§ 7.21 p.m.
§ Lord LyellMy Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
§ Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Lyell.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ House in Committee accordingly.
§ [The LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD in the Chair.]
§ Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.
§ Clause 5 [Separate register for small ships]:
§
Lord Lyell moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 4, line 39, leave out from ("are") to end of line 41 and insert ("so registered in the United Kingdom").
§ The noble Lord said: I hope it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak to Amendments Nos. 1 and 3, both of which stand in my name. The purpose of these two amendments is to achieve the same object as we originally proposed, but, we hope, by a simpler and more appropriate procedure. In practice, the need is likely to arise infrequently, but some owners of small ships which are registered under Part I of the 1894 Act may wish to close that registration and to apply for registration in the small ships register instead.
§ The Part I register records title and mortgages, and it is therefore necessary to safeguard the interests of owners and mortgagees under this procedure, so that a person who claims to be the owner of a small ship, but is not, cannot effect its removal from the Part I register by registering it in the small ships register, and neither can a genuine owner remove the protection enjoyed by a mortgagee by similar means.
1586§ In the Bill as drafted, subsections (5) and (6) of Clause 5 achieve this purpose by means of the issue of a certificate of conditional closure. This certificate will have been granted by the registrar of the ship's port of registry, provided only that he was satisfied that the applicant was, indeed, the registered owner and that no mortgage was outstanding. Armed with this certificate, the owner could then apply for registration under the small ships register, and when the new registration had been achieved the Part I registration would be cancelled.
§ Under the proposed new procedure in subsection (5), the owner would first apply for registration to the small ships registrar in the normal way. Paragraph (a) provides that, under regulations which we will make under subsection (1) of Clause 5, the small ships registrar would so inform the registrar at the ship's port of registry. That registrar would close the registration in accordance with those regulations, if he had no reason to doubt that the applicant was the beneficial owner and that no mortgage was outstanding on the ship.
§ Your Lordships will see that paragraph (b) of the amendment provides that registration under the small ships register cannot take effect until the Part I registration is closed, and that if that registration is closed the registration under the small ships register shall take immediate effect. The intention here is to ensure that there is no period during the transfer from one register to the other when the ship is unregistered, so that owners wishing to travel abroad with their ships during that period will not be inconvenienced.
§ Paragraph (c) of Clause 5(1) of the Bill, as amended, removes all references to conditional closure as a consequence of the words in the new subsection (5). As such certificates would not have been granted in respect of ships registered outside the United Kingdom, it is necessary to insert the words "so registered in the United Kingdom", in order to maintain the original limitation which paragraph (c) was intended to provide. I am afraid that my explanation of these two amendments has, of necessity, been detailed and, possibly, a little convoluted, but we have attempted to make the process a little simpler. I beg to move.
§ Lord Ponsonby of ShulbredeI think that one could describe these two amendments as tidying up amendments, and we certainly have no objection to them.
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ 7.27 p.m.
§
Lord Green way moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 4, line 41, at end insert—
(" ( ) Except as may be provided in regulations made under this section, the registration of a ship under this section and the contents of any certificate or document compiled in connection with such registration shall not be evidence of the title of any person to the ship and shall not be treated as a representation other than by the applicant for registration of the title to the ship.")
§ The noble Lord said: On Second Reading, I voiced one or two concerns about part of this Bill. My main concern lay in Clause 5, which sets up a simplified registration procedure for pleasure craft based on 1587 length rather than tonnage, with a minimum limit of 13.7 metres. As I said on Second Reading, this registration will also have to apply to owners who wish to visit France, where the authorities are shortly going to insist on the owner of a yacht producing a valid registration document.
§ I accept the need for the applicant under this Bill to show a bona fide link with the craft in question, but I am concerned that under Clause 5, as presently drafted, such a link could also be used for other purposes and by third parties with no claim to the title of the yacht, and that such a link might give rise, in due course, to the body who are to run the registration scheme being sued for negligently issuing an incorrect certificate in the first place.
§ This loophole, if I may call it that, could bring into the Bill the very complicated procedure of investigating title, which is incorporated in existing legislation, thus destroying the very simplicity which is its very welcome purpose. I have brought forward this amendment in order to rectify what I see as a defect in Clause 5, as presently drafted, and if it were to be accepted it would, in effect, add a new subsection (2) to the clause. I beg to move.
§ Lord LyellI am sure that the Committee will appreciate the swift and clear way in which the noble Lord has moved his amendment. We appreciate the motive behind the amendment, but I have to say that the Government cannot agree to recommend its acceptance. We believe from the outset that it is accepted that the ownership qualification for a British ship must be identical, whether it is registered under the small ships register or under Part I of the 1894 Act, in order that the expression "British ship" is capable of only one interpretation. The noble Lord's amendment, which proposes that a certificate or document under the small ships register shall not be treated as evidence or representation of title to the ship, undermines this positon.
The intention of the Bill, as drafted, is to introduce regulations which provide that the certificate of registration will clearly display the rubric, "This is not a document of title". Any potential purchaser of a ship may well ask to see this document, in the same way as the intending purchaser of a car may inspect a log book. Both would be unwise to rely upon either as evidence of title. But let us suppose that a potential purchaser did so. Let us suppose, in other words, that he did rely upon the certificate of registration as evidence of title and, having acquired a ship, subsequently discovered, when the real owner came to repossess the ship, that he did not have a good title. Could the potential purchaser then reasonably claim that it was the fault of the organisation which had registered the ship? We believe, in the light of the words on the certificate of registration, that it is unlikely that any court would attribute the prime cause of the damage suffered by the purchaser to the organisation which had registered the ship.
In so far as there is a possiblity that such an organisation could be found guilty of negligence, I should have thought that the best course would be for that organisation to take out the appropriate insurance cover to deal with this contingency. We believe that it 1588 would be anomalous to include in the Bill words which indicate that any claim to title made by an applicant to the small ships register should not be taken seriously and at the same time to create the offence contained in Clause 3(1)(b) of the Bill concerning false statements for the purpose of securing registration.
Although I believe that the amendment should not be accepted, I am sure the Committee is very grateful to the noble Lord, with all his expertise, for drawing attention to this potential problem. May I suggest to him that we should meet in order to explore the problem further, in the hope of being able to find a possible solution? With, I hope, the utmost courtesy which is customary in your Lordships' House, I have to say to the noble Lord that we cannot accept his amendment as it stands this evening.
§ Lord GreenwayI am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, for his lengthy explanation of why he cannot at present accept my amendment. I was becoming a little disheartened as he spoke, but was extremely gratified to hear his final remark that his department would be very happy to look again at the matter. With that proviso and reserving the right to bring forward a further amendment, if necessary, at Report stage, for the time being I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§
Lord Lyell moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 5, leave out lines 14 to 26 and insert—
("(5) Where an application for the registration under this section of a ship registered under Part I of the 1894 Act is granted—
§ The noble Lord said: I spoke earlier to this amendment. It is part of a package. I beg to move.
§ On Question, amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
§ Remaining clauses and schedule agreed to.
§ House resumed: Bill reported, with the amendments.