I move amendment No. 7 :—
In line 32 to delete the words " ten pounds " and substitute the words " one pound."
I can see no reason why a pork butcher should have to pay so large a sum as £10, as it seems to me that the only purpose of exacting a fee is to insure that he will cure in the normal way. The section says that the fee shall be repaid in the event of the application for registration being refused, but it seems to me that the fee charged is too high.
The fee is not so much for the purpose of paying expenses but rather to keep out frivolous applications and dilletante pork butchers and bacon curers, and so on. We want to make sure that they are willing to go on with the business in the regular way.
But surely the purpose of this is to control bacon curing. The Minister says that he does not want to control pork butchers. Therefore, by fixing a fee at a prohibitive figure, we are doing in a back-stairs kind of way what it is not the purpose of the Bill to do at all. It means that we are trying to limit the number of persons in the pork butchering business.
Only those who are trying to exercise the 15 per cent. discretion.
I should like to ask the Minister how, if at all, this affects a fresh meat butcher who takes a notion now and again to sell a pig or two as pork. Is that man affected at all ? I am referring to the ordinary beef and mutton butcher.
No, he is not affected at all.
Would the Minister not consider some mitigation of that figure ? After all, £10 is a very substantial sum for a butcher in some remote country district.
I would be prepared to consider a compromise of £5.
I am quite prepared to accept that.
What would be the exact effect of that fee ?
It is just a registration fee, and, as I have already explained, it is designed chiefly to keep out frivolous applications.
Yes, and if you reduced it to a fee of £1, it would be worse still, and you would have a lot of trouble and confusion, possibly.
I think it would be better not to have the fee too low.
I think that £10 is the best fee.
The Minister has accepted a compromise of £5, and I am quite prepared to accept that and to withdraw by amendment on that understanding.
