>PRICE CONTROL AND OTHER ORDERS (INDEMNITY) BILL (Hansard, 30 July 1951)

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH)
My Lords, the Bill to which I am asking your Lordships to give a Second Reading is before your Lordships' House in consequence of the ruling of Mr. Speaker in another place that two Orders, one made by the Board of Trade and the other by the Ministry of Supply, were not properly laid. The two Orders in question are Statutory Instrument No. 413, 1951—the Utility Apparel (Maximum Prices and Charges) (Amendment No. 2) Order—and the Iron and Steel Prices Order, 1951, Statutory Instrument No. 252, made by the Ministry of Supply.
I do not think it is necessary for me to make "heavy weather" of this matter, or to ask your Lordships to do so. I hope it will suffice if I give a general 16 explanation as to how the mistake was made and of the steps which are being taken to rectify it. The error consisted of a failure physically to lay all these subsidiary documents described in the main as related schedules. It was thought that, when an Order was made, it was sufficient to lay before Parliament the Order and such documents as were necessary to explain how the law was being altered. The error was that, instead of laying all the related documents, only those introduced for the first time were laid. The other related schedules, in the case of the Board of Trade, and the other related documents, in the case of the Ministry of Supply—that is, those which were not altered—had already been laid with the original Orders. It is now acknowledged that all the documents, and not merely the new documents, should have been laid. In consequence of Mr. Speaker's ruling, my right honourable friends the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of Supply caused investigations and researches to be made into how many Orders had been laid by them or their predecessors to which this ruling applied. The result of those investigations is set out in the Schedules to this Bill. There were approximately 250 such Orders, dated in respect of the Board of Trade from the year 1942 and, in respect of the Ministry of Supply, from the year 1946. Four Orders from the Board of Trade are still in force; the others have either been annulled or have been replaced by other Orders.
If I may put forward a mitigation of the crime—if crime it be—I would say that this procedure was adopted for the convenience of trade and industry. Practically all these 250 Orders are price control orders, in one form or another. I have here a set of documents relating to one Order with all the related schedules. This one is the Goods and Services (Price Control of Utility Apparel) Order. If this had been printed in one solid mass of paper, any trader wishing to see how the prices of the goods with which he dealt were affected would have to possess himself of the whole mass of these documents, when he was interested only in one particular item, because the Schedules to this Order relate to items ranging from industrial overalls to ladies' night apparel, and from children's clothes to men's outer apparel. That is the reason for this procedure. I admit, quite frankly, and His 17 Majesty's Government admit, that an offence has been committed, in so far as the Ministers have failed to comply with the directions of an Act of Parliament. Therefore, His Majesty's Government have introduced this Bill, and have asked Parliament to excuse the offence and to agree to Passing of an Indemnity Bill.
Now, my Lords, if I may just briefly refer to the Bill, Clause 1, subsection (1), indemnities the Ministers for the time being concerned and their responsible officials from the consequences of this failure to lay in proper form the Orders and directions specified in the First Schedule to the Bill. It is they who have failed to comply with the relevant enactments and, accordingly, it is they only who are indemnified. Subsection (2) of Clause 1 goes on to provide that each of the Orders in question shall be deemed to have been duly laid when the original but unsuccessful attempt to lay it was made. The reason for this provision is that there may be some doubt as to the validity of the Orders because they were not laid in proper form. I should like to make it clear that Mr. Speaker's ruling in another place had nothing to do with validity. He made no ruling as regards validity; the only ruling he made was as to the manner in which the Orders were laid. But there might be some doubt about the validity, and subsection (2) of Clause 1 is inserted to remove that doubt for all time.
Subsection (3) of Clause 1 provides the procedure by which indemnity may be given in respect of Orders which are not specified in the Schedules to the Bill but which may have been made in wrong form. As I have said, we have made investigations, and we have found somewhere in the region of 250 Orders which may or may not have been wrongly made. I make no claim that that search has been complete. There may be other Orders, and also there might be Orders involving other Ministers; and this provision would cover them. It does not automatically give an indemnity for every case that may be discovered in the future; what it does is simply to provide a summary procedure by which Parliament may be special case; and it has to go through the procedure of the affirmative Resolution before Parliament. That, my Lords, is the Bill, and 18 those are the provisions. I ask your Lordships to accept the apologies of His Majesty's Government for the error made, and I trust that your Lordships will now give this Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

§ LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY
My Lords, the noble Lord has candidly admitted to the House that His Majesty's Ministers are in error in this matter—accidentally, no doubt, but Parliamentarily speaking in error. With great generosity we do not propose to put the knife into the wound. This is an extremely complicated matter, like all matters dealing with delegated legislation. It is an illustration of the tangle into which our legislation and its children and grandchildren have got, and perhaps we might draw a moral from it. But there is no doubt that it is a technical breach and one which we do not regard very seriously. We would, however, take this opportunity of pointing out that it is in the public interest that our laws should be simplified, so far as possible, and that there should not be future occasions upon which a Minister may similarly err.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
My Lords, before we pass this measure, I should like to refer to any early Order of 1942—I think No. 751. I was taking a personal interest in this matter, and I am wondering whether I myself am being indemnified by this Bill, because, for a short period at the beginning of 1942 I happened to be President of the Board of Trade. If I am being indemnified it would be only courteous of me to say "Thank you" and I now do so.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord De L'Isle and Dudley, for the magnanimous manner in which he has accepted the apology. If there were no better reasons for bringing this Bill before your Lordships' House than to indemnify the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, who was a culprit—though I hesitated to say so—that would be sufficient reason.

§ LORD LLEWELLIN
The noble Lord said that a number of cases were included, 19 and I was only provisionally saying "Thank you," in case I was on the list; but I fancy that I am not.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
If the noble Lord was a culprit, he was a culprit in good company, because the Minister of Supply responsible for the origin of the proceedings was the right honourable Sir Andrew Duncan. As I say, therefore, the noble Lord, if he was culpable, was so in splendid company. I thank your Lordships for the reception you have given to this Bill. We shall take steps to guard against any similar breach in future, in so far as the related schedules will be printed and laid before Parliament in proper form.