The Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which allowed members of the public and press to attend meetings of certain public bodies. The Act is notable for having been initiated as a private member's bill drawn up by Margaret Thatcher, and also for being introduced in a maiden speech, a unique feat for successful legislation. On 5 February 1960, Thatcher's speech was delivered without notes, and was lauded as the best maiden speech amongst the 1959 new intake.
The Act was introduced primarily to prevent circumvention of rules prohibiting councils from excluding the press by calling a Committee of the Whole, a tactic that had been used by Labour-controlled councils during an industrial dispute in the printing industry in 1958. A similar bill had been introduced a number of years earlier by Lionel Heald, who helped guide Thatcher through the legislative process.
Famous quotes containing the words public, bodies and/or act:
“Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The only ones who are really grateful for the war are the wild ducks, such a lot of them in the marshes of the Rhone and so peaceful ... because all the shot-guns have been taken away completely taken away and nobody can shoot with them nobody at all and the wild ducks are very content. They act as of they had never been shot at, never, it is so easy to form old habits again, so very easy.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)