Mr Jasper More: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for delaying the debate, and I am not saying this in criticism of anything said by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), but I suggest that the House ought to be clear about what it is being asked to do. Surely the hon. Gentleman has been pre-empted by the Government statement yesterday that a council on animal welfare will be...
Mr Jasper More: I apologise for inflicting yet another swansong on the House, but I will keep it brief. I want to concentrate on something which was well discussed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton)—the question of the police. I am delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department is present. When discussing animal welfare, we must stop...
Mr Jasper More: In winding up this short debate on behalf of the Opposition, I am in the happy position of being able to say that I agree with almost everything that has been said this morning. I do not want to repeat what has been better said by others. I reluctantly accept the conclusions of clause 2. Fortunately the word "kilometre" does not appear, which makes me slightly more favourably disposed...
Mr Jasper More: That would be most desirable. The difficulty about suggesting forestry to a farmer is that unless the farmer is very young indeed he knows that he himself will get virtually no financial return in his lifetime. But, if we could start on the younger generation, I would certainly agree with the hon. Member. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Spring-burn (Mr. Buchanan) is no longer in the room. I...
Mr Jasper More: With regard to the question of the rate support grant raised by my right hon. and hon. Friends, will the Leader of the House make clear whether, in addition to the debate which he has promised, there will be a statement from the Government regarding the rate support grant and, if so, on which day it will be made?
Mr Jasper More: The subject of this short debate, which I am sorry to inflict on the House at this hour, is tinkers. "Tinker" is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as itinerant beggar, trader or performer", as opposed to "gipsy", which is defined as member of a wandering race (by themselves called Romany) of Hindu origin. The Minister knows that under the Caravan Sites Act 1968 provisions were made with the...
Mr Jasper More: If it is too late to have a debate on this important subject, even though the Select Committee report was published several weeks ago, does the hon. Gentleman agree that before the recess we should have from the Government their comments on the report?
Mr Jasper More: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With reference to today's Questions, may I respectfully draw your attention to the fact that forestry is not an unimportant responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food? We had a forestry Question, Question No. 12, in the name of the hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins), but in the course of 40 minutes we were able only to reach...
Mr Jasper More: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the Forestry Commission is in favour of these devolution proposals?
Mr Jasper More: When the Minister meets the chairman of the Commission, will he discuss with him the Scotland Bill, in the light of the amendment made in another place to exclude forestry from the subjects to be devolved? Will he discuss with him shedding any political prejudices in the light of what will be in the best interests of Great Britain as a whole in future forestry policy?
Mr Jasper More: This is, in effect, a Second Reading debate on what is clearly an important and complicated clause. Would it not be helpful if the Minister, before going into what is in the new clause, told us what the law is now and how matters are being enlarged or safeguarded?
Mr Jasper More: This is clearly an important piece of legislation. A great deal of thought has gone into the drafting, and the whole House must applaud the objectives which it is concerned to secure. At the same time, it is our duty, in thinking of it from the point of view of our constituents, to consider the implications for certain categories of citizens. I have particularly in mind the retailers,...
Mr Jasper More: I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention. It is always awkward to be debating the new clauses first, and it may be that I have not looked with sufficient care at the Bill. If I understand the Minister aright, he is saying that Clause 4 related not to the public but to officials whose duty it will be to enforce. There was some discussion about the fines. I am conscious that we live...
Mr Jasper More: My reading of the subsection is that it is aimed at the offence of misleading. It says: either by means of misleading marks or otherwise It would be better for the subsection to read: If a person contravenes a provision of safety regulations which prohibits the provision of misleading information. Surely that is a term which would be intelligible and capable of absolute definition in a court...
Mr Jasper More: I may be ignorant, but I have heard of a gondola only in the context of Venice. What is a dangerous gondola?
Mr Jasper More: Surely there must be occasions when articles are perfectly safe when first accepted by the retailer but which, as a result of the effluxion of time, become dangerous. Would such cases be covered by regulations of this kind?
Mr Jasper More: I think that we should be clear about this matter. This subsection specifically creates an offence. I did not follow the Minister when he implied that "inappropriate" would not be of the essence of the offence. Surely the supplying of inappropriate information is the gist of the offence. Is not "inappropriate" the word on which the courts will have to rule? Is that not so on the reading of...
Mr Jasper More: That is assuming we are to have a safety regulation which includes provisions about "inappropriate information". Is it not on the basis of the regulations that a prosecution will be brought?
Mr Jasper More: My hon. Friend has raised a most important issue. I had occasion in the Chamber some three months ago to raise, by way of a Ten Minute Bill, the question of enforcement by local authorities. This related to the case of a fishmonger who operated in two adjacent local authority areas and was prosecuted and severely fined in one area on the issue of labelling of food. Since then I have taken a...
Mr Jasper More: In fairness to foreigners, I think that they do their best to translate into English as much as they can, but they are not always successful. I remember lunching once in a restaurant in Turkey. The whole menu was translated for our benefit from Turkish into English, and there was one special lunch advertised as a lunch for educated shepherds. We took that to be a ploughman's lunch.
