Clause
32
Directions
Amendment
made: No. 2, in clause 32, page 16, line 14, leave out from
‘have,’ to end of line 15 and insert
‘an adverse impact on one or more
of the regulatory objectives,’.—[Bridget
Prentice.]
Clause
32, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 33
ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 7 agreed
to.
Clause 34
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
35
Public
censure
Amendment
proposed: No. 3, in clause 35, page 17, line 27, leave out from
‘have,’ to ‘and’ in line 28 and
insert
‘an adverse impact
on one or more of the regulatory
objectives,’.—[Bridget
Prentice.]
The
Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes
6.
Division
No.
15
]
Foster,
Mr. Michael
(Worcester)
Question
accordingly agreed to.
Clause 35, as amended,
ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause
36
Public
censure:
procedure
Mr.
Bellingham:
I beg to move amendment No. 247, in
clause 36, page 18, line 15, at
end add—
‘(4A) As soon as
practicable after deciding to publish a statement, the Board must give
notice to the approved regulator stating that it has reached that
decision and setting out the terms in which the statement is to be
published; and the Board must not publish the statement until after the
expiry of 7 days beginning with the day on which notice is given under
this
subsection.’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following:
Clause
stand part.
New clause
13—Appeal against public
censure
‘(1) An approved
regulator in respect of whom the Board decides to publish a statement
under section 35 may appeal to the court on one or more of the appeal
grounds.
(2) The appeal grounds
are —
(a) that the
decision was not within the power of the Board under section
35;
(b) that any of the
requirements of section 36 have not been complied with in relation to
the imposition of the penalty and the interests of the approved
regulator have been substantially prejudiced by the
non-compliance;
(c) that in all
circumstances, the publication of a statement under section 35 is, or
the terms of the statement published or to be published are (or would
be), manifestly unreasonable or
inappropriate;
(d) that the
decision is unlawful on any ground that would give rise to a claim for
judicial review.
(e) that the
decsion is unlawful on any ground that would give rise to a claim for
judicial review.
(3) An appeal
under subsection (1) must be made within the period of 42 days
beginning with the day on which the notice was given to the approved
regulator.
(4) Where an appeal
is made before the expiry of the 7-day period the Board must not
(unless the court otherwise orders) publish the statement until the
appeal has been withdrawn or
dismissed.
(5) On an appeal
under subsection (1), where the court considers it appropriate to do so
in all the circumstances of the case and is satisfied of one or more of
the appeal grounds, the court
may—
(a) quash the
decision to publish a statement,
or
(b) vary the terms of the
statement (and, where the statement has been published, direct the
Board to publish to the same extent the statement as
varied).
(6) In this section
“the court” means the High
Court.’.
Amendment
No. 248, in
clause 39, page 20, line 3, at
end insert—
‘(da) that the
imposition of the penalty on any ground that would give rise to a claim
for judicial
review.’.
Amendment
No. 249, in clause 39, page 20, line 27, leave out subsection
(7).
Mr.
Bellingham:
I have papers that could allow me to prolong
the debate for as much as an hour and a half, but the Labour Whip keeps
making rude faces at me, so I shall do my level best to curtail the
debate; I shall try to be succinct and to get the point across cogently
yet effectively.
Amendment No. 247 makes it clear
that the board should give notice to the approved regulator, saying
that it has reached a decision and setting out how the statement should
be published. Again, that is perhaps stating the obvious, but the
amendment would also allow the approved regulator time to consider its
response. In the interests of fairness, the amendment says that the
Legal Services Board should not
“publish the statement until after
the expiry of 7 days”.
That is what amendment No. 247 says and I
very much hope that the Minister will see the logic and good sense of
the amendment.
New
clause 13 would give the right of appeal against public censure; very
simply, the new clause makes it quite clear that there should be that
right of appeal. It is plain to the Opposition that the Government
intended that there should be measures in the Bill to provide for such
an appeal. On the other hand, we have examined the Bill carefully and
we have not seen that it offers that necessary level of protection to
the public, or to anyone who might be censured, including any approved
regulator. Therefore, having this new clause makes a great deal of
sense.
