DEEDS OF ARRANGEMENT BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 24 March 1914)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HALDANE)
My Lords, this Bill needs but a few words of explanation, and what I have to say in respect of it applies also to the Bankruptcy Bill which stands next in my name on the Paper. Last year your Lordships passed a great Bankruptcy and Deeds of Arrangement Bill. It made valuable changes in the law which were accepted by the other House, and the Act is now most useful. But the position that has resulted is this. The law of bankruptcy as it now applies in this country is contained in eight Bankruptcy Acts and in two other Acts; and the Deeds of Arrangement provisions of the law are contained in three Acts, the Act of last year and two other Acts. The result is that it is almost impossible for anybody 673 but an expert to find out what the law relating to Deeds of Arrangement and the Law of Bankruptcy is, not because the law is not now in an excellent condition but because of the enormous number of Statutes that have to be referred to. In pursuance of a policy with which your Lordships are well acquainted, it is proposed in these two Bills now before you to made Codes relating to the two subjects—that is to say, to take all the provisions with regard to Deeds of Arrangement in the various Acts and put them together in one Act, and to put all the Bankruptcy Acts and the provisions relating to bankruptcy in another Act. These two Bills, if passed, will be pure consolidation. No alteration of any sort or kind is made in the law. To ensure that, these Bills if they are given a Second Reading will be sent to a Joint Committee of the two Houses for examination to see that no change is made in the law. Should your Lordships think fit to read these Bills a second time and send them to the other House, I have good hope that they will pass without any difficulty or alteration, and then we shall have the satisfaction of having put two intricate branches of the law in the form of a Code easily accessible, though I will not say so easily intelligible.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
My Lords, we are very grateful to the Government for having adopted this policy of confining Consolidation Bills to purely consolidation, instead of incorporating changes of the law in them—a course which makes it very confusing and interferes with the passing of Consolidation Bills. As it is, the Government have for two or three sessions confined Consolidation Bills to consolidation and nothing else, and that makes it unnecessary for us to offer any observations upon them.

§ >THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I wish to repeat to the House the assurance that these Bills make no alteration whatever in the law. It is very satisfactory that the noble Marquess should take the view he has regarding these Bills. I am sure there are few greater services which we could perform than by putting these complicated branches of the law into Codes and passing them as we are now doing.