord's assurance that the wording of the clause does not cover such cases as that, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.

§ Clause 9 agreed to.

§ Clause 10 [Regulations]:

§ On Question, Whether Clause 10 shall stand part of the Bill?

LORD SALTOUN
I merely want to ask His Majesty's Government that in the drafting of the regulations they will insist upon the same imagination being used as was used in the amending of Clauses 1 and 2. Many people are looking forward to the restoration of basic petrol with a view to work being done in their gardens. I do not want that to be made impossible by regulation. As I always seem to be a white sheep for your Lordships, I would mention that I did not know that some form of banking was forbidden. When your Lordships' House rose last summer, noble Lords were issued with petrol coupons for petrol for attendance at this House for the months of August, September and October, but none for November and December. I do not know how the officials expected us to use it strictly, as I used it strictly, for purposes of attendance at your Lordships' House. I 992 merely mention the fact that imagination is needed in the making of these regulations.

§ Clause 10 agreed to.

§ Clause 11 agreed to.

§ Clause 12:

§ Application to Scotland.

§ 12.—(1) The provisions of this section shall have effect for the purposes of the application of this Act to Scotland.

§ (2) For any reference to a county borough there shall be substituted a reference to a burgh containing within its boundaries as ascertained, fixed and determined for police purposes, a population according to the census for the time being last taken of or exceeding fifty thousand.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK moved, in subsection (2), to leave out all words after "a reference to" and to insert: "a large burgh." The noble Earl said: This Amendment is a very small one. I suggest that what His Majesty's Government have proposed for a county borough is descriptively correct but not generally comprehensive. It would be more accurate to say "county or city or a large burgh," but I do not think it matters much whether large burghs, which do not invariably issue motor licences, do so or not. I think that is a minor point. It is said that the registration books will be sent to those large burghs which have issued the licences. They are quite easily sent to those burghs which have issued them." A large burgh" is an expression which is generally understood, whereas this definition of over 50,000 people means nothing to anybody. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 9, line 37, leave out from (" to ") to end of line 40, and insert (" a large burgh ").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
In the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, who usually bears the brunt of the noble Earl's wrath on these occasions, I propose, with the noble Earl's permission, to read what I have been given on this subject. The references to a county borough are in subsections (3) (c), (4) (b) and (4) (c) of Clause 5. These subsections require particulars of convictions and forfeited driving licences to be sent to the council of the county or county borough which is the registration or licensing authority I concerned. In Scotland the registration 993 and licensing authorities are (a) county councils, and (b) councils of burghs with a population of 50,000 or over (see the Roads Act, 1920, Sections 17 and 18 (b), and the Road Traffic Act, 1930, Sections 4 (8) and 34 (a)). Only seven of the twenty-four large burghs in Scotland are registration and licensing authorities and, if the proposed Amendment were made, it would render the Bill unintelligible, as a court would then be bound, in certain large burgh cases, to forward licences, notices of conviction, and so on, to councils which had no duties as registration or licensing authorities.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
I am not content with that answer because I think it is nonsense. How could anybody send a licence to an authority which has not issued it? It could be sent only if an authority has issued it. However, if the noble Lord objects to what I have suggested in my Amendment, I beg leave to withdraw it.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ LORD CHORLEY
This Amendment adds two new subsections to Clause 12—the Scottish application clause. I do not think it requires any extensive explanation, especially in the presence of so many noble Lords from the other side of the Border. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved—

§ Page 9, line 40, at end insert— (3) References to a court of summary jurisdiction for or to a justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessional division or place as the court by which a person was convicted shall be omitted and for any such reference in subsection (2) of section (Provisions as to appeals) or in section (Power to remove disability and disqualification) of this Act there shall be substituted a reference to the court by which the person was convicted.

§ (4) For the expression ' summons ' there shall be substituted,

(a) in subsection (9) of section five of this Act, the expression ' complaint, ' and
(b) in subsection (2) of section (Provisions as to appeals), the expression ' citation '."—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Clause 12, as amended, agreed to.

§ Clause 13 [Application to Northern Ireland]:

§ LORD CHORLEY
This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.

994

§ Amendment moved—

§ Page 10, line 11, leave out subsections. (2) and (3) and insert the following subsections— ( ) References to a court of summary jurisdiction shall be construed as references to a court of summary jurisdiction constituted in accordance with the provisions of the Summary Jurisdiction and Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland), 1935, as amended by any Act, whether past or future, of the Parliament of Northern Ireland; references to summary conviction shall be construed as references to conviction by a court so constituted; references to a petty sessional division shall be construed as references to a petty sessions district.

§ ( ) For subsection (3) of section (Provisions as to appeals) the following subsection shall be substituted:— ' (3) For the purposes of this section, the bringing of proceedings before the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland by writ of certiorari to quash a conviction or by way of case stated by a court of summary jurisdiction under section ten of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1945 shall be deemed to be an appeal ', "—(Lord Chorley.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ Clause 13, as amended, agreed to.

§ 6.50 p.m.

§ Clause 14:

§ Short title, extent and duration.

§ 14.—(1) This Act may be cited as the Motor Spirit (Regulation) Act, 1948.

§ (2) This Act shall come into operation on the first day of June, nineteen hundred and forty-eight, and shall continue in force until such date as His Majesty may by Order in Council appoint, and shall then expire, subject to such provisions as may be contained in the Order as respects things previously done or omitted to be done.

