Clause 29.—(THE COURT.) (Hansard, 30 June 1965)

§ Dr. Dickson Mabon
I beg to move Amendment No. 66, in page 18, line 18, at the end to insert: or any jurisdiction of the Court of Session in relation to actions of removing".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker
With this Amendment it will be convenient to consider the Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in line 1, leave out from "Session" to end.

§ Dr. Mabon
Amendment No. 66 is a consequential drafting Amendment made necessary by the revised form of Clause 26. Subsection (1) of Clause 26 now applies to Scotland and it is therefore necessary to provide in Clause 29 a specific saving for the existing jurisdiction of the Court of Session in relation to actions of removing.
I presume I can make a comment at this juncture on the point which has been made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry), or perhaps it would be preferable if I waited until the hon. Gentleman has moved his Amendment.

§ Mr. Hendry
My Amendment to the Amendment is purely probing. It seems to me rather an extraordinary thing that these words should qualify the saving for the jurisdiction of the Court of Session. It is not clear to me why the hon. Gentleman has proposed this Amendment. By inserting these words he is in some way denuding the jurisdiction of the Court of Session, and I would suggest that the Amendment would be better without these words.

§ Dr. Mabon
It is not the intention that we should do that. In fact, I am advised that we could accept the Amendment except that it would not be in accordance with normal drafting practice.
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdeenshire, West prefaced his remarks by saying that his Amendment was exploratory. He has often said that not only is it important that the Statute should be intelligible to lawyers, but also it should be intelligible to laymen. The only reason for leaving these words in is to give a useful aid to the interpretation of the Statute. I am assured by my legal advisers that the 760 presence of the words is not at all inhibiting on the Court of Session.
In view of the hon. Gentleman's own statements in the past about this, I should have thought that he would have welcomed the retention of the words, rather than wish to move an Amendment to delete them.