PART IV (Hansard, 9 May 1950)

§ VISCOUNT SIMON
I think this new Schedule is right, and that we had better add it to the Bill as it stands, as the 202 noble Lord suggests. However, it needs to be carefully looked into. It does provide the illustration which caused me to doubt whether the Lord Chancellor's Amendment at page 1, line 26, was quite right as it stood. It is an odd situation. If your Lordships look at page 3 of the Marshalled List you will see a provision which in part is the existing law, though it is not all the existing law, because the part printed in black type represents a change. The provision says that Part IV of the Schedule to this Act shall have effect for the purpose of extending to the staffs of such representatives"— that is the point in which my noble and learned friend Lord Maugham was interested— and members as aforesaid and to the families of officers of the organisation, any immunities and privileges conferred on the representatives, members or officers, and so on and so forth. If you have an international agreement which is limited to conferring privileges on the representative, it seems rather a nice question as to whether by a side-wind by these words you also confer those privileges on his wife, his children and the whole family party who may be travelling over Europe with him, and whether all of them In ay drive as negligently as they please without being responsible to anybody. It may be that that is corrected by the proviso which follows, which says that the Order in Council is not to go beyond what the international agreement says. It is a puzzle worth looking at for a few minutes, although we need not look at it to-day. I am content to accept it now as it stands, on the understanding that we shall have an opportunity of looking at the words again.
I rather hope that the Lord Chancellor will think it right to include this Schedule in the new Bill—though naturally he has reserved that question. It involves some repetition, the use of a little paper and print. But, after all, the most important thing is to make the law as intelligible as you can, and I defy anybody, unless he has some special equipment and a great deal of time, to find out what this is all about, combining it with the Act of 1944, for which I was responsible, and the Act of 1946, for which my noble and learned friend was responsible. Therefore, I should have thought it was an advantage to retain it.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
We will certainly look at it. In any event this Schedule has served a useful purpose, because it has called attention to this point. The reason why I mentioned the point on the earlier Amendment at page 1, line 26, was that if we wanted to put it right that was the time to do it, and not in the Schedule, because the Schedule produces in convenient form what the law will be if the earlier parts are carried into force. Certainly at this stage I do not mind having it in, without prejudice to what we might do in the future.

§ LORD HENDERSON
I beg to move the next Amendment.