SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 26 April 1923)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, this Bill, as the title shows, is a pure consolidation measure. The procedure in the Supreme Court is dealt with now by some eighty or more Acts of Parliament, and the time has come when they should be consolidated and simplified so that anyone who wants to know the procedure of our Courts should have a simple code to which he can refer. The Bill proposes to repeal wholly forty-three Acts of Parliament and to repeal and incorporate partly forty-two other Acts. Those 952 figures alone, I think, will prove to the House that this may be a very useful stage in the process of consolidating our law and reducing the number of Statutes to which reference has to be made. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
My Lords, this is really a very valuable Bill, and I am glad to see, if I am right in the inference I draw from the Schedule, that the whole of the Judicature Acts are repealed. Perhaps that is not so, but some of them are. In the latter case it would be of the utmost convenience to have those Acts consolidated, also, but the field is really so large that I have not ventured to come to any conclusion in regard to it. They are momentous when you come to look into the provisions of procedure, and on some subsequent occasion the noble and learned Viscount may be able to do it. The Bill is a very useful one. At present we have to wade through a mass of Statutes in order to find out the law as to procedure upon a vast variety of points. I think this Bill is another tribute to the indefatigable assistance which my noble and learned friend is giving in looking into the difficulties and having them removed. It is a consolidation Bill, and will go to the Committee on Consolidation Bills. I do not know whether my noble friend, Lord Muir Mackenzie, is still taking the fraternal interest that he did for many years in that Committee, but, if so, I have no doubt he will look very closely into its provisions. I have no reason to doubt that he will find that this is a pure consolidation Bill.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

§ LORD MUIR MACKENZIE
My Lords, the only difficulty I see in this Motion being carried is that there is not this Session any such Committee.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I shall propose that one be appointed, and I join in the hope of my noble and learned friend Lord Haldane that my noble friend Lord Muir Mackenzie will continue his absolutely invaluable services on that Committee.