Part of Orders of the Day — Civic Restaurants Bill – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 31 Mawrth 1947.
Mr Thomas Fraser
, Hamilton
12:00,
31 Mawrth 1947
I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
The House is aware, I think, that, in the closing stages of the Debate on Report in this House, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State undertook to have considered this Amendment in Another place when it was found, I believe, to be out of Order at that time for technical reasons. The Amendment is an endeavour to meet the point made by hon. Members on both sides of the House, that in some of the rural areas of Scotland—or, at least, the non-urban areas in Scotland—county councils might not be disposed to exercise the powers conferred on them under the Bill, and that the district councils, in those cases where the district councils represent fairly populous areas, would make a better exercise of the functions. It was represented to my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister of Food that, in certain instances, the county councils might be disinclined merely to delegate the functions if we should add the district councils to the Clause dealing with delegated powers. We undertook to provide that, where we could be satisfied that a county council was unreasonably refusing to exercise the powers, they would be transferred, or might be transferred, to the district councils.
As we closed our Debate on an earlier occasion one gathered from the remarks of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) that he took exception to the Minister of Food s being the Minister permitted to interfere with the local authorities in Scotland in this way. We gave this matter very careful consideration before we came before the House on an earlier occasion, and we have given it careful consideration since; but I would ask the House to appreciate that, if a Minister of the Crown is to exercise this function of determining whether a local authority is reasonably or unreasonably exercising its functions under the Bill, then that Minister, in this case, must clearly be the Minister of Food. I do not think, really, that it could be argued that the Secretary of State is in a better state than the Minister of Food to determine whether or not a local authority is carrying out its duty under the Bill. I commend this Amendment to the House.
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