§ Leave out Clause 50, and insert the following new clause:
§ ("Provisions as to Northern Ireland.
§ .—(1) His Majesty may by Order in Council provide for extending this Act to Northern Ireland with such additions, exceptions and modifications as appear to His Majesty to be expedient.
§ (2) An Order in Council under this section may provide for amending the law both in its application to the Crown in right of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and in its application to the Crown in right of His Majesty's Government in Northern Ireland.
§ (3) An Order in Council under this section may provide for amending the law:—
- (a) with respect to the right of the Crown to sue in a county court in Northern Ireland; and
- (b) with respect to the award of costs to or against the Crown in Northern Ireland.
§ (4) An Order in Council under this section may be varied or revoked by a further Order in Council made thereunder.
§ (5) An Order in Council under this section may include such provisions as appear to His Majesty to be incidental to or consequential on any provisions contained in such an Order by virtue of the preceding provisions of this section.
§ (6) So far as any provision contained in an Order in Council under this section deals with a matter with respect to which the Parliament of Northern Ireland has power to make laws, it shall, for the purposes of Section six of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920 (which relates to the power of the Parliament of Northern Ireland), be deemed to be a provision of an Act passed before the appointed day.
§ (7) An Order in Council under this section shall be laid before Parliament as soon as may be after it is made, and, if either House of Parliament, within the next twenty-eight days on which that House has sat after such an Order is laid before it, resolves that the Order be annulled, the Order shall thereupon cease to have effect except as respects thins previously clone or omitted to be done, without prejudice, however, to the making of a new Order.
§ Notwithstanding anything in subsection (4) of Section one of the Rules Publication Act, 1893, such an Order shall be deemed not to be a statutory rule to which that section applies.")
855§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, Clause 5o makes provision for applying the Bill to Northern Ireland. Your Lordships will remember that Northern Ireland is in a peculiar position. Some of its services are rendered by the United Kingdom Government and paid for out of the United Kingdom Exchequer, whereas some of its services are matters entirely for the Northern Ireland Parliament and the local Exchequer. In Clause 50 as it stands these two matters are dealt with separately. In the first place subsection (1) provides that the Act may be extended by Order in Council to Northern Ireland in respect of United Kingdom liabilities. In the second place, subsection (2) deals with Northern Ireland liabilities and gives the Northern Ireland Parliament power to legislate for purposes similar to the purposes of the Bill. On consideration and after discussion with the Northern Ireland authorities, it is felt that it would be extremely inconvenient to deal with Northern Ireland by two bites at the cherry. Moreover, by adopting the dual procedure, there will be in effect two codes of law in Northern Ireland, depending upon whether the liability to be enforced is in right of the United Kingdom Government or in right of the Northern Ireland Government. It is therefore proposed to delete Clause 5o as it stands and to insert the clause set out.
The new clause empowers His Majesty by Order in Council to extend the Act to Northern Ireland and to amend the law in its application to the Crown both in right of the United Kingdom Government and in right of the Government of Northern Ireland. This means that one Order in Council will cover both phases of the Northern Ireland problem. Subsection (3) of the new clause provides that an Order in Council may provide for amending the law with regard to the right of the Crown to sue in Northern Ireland and with regard to costs against the Crown in Northern Ireland. This is necessary because the provisions of Sections 4 and 7 of the Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1933, which deal with these two matters so far as England is concerned, do not extend to Northern Ireland. Subsections (4) and (5) of the new clause are common form and subsection (6) is inserted at the request of the Northern Ireland Government for the reason that constitutionally the matter of proceedings by or 856 against the Crown in right of the Northern Ireland Government is one on which the Northern Ireland Parliament is competent to legislate and the Northern Ireland Government desire the insertion of this provision as a saving for these powers of the Northern Ireland Parliament, though there is no intention on the part of the Northern Ireland Government to introduce any such legislation. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.