§ Clause 32, page 13, line 33, leave out ("no person shall,") and insert ("a person articled to a solicitor after the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, shall not")
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, I am going to ask the House to agree to the Commons Amendments under these circumstances. The first Amendment is in Clause 32. It is rather a technical one, but, as your Lordships know, this was a measure for consolidation, and in a consolidation measure you cannot alter the law. The old law read:
A person articled to a solicitor after the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, shall notand the draftsman, thinking it would make rather better sense—and I think he was right in thinking so—altered it to "No person shall." But unfortunately when we looked at it that made a great difference. It was thought that this change of wording did not alter the law. It has now been found that a barrister of more than five years standing, referred to in Clause 34, would be or might be affected by the change. It is clearly undesirable to run any risk of having altered the law, and, our attention being called to this, the Government pro- 695 posed that this Amendment should be put down in order that the law should not be changed. I beg therefore to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.