§ [No. 3]
§ Page 13, line 1, at end insert "on the Secretary of State".
§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICHMy Lords, I beg to move that the House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 3. This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 3.
§ Moved, That the House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ Earl COWLEY moved Amendment No. 3A:
§ Page 13, line 7, after "regulations" insert "made by the Secretary of State".
§ The noble Earl said: This manuscript Amendment is to be moved in consideration of the Commons Amendments, and 521 is purely consequential on the Commons Amendment No. 3. I must apologise to the House and to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for moving a manuscript Amendment at this stage. It was only because a possible shortcoming was brought to my attention this afternoon that I tabled the Amendment and I felt it would be necessary to debate the point. There was no intention on my part of trying to catch the noble Lord, Lord Harris, by surprise.
§
The argument put forward by the Government for the Commons Amendment No. 3, when it was moved at the Report stage in another place, was that under the Bill as drafted orders can be made both by the Secretary of State and by the courts. However, Clause 17 was meant to refer only to orders and regulations that were made by the Secretary of State, and there was some confusion on this point during the Bill's passage through another place. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department said on 15th July during the Report stage:
…on re-examining Clause 18"—
which is now Clause 17 of the Bill in front of us—
we noticed two anomalies which call for attention. The first is that it might have been assumed that an order of the court under the emergency procedure in Clause 10 would be covered by the provision in Clause 18 "—
now Clause 17, subsection—
(1). This requires an order or regulation under the Bill to be exercisable by statutory instrument. This is not the intention, so the first amendment makes it clear that only orders or regulations made by the Secretary of State are in view.—[Official Report, Commons, 15th July 1975; col. 1451.]
§ Thus the Government's Amendment No. 3 was inserted in order to tidy up Clause 17(1), and to ensure that there would be no confusion in the future when the Bill became law. Likewise, the same reasoning that applied to the insertion of the Commons Amendment also applies to my Amendment to Clause 17(3). The words "orders and regulations under this Act" in subsection (3) could also refer to orders which have been made by the court as much as the words that are in subsection (1), "orders or regulations". Thus the purpose of my manuscript Amendment is to clarify Clause 17(3) in the same way as the Commons Amendment has clarified Clause 17(1). We on this side of the House agree 522 that it was necessary to clarify subsection (1), but I suggest that it might also be necessary to clarify subsection (3). I feel that the arguments for the one are equally valid for the other. I have no intention of pressing this Amendment, but I felt it was important to discuss the point before the Bill finally became law. My Lords, I beg to move.
§ Lord HARRIS of GREENWICHMy Lords, I fully take the noble Earl's point that the late arrival of this Amendment was in no sense an attempt to catch us out. Indeed, it had the beneficial effect of making me look at this matter even more carefully than I should have done in normal circumstances. But I hope I can reassure the noble Earl that this Amendment is unnecessary. I think he rightly pointed out that my honourable friend in another place moved this Amendment, because of the slight danger that otherwise there was some risk of ambiguity so far as subsection (1) was concerned, and that when one used the word "order" in that subsection it could mean an order of the court or an order made under the Act. I think this Amendment is unnecessary because it is only right to take account of subsection (3) as it now appears, following subsection (1), and it is now quite clear that under subsection (1) the order or the regulation is one made by the Secretary of State.
So far as subsection (3) is concerned, where the words "orders and regulations" are used, it is clearly in the context of subsection (1) and therefore it seems to me, and to the Government, unnecessary to have an Amendment of this character. I do not think there is any risk that any court is likely to construe these words in different terms from those intended, and on the basis of what I have said I hope the noble Earl will not press his Amendment.
§ Earl COWLEYMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for what he has said and for explaining the position under this clause. With the leave of the House, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.