Mr Ronald Williams: Perhaps it will help the discussion if I say that when I first looked at the Amendment I was very much attracted by it; but, on reflection, I felt that it was wrong to look at the Bill as if it were in complete isolation from all that we know about the law relating to charity. That is to say, if all the courts had to do was to construe the Clauses of the Bill with nothing else at all to help...
Mr Ronald Williams: The hon. Member has gone so widely outside the terms of his Amendment that, since we have already debated the point that he is now raising, and since that point has been resolved by his withdrawal of an earlier Amendment, he is beginning to strain the patience of some hon. Members. He is going over the same argument, upon an Amendment to which it has no relevance.
Mr Ronald Williams: Mr. Ronald Williams (Wigan) indicated assent
Mr Ronald Williams: I say at once that the Opposition will give the fullest support in its power to the passing of this very important Bill through all its stages. We will not only support its Second Reading but will support the Government during the Committee stage in any Amendment they may consider necessary to make this an even better Bill. Therefore, in anything that I now have to say, I hope that the...
Mr Ronald Williams: I hope the hon. and gallant Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) will forgive me if I do not follow him, particularly since I find myself in agreement with so much of what he has said. It would alter the whole tone of our discussions if I joined issue with him upon the points about which I disagree with him, and it can be better done in Committee. I hope, therefore, that he will not...
Mr Ronald Williams: There is no need for there to be any issue between the hon. Member for Kidderminster and myself on this matter. I am talking about something which is rather different from the point that the hon. Gentleman has referred to. Since there is an economic necessity, as put before us by Her Majesty's Government, for the production of coal by these methods, there is a case for saying that a way...
Mr Ronald Williams: I simply ask that this matter be dealt with in a responsible way and not influenced by the rather foolish interruptions that the hon. Member for Kidderminster has made.
Mr Ronald Williams: All I am asking the Minister to do is to be consistent and to do in regard to authorisation orders what he does under compulsory rights orders. He has the right to do it under the compulsory rights order procedure. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Kidderminster would say that that is an intrusion on the liberty of the subject. It would be a perfectly reasonable administrative...
Mr Ronald Williams: We shall be left with the anomaly that in one and the same village there will be a person who has suffered loss of profit as a result of mining subsidence who will get nothing whatever in respect of this loss and, side by side with him, a person who has suffered loss of profits because of opencast mining who will be provided for. That is an anomaly created by the Government. In Committee, the...
Mr Ronald Williams: I hope that the Government will not get off to a false start over this Measure. It is heartbreaking to those of us who have been concerned for so many years in making representations on these matters to successive Ministries to find ourselves faced with this position in respect of clearly deserving cases of such long standing, and the fact that we have to put forward all the old arguments...
Mr Ronald Williams: I find myself in a difficulty, on which, I hope, I shall be helped by the Minister, in understanding what principle the Government are following in the Clause. At one moment they assert that there must be such a clear relationship between the rate of contribution and the rate of benefit that the rate of contribution must be put at a figure which vastly exceeds the amount of the benefits that...
Mr Ronald Williams: I am most indebted to the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for being in their places on the Front Bench at this time, having regard to the fact that the debate apaprently was to conclude at seven o'clock. I am particularly glad because, as it happens—and in this nobody is in the least to blame—with one exception this is the first speech made from this side of the House on a case...
Mr Ronald Williams: So be it, but the order was placed and is there now, and there is a twelve months' minimum programme. Let us suppose that the Royal Ordnance factory was not there—and I put this question to the Minister in all seriousness—where would the supplies come from? If my information is correct, and if it is only from this very well equipped and modern factory that these supplies can be obtained,...
Mr Ronald Williams: With the substance of the argument put forward by the Minister I am in entire agreement and there is certainly no question of the Opposition contemplating dividing on this point. I should, however, like to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that in proposing the Amendment he is doing something which, I should have thought, would at least have caused him to have doubts had he considered...
Mr Ronald Williams: It has been rather a long road to achieve this concession, but I think that it would be churlish of me if I did not acknowledge that at last the Government have moved and that the way in which they have expressed the point is one which gives complete satisfaction to this side of the House.
Mr Ronald Williams: At the outset of my observations, I think it right that I should follow the Parliamentary Secretary in sending from the House to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Neal), who has been taken seriously ill, our good wishes and our hopes for his speedy recovery. We acknowledge all the very great work that he did in the earlier stages of the Bill and express our regret that he is not...
Mr Ronald Williams: I beg to move, in page 14, line 30, to leave out "one assessor" and to insert "an assessor or assessors".
Mr Ronald Williams: It will also be for the convenience of the Committee if I refer at once to Section 88 of the County Courts Act, 1934, to see exactly the position in relation to assessors, apart from that in the Bill. Thus we shall be able to see clearly not only what we are doing in the Clause which we are now seeking to amend, but that we are bringing the law into line with experience which we have had on...
Mr Ronald Williams: How many of them earn over £1,000 a year?
Mr Ronald Williams: I am sure that the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) will acquit me of all discourtesy if I say at once that I do not propose to follow him, because in this very wide debate so many of us have special fields of interest, and if I were to follow him in his argument it would be impossible for me to confine my speech within the time limits which now remain. I say at once that I...
