POISONS (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Health (Mr A. J. Braga): Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Explanatory Note to this Bill gives full and adequate reasons and therefore I do not think it is necessary for me to spend any length of time on this. No radical changes have been made to the Poisons Law, and the amendments are largely in the nature of a tidying-up process.

There are six short amendments to the 1938 Ordinance, five of which are changes of wording to correct and modify the meaning of the respective sections. The sixth amendment changes three subsections to section 21 of the original Ordinance where powers are prescribed for the making of rules, and these new subsections will allow the rules made by the Minister for Health to come into force simultaneously with related orders altering the poisons list which he makes at the same time. The five changes are intended to regularise the position with regard to the restriction of the sale of Part 1 Poisons and the sale of poisons by wholesale. They also modify without appreciably altering the terms of the retail shopkeeper's licence to provide the necessary widening of powers of police inspectors.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.