Mr Mark Hoban (Fareham, Conservative)

May I ask the Minister about the definition of the word ''secretary''? I am not entirely clear why someone who is not an officer of the club should be able to act as a secretary. Surely, someone acting as a secretary should be recognised by club members as holding particular authority. If anybody in a club were allowed to be, or could claim to be, designated secretary, that role would be diminished. It would be better for there to be a designated secretary who was part of the club committee or, in the absence of a designated secretary, for another club member, such as the chairman, treasurer, or vice-chairman, to act as the designated person for the purposes of the Bill.

Mr Mark Field (Cities of London & Westminster, Conservative)

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. There should be a single designated person. There is a risk that for the purposes of the clause, three or four people could purport to be the secretary.

Mr Mark Hoban (Fareham, Conservative)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for adding weight to what I said, as a lawyer—

Mr Mark Field (Cities of London & Westminster, Conservative)

A former lawyer.

Mr Mark Hoban (Fareham, Conservative)

My hon. Friend says that he is a former lawyer.

Mr Mark Field (Cities of London & Westminster, Conservative)

A long time ago.

Mr Mark Hoban (Fareham, Conservative)

A secretary of a company is a designated person with real standing and status who is appointed at the annual general meeting. However, under the Bill the person designated as secretary could be a typist who comes in one morning a week to type letters for the club chairman. If we are to give powers to someone who is meant to represent the club to the licensing authority, the club should ensure that that person has genuine status and is a genuine officer of the club, not just a typist, whether or not they are defined as a secretary.

Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)

May I raise a different matter relating both to this clause and other clauses? I have been waiting for a definition to appear—

Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)

We are on clause 70 now.

Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)

I realise that, which is why I am raising the matter now. I have been waiting for a definition of the word ''club''. I heard my hon. Friend talk earlier about the Caravan Club, but I was not clear whether, for the current purpose, a club was an association of people or a set, or sets, of premises. It is possible for there to be a club without any premises? That is not set out anywhere in the Bill. What does the Minister understand to be the definition? Is a club an association of people related to a set, or sets, of premises?

Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)

The appointment of a secretary is a matter for the club. I am sure that the hon. Member for Fareham did not mean to assert that somebody who happens to work as a typist—as he kept on describing them—is incapable of being the secretary of a club. Presumably if somebody is a coal miner they can still be the secretary of a miners institute—indeed, many are—but apparently, because somebody works as a typist they cannot be the secretary of a club.

Mr. Hoban rose—

Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)

Whereabouts on the scale of typing does that begin and end?

Mr Mark Hoban (Fareham, Conservative)

The Minister is deliberately misinterpreting my words. I was trying to differentiate between somebody who is an officer of a club and somebody who undertakes clerical work on behalf of that club. Somebody who is a typist could be the club secretary in a formal sense. The point that I was trying to make is that whoever acts as the secretary of the club in relation to the licensing authority should be someone with the authority of the club behind them, rather than someone who is part of the clerical staff supporting that club.

My own experience is that clubs tend to appoint somebody as a secretary, and that person wields great power and influence over the club. As a customer, that is what I expect of a secretary of a club. The definition in clause 70 states that anybody can be a secretary of a club, and that they do not have to be an officer. That is inappropriate if we are asking somebody to act with authority on behalf of a club.

Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has taken the opportunity to clarify what he meant, and that somebody who is a member of the honourable profession of typing—that now includes people who

operate very complicated word processors—is capable of being elected as the secretary of a club.

Mr. Hoban indicated assent.

Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)

I am glad to see that the hon. Gentleman is nodding.

We are not talking about legislation under the Companies Acts and the position of a secretary for the purposes of that legislation. This is a matter for the club: as long as an individual is properly recognised by the club as its secretary, that is sufficient. What status it cares to give its secretary is for the club to decide. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want us to introduce such a degree of control freakery that we would determine how a club should regard its secretary.

Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

It seems to me that when a club has its annual general meeting, the three key positions are chairman, secretary and treasurer. Those are the three key people who run the committee, and who are looked up to by all club and committee members as the three most powerful and influential members of the club. Those are senior positions with a lot of responsibility.

Most of the Bill is fairly regulatory in all sorts of ways—it tries to tie things down, and to ensure that the right people are in position to take on roles of responsibility and so forth—so I would have thought that the Government would say that the secretary ought to be an officer of the club. Otherwise the authority of the people purporting to speak on behalf of the club would be undermined.

Why have the Government adopted the phrase,

''whether or not an officer of the club''?

Is that part of existing legislation that has been moved across to this Bill, or have the Government thought differently about things and decided—for a reason that we have not yet heard—that the definition of secretary should have this looser and less responsible connotation.

Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)

The short answer to that very long intervention is that we will leave it up to the club to decide. It will determine the status of that person within the club.

Throughout this discussion I have had the feeling that there is a slight ignorance of the way in which clubs are run, and what happens inside them and between them. Without that, I am sure that lots of the amendments would not have appeared on the Order Paper in the first place. Clubs are perfectly capable of deciding the status of their officers within their organisations. They do not need us to tell them that such and such a person should be looked up to, looked down on—or, indeed, looked at on the level. That would be nonsense. The provision is perfectly adequate.

There would be only one secretary. I heard a suggestion earlier that there could be three secretaries—I think that the phrase, ''Any old person could be a secretary,'' was used—and that again shows ignorance of the way in which clubs are run. Without the definition in the Bill, a sizeable number of clubs would have to alter their constitution to qualify for a

club premises certificate. I hope that that helps the hon. Gentleman to understand the clause.

Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)

The Minister has not replied to my request, although I hoped that he would take the opportunity to do so. On the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham, the problem with the clause relates to the words,

''performing the duties of a secretary''.

Surely, we are talking about the duties of ''the secretary'' of the club and not the duties of ''a secretary'', which could vary from one institution to another. However, I should like the Minister now to consider the definition of a club.

Dr Kim Howells (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Pontypridd, Labour)

It was remiss of me to fail to answer the hon. Gentleman's question. The term ''club'' does not have a recognised statutory definition. In the Bill, we have chosen to identify two types of club, qualifying clubs and recognised clubs—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has heard enough about them to drive him demented. Qualifying clubs have to fulfil the conditions set out in part 4 of the Bill if they want to take advantage of the special treatment provided under the Bill. I hope that that definition gives him some understanding as to why we have been examining the clauses in this way.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 70, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.