§ Mr. Barrasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a firm in Lerwick, trading by the name of Sandison under a wholesale licence to 1127W sell intoxicants, was heavily fined for the illicit retail of liquor on its premises in October, 1937, and again in May, 1939; that two members of the firm were sentenced to three months' hard labour for assaulting the chief witness against them in 1937; that a third member who now holds the wholesale licence from the excise authorities was declared by the sheriff on conviction to be prepared to disregard entirely the law; and whether he will instruct the excise authorities to decline to re-issue any wholesale licence to the firm of Sandison or any convicted member thereof?
§ Sir J. SimonI understand that the facts are substantially as stated in the first two parts of the Question, though I have no information as to the third.
With regard to the last part of the Question, under Section 46 of the Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903, a person convicted of illicit retail forfeits his licence and cannot obtain another for two years, but I am advised that I have no power to suspend the issue of a licence to a convicted person for a longer period nor to refuse the issue of a licence to an unconvicted person who is a member of a firm, other members of which may have been convicted.