I shall briefly
address amendments Nos. 248 and 249. Very simply, amendment No. 248
inserts onpage 20, line
3:
“that the imposition of
the penalty”
is
unlawful
“on any ground
that would give rise to a claim for judicial
review.’.
Amendment No.
249 is consequential on that amendment. It would take out clause 39(7),
which is basically an ouster clause. Subsection (7)
says:
“Except as
provided by this section, the validity of a penalty is not to be
questioned by any legal proceedings
whatever.”
To my mind,
that is a straightforward ouster clause. There is a strong argument for
judicial review. I will not repeat all the arguments that were made in
the other place, but it seems to me that the amendment makes sense, is
logical and is very much in line with what the Government are trying to
do, which is to ensure that there is fair treatment for all concerned.
I do not see how one could have that fair treatment unless we accept
this amendment, which would allow the claim for judicial
review.
Therefore I
hope that the Minister will look carefully at what we have proposed. I
have gone through these amendments as succinctly and as quickly as I
can. On that basis, I beg to move the
amendments.
The
Chairman:
May I say to the hon. Member for North-West
Norfolk that he need not be intimidatedby the Government Whip,
the hon. Member for Worcester? However, if he is determined to remain
very much in order and succinct, I know that members of the Committee
will be very grateful indeed.
Simon
Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD): I would
first like to welcome you, Sir Nicholas, to the Chair; it is very good
to serve under your chairmanship again.
I shall be extremely brief, to
say that this amendment, those selected with it and the new clause
appear to have much to commend them. They appear
to clarify matters and to make everything much more transparent, and
therefore they would add to the justice of the procedures. We are
minded to support these measures. I will obviously wait to hear what
the Minister says in reply, but I hope that she will be sympathetic to
them.
Bridget
Prentice:
All these amendments seek to create additional
provisions for enabling decisions to be challenged. I would argue that
they are all unnecessary, because the Bill already achieves essentially
the same outcome and these amendments would just create duplication and
add to bureaucracy.
New clause 13 and amendment No.
247 would insert a new right of appeal from decisions on public censure
and therefore they duplicate the judicial review grounds that already
exist. Amendments Nos. 248 and 249 would allow challenges to be brought
in judicial reviews for decisions to impose financial penalties. Again,
that duplicates the grounds that already exist as part of the appeal
process.
5.30
pm
I am minded to
consider amendment No. 247, which states that seven days’ notice
must be given. I may want to look at that further. I should say though
that I am not convinced that it is entirely necessary. Clause 36
already provides that the board publishes a statement, and it must
allow a period of 28 days or more to allow the regulator to make
representations. I understand the idea of the seven days, but I think
that it is probably covered already. However, I will look at the matter
again.
I will speak
briefly about financial penalties and the circumstances in which they
are involved. There is a qualitative difference in financial penalties.
We need to guarantee the applicant’s right to challenge not only
the imposition of that penalty, but also the amount of it. That is not
to say that it would not be possible to challenge the amount of the
penalty, or the timescale for payment, via judicial review, but it is
not necessarily automatic. It is more likely that the amount would have
to be manifestly unreasonable.
It is for those reasons,
therefore, that I feel thereis a lot of duplication in the
amendments. The amendments are not necessary because we have covered in
an appropriate fashion the way in which approved regulators can
challenge decisions of the board. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw would
say that nobody knows how to go to judicial review better than the
lawyers. I am quite confident that the proposed system will establish a
fairness without further duplication.
Mr.
Bellingham:
I am grateful to the Minister for that
explanation. I take on board her last point. It was more of a probing
amendment on judicial review. I was encouraged by what she said on the
matter of the seven days. On reflection, she may agree more with what I
was saying. The seven days gives the organisation that is being
censured time to respond. That is important in the interests of
fairness all round. Perhaps the Minister could come back to me on that
on Report. I am grateful to her for her remarks. On that basis, I beg
leave to withdraw the amendments.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
36 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
37
Financial
penalties
Simon
Hughes:
I beg to move amendment No. 225, in
clause 37, page 18, line 30, at
end insert—
‘( ) The Board
may not determine that it is appropriate to impose a penalty unless it
is satisfied that the matter cannot be adequately addressed by the
Board exercising the powers available to it under sections 31 to
36.’.
