I move amendment No. 1:
In page 4, Section 5, to delete lines 33, 34 and 35, and substitute the following:
(c) to test and analyse commodities, intended for sale or for use by the public, for the purpose of—
(i) advancing or facilitating scientific research and investigation,
(ii) ensuring conformity with standard specification,
(iii) encouraging the standardisation of commodities, processes and practices,
or, generally, with the object of ascertaining, for the public benefit, the characteristics of such commodities,
(d) to publish the result of any such test or analysis.
All the amendments in my name are amendments which I agreed to introduce on Report, following discussion of the Bill in Committee. The purpose of this amendment is to expand the reference to the function of the proposed institute in the matter of testing and analysing commodities. The House will remember that some apprehension was expressed that the powers given to the institute in the form in which they were set out in the Bill as introduced might be used to the detriment of public analysts and others who did the work of analysing and testing commodities as a business. It was never intended that the institute should act in that way, and the purpose of the amendment is to make it clear that its function will be to test and analyse commodities only in the circumstances set out in the amendment.