§ Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
§ Mr. Graham PageSubsection (3), the last subsection in the Bill, says:
This Act shall come into force on such day as the Minister may by order made by statutory instrument appoint.I appreciate that this provision was probably necessary when the Bill was first drafted, because the Bill includes certain matters which will be law under a Bill which has now passed through all its stages in both Houses and which is now awaiting Royal Assent. At that stage, one could not tell at what time this Consolidation Bill would reach this House and pass through all its stages here, and it was therefore proper to reserve the date on which it should come into operation.But that hardly seems necessary now, and I would have thought that the Solicitor-General could have seen that this provision was removed. I dislike this type of subsection, because a Statutory Instrument appointing a time is not subject to any Parliamentary procedure and does not even have to be laid before the House. It is made by a Minister, and only those who are very observant of the various Stationery Office publications will notice that the Statute has been brought into force. I would have thought that we could have done without this subsection now.
§ The Solicitor-GeneralI explained when we were dealing with the last Bill that it is sometimes convenient to have a period of grace between a Bill receiving the Royal Assent and its actual coming into force. It sometimes happens that a particular period is specified. With the last Bill, it was a month after the Royal Assent had been given before the Act began to operate. There are many precedents for a provision of this kind to say that the Act shall come into force on an appointed day. When dealing with matters of a good deal of complexity, it is convenient to have this degree of elasticity about the date when the Act comes into force.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.