The
amendment is supported by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk and
some of his hon. friends. I will read the proposal that was put to me
and others by the Law Society which explains why the amendment is both
sensible and justified. In the clauses so far, we have looked at
various ways in which there can intervention. We have considered
censure in clauses 35 and 36, directions that can be given by the board
in clauses 32, 33 and 34. We considered the setting of performance
targets in clause 31. Before that, we examined the rules that require
the separation of regulatory and representative functions.
We are now discussing a clause
on financial penalties. The amendment is designed to restrict the
powers of the board by prohibiting it from imposing a financial penalty
unless it is satisfied that it cannot adequately address the matter by
exercising its other powers. It would put penalties on a gradated scale
and would force the board to consider other types of intervention, such
as direction or censure, before imposing a financial penalty. That
position would be consistent with that of other regulatory regimes that
have been established by Parliament in recent years. The amendment
would ensure that the Legal Services Board could not impose fines
unreasonably. It would also ensure that any action that is taken does
not hit the wrong target.
It is commonplace for direct
regulators of services, particularly those provided commercially, to
havethe power to fine those who fail to comply with
requirements. That is unarguable. The recent McCrory report emphasised
the importance of the availability to regulators of a wide range of
sanctions, including the power to fine, to ensure that the sanction for
the breach of regulatory requirements is sufficient to
removeany financial incentive to fail to comply with
responsibilities. It is sensible to have a financial penalty to deal
with wrongful activity for financial gain. That is entirely logical.
The Law Society is seeking powers to fine solicitors for regulatory
breaches in appropriate circumstances so that, as a regulator, it has
an effective range of available sanctions, rather than having to refer
all such cases to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. That is
entirely sensible, too.
I have been told—I have
thought about it and I cannot dispute it—that it is unusual for
there to be a power to fine a body that carries out regulatory,
non-commercial activities. I have been given the examples of the
Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, which has no power to
fine any professional medical bodies, and the Financial Reporting
Council, which has no power to fine the accountancy bodies.
Given that the Legal Services
Board has extensive powers to make directions, which are by definition
enforceable, it is far from clear that a power to fine approved
regulators is necessary. The Joint Committee picked that up in its
report during pre-legislative scrutiny and the Government said that
they would reconsider the issue, but they have not come back with an
answer to the concerns expressed in the Joint Committee or elsewhere.
In the Lords, the issue was debated in part. Baroness Ashton, the
Minister, sought to justify the power to fine with reference to the
position of other regulators, including the Financial Services
Authority and Ofgem. Both of those directly regulate service providers,
however; there is no intervening tier, so they do not supervise other
regulators. The Legal Services Board is, by definition, the umbrella.
Other regulators, of which the Law Society is one, have been approved
to set up in anticipation of the legislation. It is not a parallel
situation. We are talking about a three-tier structure; the other
organisations that have such a power to fine are part of a two-tier
structure.
I have been
told that the only example that supports the Minister’s case is
the power of the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner, which was
created under an addition to the Access to Justice Act 1999. It was
intended to cover a specific problem with the Law Society’s
handling of consumer complaints. I remember the debate on the subject,
and there was thought to be a need to give the commissioner more teeth
in that context. It is unusual for a supervisory regulator to have the
power fine another regulator, so that power needs to be confined to
circumstances in which no other sanction is appropriate. The first
argument against the provision is therefore that it is not based on
precedent and it appears wrong in
principle.
The second
argument is that, with legal services regulation, day-to-day
responsibility for regulatory action will, by definition, rest with the
regulatory arm of the relevant professional body. The representative
side will not be able to control the way in which the regulatory arm
operates; indeed, it would be a serious breach of the principle of
independence if it sought to do so. One of our great debates was about
ensuring that we separate regulation and representation absolutely and
rightfully.
Any fine
would not impact on the regulatory arm unless it were charged against
the regulation side’s own budget, which would defeat the whole
purpose of having a fine, because that would mean fining the fund that
is there to put things right and to deal with problems. Any such fine
would effectively be borne by the professional body, and thus its
members and the representative arm. Members of the regulatory arm would
not even be subject to any sanction from an electorate for having
incurred the fine, as they are all appointed under Nolan principles
rather than elected, so they could not be ousted. It would not be the
equivalent of a vote of no confidence that would result in them leaving
their office.
