Mr Herbert Williams: —passed an Act to prevent the writing, printing, publishing or circulating in the United Kingdom of Advertisements, Circulars, or Coupons of any Ready Money Football Betting Business. It is rather strange that this much higher-minded Parliament is going to be less rigorous than the "hard-faced" gentlemen of 1920, and that it is also going to repeal another Act of Parliament passed 100 years...
Mr Herbert Williams: I hope that we shall not have to wait long for a change. The Royal Commission, presided over by a former right hon. Member for North Croydon, recommended that we should bring this matter out into the open. I think it would be much healthier if we had betting shops in this country where people could be seen by their friends and neighbours to go in and place bets, instead of having to hand bits...
Mr Herbert Williams: The hon. Member said that he had received a communication from Cardiff —
Mr Herbert Williams: No, I said I had received a communication from London.
Mr Herbert Williams: I am sorry, the hon. Member had just referred to his hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas), and I thought that he said that he had received this communication from Cardiff. When he referred to the Methodists, I presume that he meant the Wesleyan Methodists —
Mr Herbert Williams: No, the "Prims."
Mr Herbert Williams: I did not know that the hon. Gentleman was one of the "Prims." I hope that the nation will be shocked because we are such frauds about this subject. The filling in of football coupons is the only intellectual exercise of half the population. They spend a great deal of time in studying form and filling in football coupons, which is good for their brain. It is a much better occupation than...
Mr Herbert Williams: (Croydon, East) rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.
Mr Herbert Williams: Can my right hon. Friend say whether "advance" building means "speculative" building?
Mr Herbert Williams: I have in my hand a copy of an Act of Parliament of which the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) claims the parentage, though he was not a Member of the House when it was introduced. It is the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933, in which it is stated: For the purposes of this Act there shall, as soon as may be … established a public authority. … That would seem to...
Mr Herbert Williams: I have read the Amendments and the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) should read other parts of the Clause. Obviously the Authority will not start to function until the remuneration of the members of the Authority has been decided.
Mr Herbert Williams: Not in relation to the appointment of the Board, because the appointing trustees were set up by the Act.
Mr Herbert Williams: There is an appointing trustee under the Bill—the Post master-General.
Mr Herbert Williams: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that I was present when that Measure was going through Parliament. I took part in consideration of it as a Conservative back bencher. The National Government led by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald accepted the proposal where by the appointments were made, which was a proposal distinct from that of the right hon. Gentleman's party, which was that the appointments...
Mr Herbert Williams: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance in what categories Ministers of the Crown and Members of Parliament, respectively, are insured under his regulations under the National Insurance Act.
Mr Herbert Williams: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that it is very discourteous to the Monarch that a person who is employed by the Monarch should be described as self-employed?
Mr Herbert Williams: Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider the possibility of a statute providing that all Socialist constituents should be labelled, "To take Conservatism"?
Mr Herbert Williams: On a point of order. May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, why this Question has been admitted, having regard to the fact that all the information in the answer is contained in the Ministry of Labour Gazette, a copy of which is now in the Library?
Mr Herbert Williams: May I ask my right hon. Friend what are the circumstances which led Her Majesty's Government to propose to set up a Joint Select Committee on Private Bill legislation? What new factors have arisen to cause that decision?
Mr Herbert Williams: Will my right hon. and learned Friend say, in answering Question No. 34, how he is interpreting the word "independent"? Does it mean independent of Soviet Russia?
