§ 3.37 p.m.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR)My Lords, I hope that, with the indulgence of the House, your Lordships will allow me to make a short statement which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is making in another place. Your Lordships will recollect that on November 1, 1955, I announced the appointment of the Committee to inquire into the Practice and Procedure of Administrative Tribunals. This Committee, under the Chairmanship of Sir Oliver Franks, included among its members three Members of your Lordships' House—the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, the noble Marquess, Lord Linlithgow, and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. I have now received the Report of the Committee and it is available to your Lordships in the Printed Paper Office. I should like to take this opportunity of paying my tribute to the chairman and members of the Committee for the remarkable expedition with which they have found it possible to complete this highly important and far-reaching inquiry.
My Lords, I wonder whether your Lordships will allow me a personal indulgence? The noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, started the practice of medicine at almost the same time that I started the practice of the law in Liverpool. I hope your Lordships will allow me to take this slightly irregular opportunity to convey my congratulations to him on his brilliant speech to which we have just listened, and to say that it will give pleasure not only to his old friends, of whom I am pleased to be one, but to countless people on Mersey-side, and far beyond.
§ LORD SILKINMy Lords, if the noble and learned Viscount has been in any way irregular, I am quite sure he has the forgiveness of the whole House. On the statement that he has just made, I should like to thank him for his tribute to the expedition of the Committee—it has worked very hard, as I well know. I hope that it will be met with equal expedition on the part of the Government in making up their own minds about what they intend to do with the Report.