HC Deb 27 May 1919 vol 116 cc1155-6

(1)The Amendments specified in the second column of the Second Schedule to this Act (which relate to procedure under Part I. and Part II. of the principal Act and to minor de tails) shall be made in the provisions of the principal Act and the Housing. Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909, specified in the first column of that Schedule.

(2)Sections fourteen and fifteen of the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909, shall be deemed to be part of Part II. of the principal Act.

Mr. A. WILLIAMS

I beg to move to leave out the Clause.

My object is to call attention to the Schedule which is referred to and the changes which it makes. I should not be in order in going into it in detail until we come to the Schedule itself, but if we pass this Clause—I refer specially to the first Sub-clause—we introduce into the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890, quite an enormous number of Amendments as set out on pages 30, 31, 32, 33, and 34, and I wish to elicit from the Minister some statement as to what is going to be done to make the Housing Acts workable. Anybody referring to the Housing Acts would have to refer every minute to this Schedule to know what the law is. There are almost hundreds of small alterations made in the Housing Act. Is the Housing Act going to be reprinted with these alterations, or is the whole going to be codified? That is. my point. I hope the right hon. Gentleman may see his way to have, all the Amendments on this matter codified when, the Bill is once passed into law.

Mr. RAFFAN

I beg to second the Amendment.

Dr. ADDISON

As the hon. Member was not a member of the Committee the papers may possibly have escaped his notice, but I did circulate to Members of the House a statement of what it is that these particular proposals accomplished in the modification of procedure under the existing Acts. I set out a comparison of the present position and the future position in two parallel columns in a White Paper a short time ago to make it as clear as I could. I quite agree that it is a very complicated business, but the whole of these alterations are designed to simplify the procedure. I agree that it will be necessary in the near future to have some codifying measure, and I hope that before long I shall be able to introduce one.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.