HL Deb 11 February 1958 vol 207 cc584-5

3.55 p.m.

Amendments reported (according to Order).

Clause 4 [Place of deposit of public records]:

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR) moved to leave out subsection (2) and to insert instead: (2) In choosing a place of deposit under this section for public records of—

  1. (a) courts of quarter sessions or magistrates' courts, or
  2. (b) courts of coroners of counties or boroughs,
the Lord Chancellor shall have regard to any arrangements made by the person for the time being responsible for the records with respect to the place where those records are to be kept and, where he does not follow any such arrangements, shall. so far as practicable, proceed on the principle that the records of any such court ought to be kept in the area of the administrative county or county borough comprising the area for which the court acts or where it sits, except in a case where the authorities or persons appearing to the Lord Chancellor to be mainly concerned consent to the choice of a place of deposit elsewhere.

The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, the first Amendment deals with a defect which we have discovered in the Bill, in that under the present subsection I am empowered only to say that records of quarter sessions, petty sessions and coroners' courts should be kept in the administrative county or borough of the court, or in some nearby locality. It has been brought to my attention that, in Wales especially, records are kept in other places—in the National Library of Wales—and I desire to provide for that to continue. Therefore, I have redrafted the subsection in order to make that provision. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 4, line 1, leave out subsection (2) and insert the said new subsection.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Second Schedule [Enactments prohibiting disclosure of information obtained from the public]:

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, my second Amendment, which is to leave out two lines in the Second Schedule, is a prospective piece of tidying up. Under the Schedule, a keeper of the public records has to have regard to certain Acts of Parliament, one of which is the Agricultural Marketing Act, Sections 21 and 24, by which the Board of Trade can ask for certain particulars with respect to the schemes. Perhaps due to the beneficent influence of my noble friend Lord Conesford, over the last twenty-five years the Board of Trade have never asked for that information and have no intention of ever asking for it. In fact, in the next Consolidation Bill we intend that these sections shall be done away with. I hope your Lordships will allow me, in the interests of legislative tidiness, to anticipate that happy date and drop them out of the Schedule to this Bill. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 13, line 27, leave out lines 27 and 28.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.