Orders of the Day — HIRE-PURCHASE (No. 2) BILL [Lords] – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 June 1964.
Sir David Price
, Eastleigh
12:00,
24 June 1964
I beg to move, in page 36, line 34, at the end to insert:
(3) For the removal of doubt it is hereby declared that no account is to be taken of section 1 of the principal Act, or of section 2 of this Act, for the purpose of construing any enactment whereby (however the enactment is expressed) it is provided that in the enactment (or, if the enactment extends to Scotland, in the enactment in its application to England and Wales) "hire-purchase agreement", or any similar expression, has the same meaning as "hire-purchase agreement" has in the principal Act or the definition of "hire-purchase agreement" in the principal Act is otherwise applied for the purposes of the enactment:
Provided that this subsection shall not affect the construction of—
This Amendment makes it clear that, in any enactment which provides that the expression "hire-purchase agreement" used in that enactment is to have the same meaning as in the Act of 1938, the reference is to be taken to be the definition given in Section 21(1) of the 1938 Act, without any monetary limit and whether or not a body corporate is the hirer of the goods.
The Amendment is entirely for clarification.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
