COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 21 June 1956)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, this first Amendment is necesary to cover the new clause in regard to certain funds in the Lancaster Chancery Court. It has been generally agreed that this new clause is within the scope of the Bill and serves a useful purpose. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.

§ LORD SILKIN
My Lords, I do not want to say anything on the merits of this Amendment, which are quite clear and are acceptable, but I should like to point out to ±e House that these are sixty-four of these Amendments. That scents quite a lot, as coming from the other place. I think they are nearly all drafting Amendments, or not much more, and it is some reflection on the way in which we do our work. After the Bill has passed through this House there are sixty-four Amendments that the other place think it necessary to make to the Bill, and to which I gather the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor is going to recommend your Lordships' House to agree. That does rather add weight to what I said earlier: that there is a case for giving more consideration to Bills in this House. I say no more than that. It may help the Lord Chancellor if I tell him that, so far as we or this side of if the House are concerned, we have no objection to any of these 1198 Commons Amendments, and if he chooses to take them quite shortly we shall have no complaint whatever.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords. I am grateful to the noble Lord, not only for what he has said, but for the care he has obviously taken to study these Amendments. I am not going into the question of whether this is a justification of a Second Chamber, because that might involve us in even deeper controversy. However, as I said on the earlier Bill, I take the noble Lord's point, although he will realise that in a Bill of this kind, where one is trying to brush away the cobwebs of the law, as one brushes away one spider's work another cobweb appears behind. I will hear the point in mind, and I ant grateful for what the noble Lord has said with regard to the general course of the Amendments.