§ Clause 25, page 13, line 18, after ("whole") insert ("number of members of the").
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, I do not think that I need detain your Lordships for a very long time—I hope not more than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour—although there are a number of Amendments to be considered. Your Lordships will recollect that this was a Consolidation Bill which effected one of the greatest consolidations ever attempted 427 in this country. It repealed the whole of 47 Acts relating to local government and repealed 170 in part. It was referred to a Joint Select Committee and was passed in this House before the Recess. A number of Amendments have been made in another place. I think 90 per cent. of them are drafting. With regard to the others, five or six are necessitated by reason of the fact that since the Bill was before your Lordships' House ten new boroughs have been created in the United Kingdom, which necessitates some small Amendments in various clauses. It will also be found necessary to alter the date on which the Act will come into operation—namely, January 1. There will not be time left before that date to make the multitudinous regulations necessary and therefore the date proposed is June 1. I think there are only three other Amendments of any substance and they simply bring into operation certain clauses which the Joint Select Committee thought might well be left out of a Consolidation Bill but which, on second thoughts, it has been found more advisable to restore. They are really reenactments of the law as it stood. I will now deal with the Amendments seriatim. The first is a drafting Amendment to assimilate this Bill to other corresponding Bills, and I beg to move that we agree with it.
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.