§ LORD WALERAN moved, in subsection (2), to leave out all words after "until" and to insert: the first day of June, nineteen hundred and forty-nine.

§ The noble Lord said: My Amendment is extremely simple. I mentioned the matter on Second Reading, and I understood from the speeches I heard then that none of us really liked this Bill. We thought it was far to hastily drawn, and that is so in spite of the improvements we have been able to effect to-day. I thought it might be a good thing in those circumstances that we should review the situation after one year, having given ourselves time to see how it worked and when there might be a possibility of our not requiring to continue rationing. It might then be a good thing to go into the Bill and re-draft it, because there may be a 995 number of provisions in it which we shall want to alter and which cannot be altered by regulation. We may have to do it by another Bill, and I think we should start afresh at the beginning of the next year. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 11, line 9, leave out from (" until ") to end of clause and insert the said new words.—(Lord Waleran.)

§ LORD CHORLEY
I am afraid we cannot accept this Amendment. As the noble and learned Viscount pointed out on Second Reading, there is no prospect of the exchange situation changing very much within the next twelve months, and there is no likelihood at all of our being able to bring this matter to an end within twelve months. To accept the Amendment would really be to hold out false hopes. The provision for bringing this Act to an end by Proclamation is obviously the most sensible and elastic one in the circumstances, and I hope the noble Lord will not press his Amendment.

THE MARQUESS OF WILLINGDON
I should like to support the Amendment for the reasons I mentioned on Second Reading. I agree that petrol is likely to be in shorter supply, but there are many other reasons for giving the Bill second thoughts. Everyone will agree that it has been a hurried Bill; and I think everyone will agree that it could have been a better Bill. On the subjects of the use of the petrol, on what use the small three to five gallon user is to make of his petrol, with regard to the hire purchase companies and in regard to utility vans, we are all still much in the air, even after the Amendments which have been discussed to-day. Therefore, in all seriousness, I beg to support the Amendment.

§ VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN
May I add one word to what my noble friend, Lord Waleran, has said? I think we all agree that it would be too much to expect that the Bill should come to an end in a year's time; but one of the things we on these Benches would like to see taking place in the Ministry of Fuel and Power is a proper administrative review so soon as they have the data of the year's working. We should like to feel that that administrative review is going to be carried out as soon as the experience has been gained. The Bill has been put through in a hurry 996 and there will be a number of things which, in the interests of everybody, will need straightening out.

LORD SANDHURST
May I add a word in support of this Amendment? I do not think that this Bill has been fully considered, taking into account the view of the garage proprietor and the garage manager. In my time I have been both, and I speak with a certain knowledge of this trade. We are in danger of producing many regulations with very heavy penalties for what are really very small offences. Earlier this afternoon I suggested to the Government that their views on the subject of penalties are inflated. I suggest to them now that the whole of this Bill is, in a way, a mistake. There has, I know, been a black market in petrol, but I do not see any reason to believe that this Bill will stop it. The black market in petrol has not arisen, as this Bill would suggest, solely from those who are supplied with petrol for commercial use. There are many users of petrol to-day who will not come under this Bill. I will suggest one of them, a very simple one—namely, the man who uses his vehicles for hire; in other words, the owner of the hackney carriage. The hackney carriage owner in this country uses a large amount of petrol, and has a large amount of petrol allotted to him. I think we must be careful that we do not make it more profitable to him to sell his petrol coupons than it is for him to use his vehicles for the purpose for which they are licensed. I do not think that point has been thought out. I see in this Bill the danger of creating a dishonest public; that is one of the things of which I am very much afraid. Looking round the House at the present time, I see men who were either serving in the war of 1914 or who were too old to serve. All of them remember what happened after that war. They know how there was a general tendency to try and defeat the law. I am afraid that this Bill will introduce the same tendency now. There are two very dangerous things that can happen—

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES
If the noble Lord would forgive my saying so, he should confine himself to the Amendment and not speak on the Bill.

LORD SANDHURST
I am speaking on the Amendment. The Amendment 997 suggests that the Bill is dangerous, and I am agreeing that it is dangerous. For that reason I support the Amendment. I think that the Bill is a mistake.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I do not think for one moment that we can contemplate this Bill coming to an end next year. I wish I could think so. I think that the situation confronting this country is much too grave to let us think that we can get back to the good, happy days when we could have all the petrol we wanted. Every day we see instances of all sorts of hardships, whether it is paper rationing or something else. The fact is that we just have not the money we need, and we shall have to see that the limited amount of money which we have is spent on those things which must have absolute priority. One of the first of those things, of course, is ordinary, simple food. In view of that, I could not agree to this Amendment. With regard to what the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, has said, and his request that this measure should be reviewed in the light of the situation in the future, I am with him. I think that we most certainly ought to undertake to do that. We should try to find out where the shoe is pinching, and if we discover where we are inflicting hardship on this, that or the other group of people, we shall not hesitate to come to the House and to ask for powers to alter the Bill in that regard. I can certainly give the noble Viscount that assurance which I hope will satisfy the very proper request which he made.

LORD WALERAN
Lord Chorley remarked that if this Amendment were passed it would lead the people in this country to think that there were hopes of getting more petrol again. In view of the Lord Chancellor's pronouncement, it is clear that there is no hope at all of that for some substantial period. Having regard to the noble and learned Viscount's assurance that the whole measure will be reviewed and that the Government of the clay will come to the House and ask for new legislation if there is need for it, I am happy to withdraw my Amendment.

§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

§ Remaining clause agreed to.

§ House resumed.