CLAUSE 1.—(Continuance of Acts in Schedule.) (Hansard, 21 July 1926)

§ Mr. NEIL MACLEAN
I have handed in an Amendment, in page 1, line 17, to leave out Sub-section (1), and to insert instead thereof a new Sub-section: (1) The Acts mentioned in Parts I and II of the Schedule to this Act shall, to the extent specified in column 3 of that Schedule, be continued until the 31st day of March., nineteen hundred and twenty-seven shall then expire, unless further continued or repealed by the passing of such Acts as will consolidate the enactments desired to be continued.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I think the hon. Member's intention is that all the Acts mentioned in the Schedule shall expire at the same date.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
No. The point is to continue for nine months all the Acts that are mentioned.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
As I read the Amendment, it seems to me that the effect would be that all the Acts mentioned in the Schedule would expire on the 31st March, 1927, and, if that be the case, the simplest way for the hon. Member to achieve that result would be by moving, in page 1, line 17, to leave out the words "Part I of," and not to insert any words there at all. That would have exactly the same effect as the words proposed by the hon. Member.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
But if you look at Sub-section (2), Mr. Deputy-Chairman—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Leaving out Sub-section (2) would come as a consequential Amendment to the one which I have suggested.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
I beg to move, in line 17, to leave out the words "Part I of"
I accept your guidance in this matter, and am quite prepared to take your advice. An Amendment similar to the one I am moving, certainly in regard to an alteration of the date has already been accepted. It was explained at the time that the Amendment was this day six months. That applied to the Acts in both Sections of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill which finished upon separate dates.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I was only suggesting what I did as a simple way of attaining exactly the same respect to the one the hon. Gentleman desires in the manuscript Amendment that he has handed in.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
That would limit discussion to these two Bills in Part I of the Schedule, whereas I wanted to get rid of the whole thing at one swoop. wished reference to be made to Bills in both parts of the Schedule.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I do not think the hon. Gentleman has quite understood me. He mentioned leaving out Part I. An Amendment to leave out what he suggests would include all the Acts mentioned in both parts of the Schedule if Sub-section (2) were subsequently deleted from the Clause.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
My point was, that in this Amendment the matter should be made perfectly clear. Everyone knows the various Acts that it is suggested should be continued in both parte of the Schedule. There is, for example, the Labourers' (Ireland) Act, 1883. There are the Amending Acts. Other Acts are in the same condition—with five, six, seven or more amending Acts. These amended Acts it is proposed to continue in this particular Expiry Laws Continance Bill. I want to put it to the right hon. Gentleman who may be in charge of the Bill that it is time that something was done by this House to bring these Acts into consonance with each other so as to make their reading clear, and more simple and understandable than at present, and not only to the lay but the legal mind. A lawyer has not only to wade through the principal Act, but all the subsequent modifications or amplifications of it. The Act I have just quoted is an outstanding example of what is required to be done by the House to simplify the legislation of the country. This Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1883 finds the circumstances of the day entirely different to those of the time when it was originally passed. We have now two Governments in Ireland. At that time Ireland was governed by the Secretary of State for Ireland from this House and by this House. Now that there has been a change in the government of Ireland you are still referring to the Labourers—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I do not think it would be in order upon this particular Amendment to go through all the Acts in the Schedule. The hon. Member must give sonic reasons why all the Acts in the Schedule should come to an end in December, 1927; we cannot go into the merits of the Acts.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
I am not going into the merits of the Labourers Act. I have merely made reference to that Act and the amending Acts. I am using this Act and the amending Acts as an illustration, and I am using the changed situation in Ireland as something to enforce my illustration. My argument is that these Acts, which have been so largely amended, should be brought forward in a consolidated form. I wish to give the Government time to go into this matter and have such Acts as this one put into such a form that they will be easily read, easily under- 1369 stood and easily quoted by any lawyer who is entrusted with a case under the scope of the Acts. I submit that there is no occasion for us to continue these Acts. In one case it is proposed to continue until the 21st day of December, 1927, those Acts which are mentioned in the first part of the Schedule, and with regard to the second part of the Schedule, to continue until the 31st day of March, 1928. This Bill comes before us year after year, and we find Acts with their large tails and amending Acts, and it is high time the Government, and I hope this Government, will at last do something to get rid of these Acts, which were passed originally for three and for five years and which have been continued for 40 or 50 years. It is high time these Acts were consolidated, and that we should get on with the real business of the House and not continue on the Statute Book Acts that in many cases are obsolete.

§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Ronald McNeill)
I hope the hon. Gentleman will not mind if I begin by entering a very mild protest against his having delayed so long in handing in this Amendment.

