§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
2116§ Mr. RUNCIMANCould the Attorney-General give some information to the Committee as to what is the difference between these various Bills? I do not want him to go into the matter at length, but a few words from him would afford some guidance to us.
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERALCertainly. These Bills—there are six of them—which have passed their Second Reading, are merely Bills which consolidate the existing law as it is, now that the Act of 1922, sometimes called Lord Birkenhead's Act, has been passed into law, and the amending Act of last year has been passed. It is necessary, those Acts having been passed, that we should get into one Statute, if possible, the law of real property dealing with these various branches. They have been divided up into what are generally recognised as convenient branches of the law, dealing respectively with settled land, trustees, and so on. They are consolidation Bills and nothing else, that is to say, they make no alteration in the law. Having received a Second Reading in another place, they were sent to the. Committee which deals with consolidation Bills, to be examined to see that they made no alteration in the law. That has been duly certified, and we are now putting into statutory form a consolidation of the law as it stands and as embodied in the two Acts which I have mentioned.
§ Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Remaining Clauses agreed to.
§ Schedules agreed to.
§ Bill reported without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed, without amendment.