Part of Orders of the Day — Dog Racecourse Betting (Temporary Provisions) Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 21 March 1947.
Hon. Edward Carson
, Isle of Thanet
12:00,
21 March 1947
I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This new Clause stands in the name of myself, the hon. and gallant Member for Hythe (Brigadier Mackeson), the hon. and gallant Member for South Blackpool (Wing-Commander Robinson) and other hon. Members. I hope that the Home Secretary will see his way to accept it, or, at any rate, to give it his sympathetic consideration. As I have already said, the object of the Bill is to persuade people to work; but people who work and work hard need a good and decent holiday at least once a year. They need a holiday which they can wholly enjoy, and I submit that they have a right to the sort of holiday they want. What sort of holiday do they want? The sort of holiday that they want may be very diverse as applied to different people. For instance, holidays at the seaside have many attractions. First—somewhat naturally—there is the sea and the seashore; secondly, seaside resorts usually have good cinemas and very often amusement parks; and, thirdly, they often have greyhound tracks. These, may I say, are all part of the stock in trade of seaside resorts. Holidays provide the bread and butter of the holiday resorts. If we cannot attract the holidaymakers to our area, we simply do not exist at all, and, therefore, we do not want anything to be done that can detract from the amenities offered by holiday resorts.
I suppose that the right hon. Gentleman cannot remove the sea and the seashore. We are beginning to wonder whether he could not possibly put back the barbed wire which we saw during the war on the seashore, and thus prevent people from using it. But, being reasonable people, we imagine that he will not. We understand that he is going to allow cinemas in those parts of the country, and in other parts, to continue, and we also understand that he is going to allow amusement parks, including scenic railways, and the like, to continue. I have heard no mention from the Government that Dreamland or Merrie England, to quote two places in my own Constituency, are going to be banned. If the right hon. Gentleman allows these places to continue—and I may say that people do enjoy them once a year; indeed, I go to these places, and enjoy going down those horrible dives on the scenic railway—
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