Mr William McKeag: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the sum of £100,000 has been mentioned as the likely total cost of this inquiry, and will he, in view of the large amount that will in any case be involved, consider the advisability of making some direct representations to those concerned with a view to keeping the costs down to a minimum?
Mr William McKeag: It would be helpful to the Committee if the hon. and learned Gentleman could indicate to the Committee those paragraphs of the Report which he does not intend to read.
Mr William McKeag: I am one of those who have sat throughout the night with the object of making some contribution to the Debate on this Financial Resolution. I was in the House at half-past nine yesterday morning, I have not set my feet outside the precincts since half-past two yesterday, afternoon, and I have not had a meal since eight o'clock last night. I had hoped to travel over-night to the North. It is...
Mr William McKeag: The major part of this discussion has centered on the distressed areas, and at the outset I should like to make my position clear by expressing profound dissatisfaction at the failure of the Government to accept the whole of the financial burden for the maintenance of the able-bodied unemployed. It seems to be idle to talk about accepting financial responsibility if you are not going to...
Mr William McKeag: I am hoping that on this matter the hon. Member for Bridgeton will go into the Lobby with me against the Government on this Financial Resolution. I trust that that is not the expression of a merely pious hope. That quotation from my speech was a very clear statement of what I believed the Government intended to do. In consequence of that feeling I went into the Government Lobby and voted for...
Mr William McKeag: I would not have ventured to intervene were it not for the fact that in the Debate on unemployment on the 12th April this year I made an urgent appeal to the Minister in connection with this matter. I would remind the Minister of the instances I then gave. I cited the case of a man of 55 who has been insured for, say, 21 years. He has had as family doctor a panel doctor for the whole of that...
Mr William McKeag: This Amendment follows on the lines of one for which I was responsible when the Bill was in Committee and which was then rejected by the Minister. It is an Amendment which I heartily support, because it concerns a matter of considerable importance. Under this Bill tremendous powers are being given to a Government Department. I regard that as a danger in itself, and if, in addition, we give a...
Mr William McKeag: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, at the beginning, to insert the words: "Operators of public service vehicles (licensed under the Road Traffic Act, 1930) 2" By this Amendment I ask that operators of public service vehicles all over the country should have two representatives on the Advisory Council which is to be set up under this Measure. Passenger omnibuses now...
Mr William McKeag: May I take it from the Parliamentary Secretary that a representative of operators of public service vehicles will at any rate be included in whatever number there is of representatives of users of mechanically propelled vehicles; and, if so, can I have an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary that such representatives will only be appointed after consultation with the responsible...
Mr William McKeag: Will they be included?
Mr William McKeag: May I direct the Minister's attention to what he said in Committee? They cannot be representatives of particular interests or owners but must be representatives of particular types of users. Some will represent the ordinary private motorist, some the passenger type of vehicle, some goods vehicles as a whole, and so on."—OFFICIAL REPORT (Standing Committee A), 11th July, 1933; col. 682....
Mr William McKeag: I am glad to have an: opportunity of saying a word on the last stages of this Bill. In my view this is one of the most ill-digested pieces of legislation that has ever reached this stage in this House. It is a highly technical, complicated and far-reaching Measure, and, having regard to the great potentialities for mischief inherent in it, it should, in my humble view, have received much more...
Mr William McKeag: I beg to move, in page 3, line 30, after the words last inserted, to insert the words: (i) to the use of a vehicle specially constructed and exclusively used as a hearse. It is rather an unhappy and gruesome subject, and I propose to deal with it with as much brevity as possible. I have put down the Amendment as the result of an undertaking which was given by the Minister when this matter was...
Mr William McKeag: I cannot give the exact date of the annual conference, but the Parliamentary Committee of the British Undertakers' Association decided—and even approached the Minister on it, I believe—that motor hearses should be excluded from the operation of the Bill, Subsequently, a minority section of the association opposed that decision, and, as a result, a Parliamentary Committee was held, and was...
Mr William McKeag: I have no objection to the insertion of these additional words, provided that it does not prejudice the Minister's acceptance of the Amendment which I originally moved.
Mr William McKeag: Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to have a joint meeting of both sections of the association with some official of his Department to decide which section speaks for the larger number?
Mr William McKeag: I beg to move, in page 3, line 39, after the word "used," to insert the word "knowingly."
Mr William McKeag: I handed it in at the Table, and I expected it would have reached the Minister.
Mr William McKeag: The Minister is familiar with the Amendment, because a similar one was moved in Committee, though in a somewhat different form. A Division was taken and it received sufficient support to justify me raising it now. I was supported in the Division by Members of the official Opposition and I ask them to support it again. It simply requires that there shall be guilty knowledge on the part of...
Mr William McKeag: I must bow to your Ruling, but I am simply pointing out that the speech of the hon. and learned Member for East Grinstead definitely dealt with the word "knowingly." This is what he said as to that: The English law of old always required what is called mens rea; that is to say, he must have a knowledge that he was doing wrong, and the knowledge that he was doing wrong does not mean knowledge...