There is
a risk that lawyers who are regulated by the approved regulator will
bear the whole burden of any such fine without being able to exercise
any effective influence over the people whose failings led to the
imposition of the fine. That seems wrong to me, as a matter of
principle. I believe that the Joint Committee also thought it wrong,
but the answers given in the Lords did not address the issue. That is
my second reason for asking the Minister to be
sympathetic. In the
debates in the other place, the Government tabled an amendment to
ensure that approved regulators cannot be fined for the failings of
their regulatory arm unless a direction has already been made under
clause 31. That provides some welcome protection for approved
regulators. By placing appropriate requirements on their regulatory
arms, they will be able to ensure that they can intervene where
necessary to ensure that directions are complied with, but there is
still a significant risk of fines being used inappropriately, because
the current drafting does not prevent that. It does not seem to
guarantee that other options have to be considered before that power is
used.
My last point is
that there is frequent media pressure on professional bodies across the
board, not just legal bodies, and on regulators to flex their muscles
and exercise their powers to intervene. That is rightful and
understandable in certain cases; you and many others, Sir Nicholas,
have been keen, in our talks on rail services in this place, that the
regulator should be able to intervene when railway companies do not do
their jobs properly and services are not what constituents of yours,
mine and our colleagues would wish. It is absolutely right that there
should be calls for that to happen, but that alone is not a good
justification for it to be the common practice if other remedies are
appropriate and available.
Good regulatory practice
requires regulators to use the least draconian sanction that will meet
the regulatory need. It would be quite wrong to fine an approved
regulator simply because circumstances have arisen in which there is,
in theory at least, a power to do so. The power to fine should properly
be exercised only when the Legal Services Board is satisfied, under the
provisions in the Bill, that no lesser sanction, such as direction or
censure, will suffice. I believe that the Government have accepted that
principle as far as the board’s power to intervene in the
functions of approved regulators is concerned. I think that that was
said to be generally the case by Ministers elsewhere, and I suggest
that the same principles should apply to fines as it does elsewhere. On
that basis, I hope that the Minister will accept our arguments, or at
least take them away to consider, and will be
sympathetic.
Mr.
Bellingham:
My name and those of my colleagues have,
indeed, been added to the amendment. It is a simple and
straightforward, but nevertheless important, safeguard to ensure that
the LSB does not impose financial penalties where lesser sanctions
would suffice. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey made
a very powerful case. It is designed to prevent capricious,
over-the-top fining. It is to ensure that the fining option is the last
option available. I take on point his point: there will be quite a lot
of pressure on the Legal Services Board to make examples and to flex
its muscles. If it is to do that, an extra constraint needs to be built
in. That is why we support the amendment and I hope that the Minister
will accept it.
5.45
pm
John
Mann:
You missed, I suspect, Sir Nicholas, the floods and
downpours across the north of England over the weekend. Hon. Members
are more than making up for it with their attempts to water down the
Bill. Indeed, one wonders whether one is living in a parallel universe.
I expect the Tardis to appear at any moment. I know which Time Lord
will be backing the people and which will be backing the solicitors,
barristers and
judges.
It is
absolutely extraordinary in the context of the Bill and what is
happening in the real world that we are seeing attempt after attempt
after attempt by the vested interests of the legal profession to look
after their own. If this was trade union legislation 15 years ago, if
this was the immediate fining of trade unions for technical flaws in
the holding of industrial action ballots,would the hon. Member
for North-West Norfolk(Mr Bellingham) argue that it was
capricious and over the top? I think
not.
Let me balance the
argument and cite the case of four of my constituents who three years
ago madea consumer complaint against Rayleys Solicitors.
Rayleys Solicitors disputed it. They disputed the fact that these four,
elderly, ill miners had a complaint. All four went with me to visit
Rayleys unexpectedly, with a little bit of publicity, and we went
inside and met the senior partners. We explained their case for justice
in no uncertain terms. Still Rayleys refused to pay out. They still do
today. There have been no fines on Rayleys. They are
allowed to prevaricate. Why? Because every time one thing happens, the
legal profession comes up with a legal excuse for challenging
it.
