§ MR. PIRIE (Aberdeen, N.)I beg to ask the Lord Advocate what are the Scottish Official Reports which are printed respectively in Scotland and in England; if he will take steps to secure that all Scottish official printing should be done in Scotland; and whether, seeing that the Act of Sederunt of 18th December, 1896, declared to come into effect on 1st January, 1897, was only promulgated as No. 39 of the Statutory Rules (London) of 1897, and that it was not published in Edinburgh, owing to its non-arrival from London, till several weeks after its provisions had been in operation, he will therefore amend the recently created practice, carried out by the Act of 1893 for the publication of Statutory Rules, of printing Scotland's Acts of Sederunt in London, as it causes delay, and has proved unworkable, as well as being manifestly unjust to Scotland, since even the Acts of the Legislatures of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are printed and published at Douglas and St. Heliers respectively?
§ MR. ANSTRUTHER (St. Andrews Burghs)My right honourable Friend the Lord Advocate has asked me to answer this Question, as he is engaged on a Committee upstairs. In reply to the first of the honourable Member's Questions, my right honourable Friend is informed by the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office that all Scotch papers other than those prepared in offices situated in London, which could not, without inconvenience to the department preparing them, be printed out of London are now—unless under very exceptional conditions such as those which apply to the Orders referred to in his second Question—printed in Scotland. As regards the second Question asked, under the regulations drawn up by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, in accordance with the provisions of the Rules Publication Act of 1893, Acts of Sederunt, in common with all other Statutory Orders, are, as issued, sent to the Controller of the Stationery Office, who, in his capacity of Queen's printer of Acts of Parliament, is required to number them consecutively, to print and place them on sale separately, and at the end of the year to 466 publish them in the collected volume of Statutory Orders. Provision for this has been made by a special contract under which the same type is available for the first issue and for the collected volume. To require that such Acts of Sederunt should first be printed in Scotland would necessitate a second printing which, as increasing risks of error, would be inconvenient, as well as extravagant. The particular Act of Sederunt referred to was by an unintentional oversight not received by the Stationery Office from the Scottish rule-making authorities, until the 22nd January, 1897, when it was dealt with, without delay, in the usual manner. But as the Order was printed in Scotland, and the necessary copies issued by the printers there on the 22nd December, 1896, no practical inconvenience resulted therefrom, and now the system is in proper working order there is no reason why any delay should occur in future.