§ Mr. MACLEAN
There is no discourtesy intended either to the Financial Secretary or to the Committee. The Bill only passed its Second Reading at half-past eleven last night, and it was impossible for me to go to the library then and draft Amendments and hand them in, because the Clerks would have been gone. I wrote out the Amendment and handed it in early this afternoon.

§ Mr. McNEILL
I did not accuse the hon. Member of any sort of discourtesy. I see that it was difficult for him to have handed in the Amendment earlier, but, at the same time, it is difficult for me to deal with it. However, I will do the best I can. I did not quite gather from the speech of the hon. Gentleman what his actual complaint is.

§ Mr. J. JONES
On a point of Order. In view of the difficulties which have arisen, would it be possible to move to report Progress?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I cannot accept a Motion to report Progress.

§ Mr. McNEILL
The complaint of the hon. Gentleman is one with which, in substance, I am in very great sympathy. 1370 When we have a principal Act and a number of amending Acts, we all know that it is a difficult and complicated process to ascertain the existing state of the law. I understand that what the hon. Member wants is to get these Acts codified. If time and opportunity serve, the codification of laws is always desirable; but how does the hon. Gentleman connect that with his proposal? In point of fact, he is proposing to do away with the Expiring Laws Continuation Bill by destroying its purpose. The whole object of that Bill is to continue for a year the Statutes mentioned in the Schedule, which in the ordinary course would expire at the end of the year, in this case December, 1926. The hon. Member proposes that they should expire three months afterwards, on 31st March. The House generally meets somewhere about the end of the first week in February, and in a short period has to deal with a great mass of financial proposals, and if those lapsing Acts were to be continued, we should, in that short and crowded period of the Session, have to pass another Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. That does not seem to be a very reasonable proposal, and even if it were done I do not see that it would make it easier to codify this legislation; indeed, it would make it more difficult, because Parliamentary time could not be found for passing a codifying Bill, even if one could be prepared in the time. The Committee accept the view, I think, that these Statutes have to be continued in some form or other, and unless it is the hon. Member's object to prevent the continuance of these Statutes, I would beg him not to press this Amendment, which, as I say, would defeat his main object.

Captain BENN
Would he explain this one point to us? I confess I do not understand why it is that the Acts mentioned in Part I of the Schedule last until December, 1927, and those in Part II till March, 1928. Why are those dates chosen?

§ Mr. McNEILL
The reason is this. Ordinary legislation runs to the end of the calendar year, and as a rule an Act begins on the 1st January. But the Statutes mentioned in Part TI are financial Statutes and it would be a very great inconvenience if they did not run —expire or begin—with the financial year. They are concerned with rating, and as the hon. and gallant member 1371 knows, there are grants out of the Consolidated Fund under those Acts which are worked in with contributions from the local rates. The striking of those rates takes place half-yearly or quarterly, as the case may be, and it would create the greatest confusion if the financial year did not coincide with the commencement and expiry of those Acts.

Captain BENN
The right hon. gentleman put his complaint against the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) so courteously that I should hesitate to retort, but there is one very obvious reply. He complains that we have not put Amendments on the Paper. The fact is that the Government passed the Second Reading of the Bill only 24 hours ago and insisted on the Committee Stage being taken to-night in flat defiance of the recommendation of the Select Committee under General Seely, appointed in 1922. The Committee said: That Bill is regularly introduced and passed through all its stages, under great pressure of time, at the very end of the Session, when serious discussion is not practically possible. That is a point of grave objection. I think it is rather hard on my hon. Friend that when he hands in an Amendment hastily in circumstances which are a defiance of the recommendation of the Committee, he should be chastised for not having his Amendment on the Paper. I do not see why all these Measures should not expire on one date. I understand the codifying of these Measures means a great saving of Parliamentary time, but I cannot see why, if the financial date is important, they should not all expire on the financial date, because the date of the Finance Bill is later. If the Government cannot find time to renew these Acts in this way they should put them permanently on the Statute Book. This is not an original suggestion but one which was made by a distinguished occupant of the Front Bench to an earlier Government which sat on those Benches. I would suggest to the Financial Secretary that he should fix the date in Subsection (2) of the Clause and then we should know where we are, I cannot see that anything the Financial Secretary has said is a defence of two dates and this constitutes an extremely complicated provision.

§ Mr. JONES
Might I be allowed to asked about the case of West Ham. The Bill dealing with the West Ham Guardians places a limit of 12 months and that period will be up in 1928. I want to know is it included in this Bill?