SHORT TITLE, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT. (Hansard, 25 April 1968)

§ Mr. Graham Page
I beg to move Amendment No. 11, in page 71, line 33, to leave out from first 'the' to end of line 34 and to insert: 'a day to be appointed by the Minister by order'. At present the Clause brings the Bill into operation on the date on which it is passed. I want to refer back to the arguments which I have used in connecnection with "old control", exchange tenancies, controlled mortgages and I will add to that the transitional provisions of the Rent Act, 1957. All are perpetuated by the Bill. All of them give a great deal of trouble and difficulty to practising lawyers and all of them could have been disposed of before the Bill came into operation. That is why I hope that the Solicitor-General, even at this late hour, will agree that on these points at least steps should be taken to amend the law before the Bill takes effect. We would then be able to have a clean and tidy consolidation Measure without all the troubles and anomalies of the past in this branch of the law.
That is why I have tabled the Amendment that the Bill should not come into operation immediately it is passed, but on a day appointed by the Minister. That day would be after the House had had an opportunity of disposing of the anomalies which the Bill is perpetuating.

§ The Solicitor-General
I make it clear that there is no strong objection in prin- 644 ciple to the Bill being brought into force by Ministerial order, but the Government see no reason to delay the commencement of the Bill beyond the customary period of one month. We therefore see no virtue in a Ministerial order in this context.
Such an order would mean that, in order to find out when the Act had come into force, one would need both a copy of the Act and a copy of the relevant order. To that extent, as a matter of practice, a good deal of complexity and administrative difficulty would be involved. As it is, one will be able to tell from the Act alone when it comes into force, since the date will be printed in square brackets at the end of the Long Title in the usual way.
If the Act were to be brought into force by order, it would be vital that the order should be made by Statutory Instrument, as is customary with all commencement orders, since this ensures that copies of the order are freely available. The Amendment would not achieve this and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that a Ministerial order made otherwise than by Statutory Instrument would be an exceedingly unsatisfactory way of bringing any Act into force, let alone a major consolidation Measure. Accordingly, while the Government see no purpose in departing from the express terms of Clause 118(3), even if they were disposed to bring the Act into force by Ministerial order they would not feel able to accept the Amendment for this purpose.

§ Mr. Graham Page
The hon. and learned Gentleman has not really dealt with the point. He has dealt purely with points of drafting. I hoped that he would at least give an assurance that, although they wish to bring this Bill into force on the day it is passed, the Government would nevertheless give attention at once to the Amendments of the law on the subjects we have discussed in the course of this Committee stage. It is spoiling the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar to continue with this old unnecessary law, which is only an invitation to litigation.