STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL SECOND READING. (Hansard, 15 April 1861)

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
, in moving the second reading of this Bill, said that a Commission had been long sitting to consider the consolidation of the statute law. Obviously the first step in consolidation of the law was to ascertain of what the law actually consisted. He had, therefore, caused letters to be addressed to the Government departments in reference to the statutes in force within their particular department, and the result of his inquiries, with the aid of the register of the Statute Law Commission, he had placed in the Schedule to this Bill. The ultimate object of these proceedings was to obtain an expurgated edition of the statute law, which law was at present contained in 42 volumes, but which he hoped would he reduced to one-fourth of that bulk. The 623 present Bill proposed to weed the statute book of all the useless statutes which encumbered the book between the 11th Geo. III. and the year 1858. He proposed that the Bill be read a second time, and should afterwards propose that it should be sent to a Select Committee.

§ MR. WHITESIDE
asked the hon. and learned Gentleman if it could be possible for any Committee to deal with a subject of such perplexity. The Bill should be brought in on the responsibility of the Government, and the House would give the hon. and learned Gentleman every assistance in their power in the discussion. It could not be expected that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General could attend to this Committee and at the same time discharge his important duties to his clients and the Crown; and it certainly was not fair to ask a Committee of the House to discharge such a duty, which ought to be referred to the law officers of the Crown.

§ MR. HADFIELD
was of opinion that this measure was the first stage to begin at to weed out from the statute book all the old and obsolete Acts, and that an edition of the statute book really useful would be the result.