§ [The references are to Bill No. 30.]
§ After Clause 2 insert the following clause:
§ Costs in connexion with severance of leases.
§ (". The proviso to subsection (3) of Section eleven of the principal Act (which provides that the arbitrator or the Court may direct that the Commission shall not be liable to pay costs in connexion with the severance of a lease incurred by a person who appears to the Court to have been unreasonable or guilty of negligence or default) shall have effect as if for the words 'who appears to the Court' there were substituted the words 'who appears to the arbitrator or the Court.'")
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERMy Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. I can explain the purport of this Amendment, as indeed of the other two Amendments also, in a very few moments. This new clause merely corrects a slip in Section 11 of the principal Act which has come to light since this Bill was presented. The proviso to subsection (3) of Section 11 of the principal Act, which we seek to amend by this new clause, provides that the arbitrator or the Court may deprive a person of costs which appear to the Court, not to the arbitrator, to have been incurred unreasonably. Thus, as the proviso now stands, a person who has acted unreasonably in proceedings before an arbitrator cannot be deprived of costs by the arbitrator unless it is shown to the Court that he has been unreasonable. I think it will be clear to the 932 House that this is obviously a mistake and that the decision as to the costs of the arbitration proceedings should lie with the arbitrator. This clause will amend the proviso to Section 11 in that sense.
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.— (The Earl of Munster.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.