§ Lords Amendment: In page 29, leave out lines 29 to 32.
§ 9.0 p.m.
§ Lady TweedsmuirI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This Amendment removes from the Repeal Schedule an Act of the Parliament of Scotland included in that Schedule in error. The effect of the repeal of this Act would be to make heritable for the purposes of succession a type of security, namely, a personal 151 bond, which has been regarded as moveable for 300 years. This was not intended and the error has now been put right.
§ Mr. WillisThis is another example of the blundering incompetence of the Government. They did not even know with what Acts of Parliament they were dealing, or what they were trying to repeal. We are glad that the hon. Lady has agreed to rectify the error which the Government have made.
Before we leave the Bill, I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) on his great skill in dealing with the involved legal matter with which we have been concerned in the course of these proceedings. It is quite clear that we have enough legal talent on this side of the House to provide both a Lord Advocate and a Solicitor-General for Scotland without bothering about the lawyers, and we would probably get along much better. I wish that I could say the same about the Government, because we might then have managed to deal with these matters much more expeditiously.
§ Sir Colin Thornton-Kemsley (North Angus and Mearns)If that was in order, I should like to say how much we on this side of the House have admired the way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Lady Tweedsmuir) has conducted the proceedings, not only here, but in the Scottish Standing Committee. That she has done so without legal aid has been almost unparalleled in the annals of the Scottish Committee, and we have all admired it.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerOne side was allowed to be in order, so the other had to be.
§ Question put and agreed to.