LORDS AMENEMENTS (Hansard, 26 July 1949)

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, I beg to move that this House do not insist on these Amendments. With your Lordships' permission, I will speak to these two Amendments together. I think it would save your Lordships' time and, at least to my view, reasons are the same in each ease. These Amendments were rejected in another place because in certain cases they would impose a charge on public funds, and I am certain that your Lordships, in accordance with tradition, will accept that reason as a valid ground for not pressing them. We all recognise it is a matter of privilege. At the same time, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, and I daresay noble Lords in other parts of the House, would like a fuller explanation of the attitude of the Government to the tribunal procedure if Amendments which gave rise to considerable discussion when considered here previously are now dropped. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, that I am most anxious to take him as fully as I can into our confidence and explain how we intend to apply Clause 11 of the Bill, so as to avoid unfair or unreasonable enforcement of measures to stop interference. I hope I shall be able to satisfy 519 the noble Lord that enforcement will always be considered in a spirit of fairness and reasonableness to all concerned.

While we are not prepared to write into the Bill financial provisions on the lines of the original Amendment, I can assure the noble Lord that if in practice financial difficulties arise which cannot be overcome (as they often have been overcome in the past) in the normal course of discussion and negotiation between the interested parties, the Government will give their sympathetic consideration to the next step, and if convinced that something further should be done, will make the necessary proposals to Parliament. But my right honourable friend the Postmaster-General is prepared to go even further than that to avoid the possibility of hardship and to save any firm or individual from the risk of having to bear unreasonable expense in relation to the suppression of interference. I can give the noble Lord the following carefully considered assurance. Although there is nothing in the Bill on this subject, the chairman of the tribunal will in fact be at liberty to express a view on the subject of allocation of expense in suppressing interference to a Government wireless station in any case in which he might feel moved to do so. If he were to express such a view, I need hardly add—but I would like to do so in order to make our intentions absolutely clear—the Government would naturally give serious consideration to his observations. That is as far as I can go towards meeting the desires of the noble Lord opposite, and I sincerely hope he will feel that a genuine effort has been made to satisfy the point he raised. I beg to move.

§ LORD CHERWELL

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for his conciliatory reply and to say that this proposal goes some way to meet the difficulty we had in mind when we put this Amendment into the Bill. Without it, it appears that the tribunal has only two alternatives—namely, to direct the Postmaster-General to revoke or vary the notice, or to put the whole expense of complying with it on the party causing interference. As the noble Earl recog- 520 nises, there must be many cases where it would be in the general interest to have the interference removed but where it would be unfair to put the whole expense on the party causing it. It seems to me that the proposal made, which enables the chairman of the tribunal to express a view as to the proper distribution of costs in such a case, and the assurance the Government have given, that they will give great weight to such a recommendation, go a long way to meet the difficulty we have felt. Therefore, I agree that we should not insist on these Amendments.