My constituents
were required to go through70 pages of technical legal
arguments as the defence to a very straightforward complaint that they
had been diddled and double charged over meagre compensation for
emphysema, money they needed to give them a better quality of life.
They had 70 pages of legal argument thrown at them as the defence that
they are required to make a judgment on. It is only because of the
common sense of the Law Society in allowing representation from people
like me that these claims have ever seen the light of day.
Is it a coincidence that no
miner or textile worker put in complaints before tiny numbers of MPs
started to do so on their behalf? Is it just a coincidence that none of
them did so, that they did not realise that they could challenge the
solicitor who had, in some cases, stolen the money from them? That was
done quite openly and quite deliberately and from large numbers of
them. The solicitors then threw the legal book at them, wriggling every
way, challenging the Law Society, challenging the regulation. They
issued writs, bullied, threatened and intimidated.
There are solicitors who visited
complainants at home. There are solicitors who sent third parties to
visit complainants at home. For example, my constituent, after his
third heart attack, is no longer in the statistics of the Law Society
because he withdrew his complaint, fearing that the pressures being put
on him by the solicitors who had done him over would kill him. Some of
my constituents who, in the process of attempting to get justice,
died—
Mr.
Bellingham:
Is this relevant?
John
Mann:
It is relevant. The hon. Gentleman, who spoke about
capriciousness and being over the top, says that it is not relevant.
What is relevant in the context of this debate and these attempts to
water down the Bill is nowhere to be found in the hon.
Gentleman’s and the Liberal Democrats’
amendment.
The
Chairman:
Order. May I say to the Committee that what the
hon. Gentleman is saying is relevant? When it is not, I will tell
him.
John
Mann:
I implicitly trust your sound judgment, Sir
Nicholas. As ever, I shall stick entirely to the relevant facts brought
from my experience of my constituents, who were unable to be heard in
the Joint Committee—I was unfortunately unable to be chosen to
serve on that Committee—whose voices shouldbe heard in
the case of these amendments and, if necessary, others. Any watering
down of the powers in the Bill will be resisted. If the point was put
to the people outside, the 60 million who are not part of the cosy
legal profession, I know which way they would go. They would say that
the Bill is a modest attempt at self-regulation. It is a generous
attempt at allowing self-regulation—I applaud that light touch
and think that it is what is appropriate for Government, and therefore
I am out of touch with most of my constituents, who would like me to be
far more robust. I call on the Minister strongly to reject these
representations and others to water down the Bill because those with
vested interests, not least in the House of Lords, wish to protect
them.
Simon
Hughes:
The hon. Gentleman speaks with absolute
justification, as far as I know, about solicitors’ abuse of
their professional responsibility when acting in the sorts of cases
that he has brought regularly to the attention of the House and dealt
with locally. Nobody, and certainly nobody in my party, defends that
activity. Nobody is suggesting that solicitors who behave
inappropriately should not be dealt with.
If the hon. Gentleman is good
enough to reconsider by re-reading the amendment, he will see that it
does not say that there should not be fines or punishment for
solicitors. It does not say that solicitors’ firms should not be
punished or brought to book for breaking the rules and behaving in the
disgraceful way that he described. It does not say that there should
not be a fine on the Law Society, if appropriate. All that it says is
that if the second tier of punishment, which involves punishment of the
regulator—the Law Society in the case of solicitors—is a
financial penalty, it has to come after consideration of the
appropriateness of other matters. I do not think that that is
contradictory to anything that the hon. Gentleman argues for. I
certainly did not intend it to be, and on reflection, if he is
fair-minded about it, I do not think that he will think that the
amendment has that effect.
Bridget
Prentice:
I am a wee bit surprised to see these
amendments. They were debated for some time in the other place, and we
made a number of concessions at that time. I know that my hon. Friend
the Member for Bassetlaw will not be happy to hear me say that, but we
made some concessions and as a result the exercise of the
board’s powers to fine is possible only where there
has been a failure to meet the requirements imposed by clauses 30, 32
and 51. I am not persuaded that we should go any further than the scope
of the amendments that we have already made. To do so would put the
board’s powers to impose a financial penalty in the same
category as its powers, for example, to cancel the approved
regulator’s designation. That is what the amendment seems to
seek to do, and so it does not recognise the regulatory chasm between
the power to impose a financial penalty and the power to take away
completely a body’s ability to authorise and regulate the
provisions of reserved legal
activities.
