COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 13 May 1976)

§ Lord WIGG

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment. I perhaps owe a word of explanation as to how it comes about that I move this Amendment, because the work on the Bill was undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls. He is abroad and has asked me to move the Amendment in his name; and it is perhaps fitting that I should pay tribute to him for the hard work he put in, and also to Members of another place.

This Bill is a technical Bill. The Amendment which your Lordships are 1046 now considering is a technical Amendment, but technical though it may be, it affects the livelihoods of some 200,000 people and the enjoyment of very many more. All the Bill does is to alter the law to what everybody thought it was until a case was decided in the opposite direction. The effects have been catastrophic in terms of employment and catastrophic in terms of the people who spend their time in going to dances and the like. Indeed, as recently as last Friday a Birmingham court, on the basis of the law as it will be until this Bill becomes an Act, imposed a fine of £500. A few weeks ago in Birmingham a group of people were fined £600.

The work of the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, was very important indeed. Perhaps I might say, as one who is sometimes critical of the procedures in your Lordships' House, that when your Lordships wish you can move with great speed. The proceedings in this connection started only on the last day before the Session was brought to an end, under the Ten Minute Rule in another place. Then the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, took up the task and introduced the Bill in this House. It had a speedy passage, as indeed it should because it is technical and non-controversial. Then a Labour Member, Mr. Rooker, undertook the task of piloting the Bill through the House of Commons, again on an all-Party basis. There was support from all sides of the House of Commons, as there has been in this House. My Lords, I apologise for detaining your Lordships for as long as I have, but I wished to pay a proper tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, and those associated with him, in the passage of this Bill. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment.