At an earlier stage to-night the Secretary of State justified one of his Amendments on the ground of what he termed the lack of precision which it is necessary to secure in these matters. That is my excuse for intervening now. This Clause confers on local authorities the discretion to order the payment of a grant in certain circumstances, and if an order for payment be made the amount is prescribed by the Statute. Accordingly if a dispute arises as to the amount it might become the subject-matter of litigation. Therefore, we must approach the language of this Amendment with the utmost caution. The Amendment provides that the grant should be paid if the house is occupied by the owner thereof and has been owned and occupied by him or by "a member of his family." In Part I of this Bill the expression "a member of his family" also occurs, and in Committee I drew attention to the lack of definition of that expression. I have not pursued the topic further because that part of the Bill deals with criminal matters, and I hope that the court in a criminal matter would place an indulgent interpretation on the expression.

Here we find the expression "member of a family" again introduced. This is not a criminal matter. This is a subject about which litigation might well arise between a local authority and the owner of a dwelling-house—a dispute about pounds, shillings and pence. There is no definition of this expression "member of a family." Is a second cousin, an uncle or a step-mother to be regarded as a member of the family? I humbly submit that if we are to attain that degree of precision which is necessary in these matters this omission ought to be remedied in another place and some definition of this phrase provided in the Bill. Otherwise we shall be placing an unfair burden upon His Majesty's judges. If no such definition is supplied, then, of course, "it is an ill wind that blows naebody any good," and this will provide, in the language of the Parliament House in Edinburgh, "a dripping roast" for the lawyers.