The amendment, therefore, would
reduce the board’s ability to exercise what I believe is a key
regulatory function to make appointments if it were no longer able to
respond with the flexibility that it needs to address failing
regulators. That is inconsistent with the current approach to
regulatory sanctioning regimes, which argue for greater flexibility and
the use of the widest range of sanctions
possible.
The hon.
Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey said that he could not find
many examples of one regulator fining another. Almost certainly he is
right. The model of oversight regulation that we are proposing is
unusual, but Sir David Clementi thought it preferable to the
establishment of a single body along the lines of the Securities and
Futures Authority because it will retain the best parts of the existing
arrangements. He argued also that the LSB should have the maximum
regulatory flexibility, which is consistent with the findings of the
Macrory review, which argued that regulators should have the widest
range of sanctions possible.
We have modified the fining
power to meet some of the concerns of the Law Society. I have to say to
Opposition Members that the consumer bodies would not support the
amendment if it meant that we were watering down the powers any
further. There might be times when it is necessary to impose a
financial penalty—for example, where there were repeated
failings that could be addressed by censure each time, but where,
accumulatively, the situation was out of control and firm action was
clearly necessary. If the regulator expects a lesser power to be
exercised each time it fails in the same way, and if that power has no
real impact on the regulator in preventing future failings, clearly
that regulator has far less incentive to correct those failings. The
board would be stuck then with issuing the same censure over and again
and the problem would never be
resolved.
Stephen
Hesford:
Is not the point a little shorter? I know that
the Minister is trying to do justice to what has been said, but is the
point not that the amendment is completely unnecessary because, under
clause 39(2)(c), one of the grounds for an appeal against financial
penalties is that the penalty is unreasonable? If it were unreasonable,
and there should have been a lesser penalty, the appeals procedure
would find that to be the
case.
Bridget
Prentice:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I raised
clause 39 for that very reason in an earlier debate. The approved
regulators would have that
opportunity if they thought that the fine was unreasonable. I said
specifically that almost certainly they would appeal on the basis of
the amount, rather than anything else. He is right to point that
out.
Consumers, who are
at the heart of the Bill, consider that the power to impose a financial
penalty is essential to the regulator’s remit. I think that they
are right. It sends a clear message to the regulated body that it must
improve its standards, and acts as a reminder to other
bodies that failings will not go unnoticed or
unattended. That is vital for the consumer. Unnecessary restraints
would deal a blow to the very heart of the principles in the Bill. If I
need to convince the Opposition of that, Which? did a survey and found
that nearly four out of five people—78 per cent.—agreed
that the independent regulator should be able to fine the legal
profession if it did not do its job properly. More than 53 per cent.
agreed with that strongly.
I urge the Committee to reject
the amendment for the reasons given by me and by my hon. Friends. I
cannot accept any further constraints on the power. Its purpose is
clear, its necessity is verifiable and its scope is balanced. I hope
that Opposition Members will reflect on what has been said and
reconsider whether they are helping the legal profession by giving
consumers the belief that this is another opportunity for it to look
after its own interests rather than
theirs.
6
pm
Simon
Hughes:
The Minister knows that I am a reflective
individual. I shall make three short points. The first is that Which?,
a good organisation that produces a good magazine—I have often
consulted it, as have other Committee members—does not surprise
the world by finding that a majority of the public at large would like
solicitors who do not do their job properly to be fined. I do not think
that that quite wins the argument of itself. It is a simple question to
which the likely answer is
yes.
To answer the
contribution of the hon. Member for Wirral, West, of course there is a
power of appeal on the basis that a fine is unreasonable. That is as it
should be. The argument was not that there should be no power to fine;
it was simply that the power to fine should be the end of the options
available. However, despite what arguments may still exist for the
amendment and for others like it, the Minister has asked me to withdraw
it and to reflect. I am happy to reflect. I shall go back and read what
she said earlier when the debate is printed. On that basis, and on the
basis that I shall return to the matter if necessary, I beg to ask
leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 37 ordered to stand
part of the
Bill.
Clauses 38
to 40 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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