§ Clause 5, page 7, line 42, after ("or") insert ("not later than fourteen days before").
§ LORD CRAIGTONMy Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Craigton.)
THE DUKE OF ATHOLLMy Lords, this seems to me to be an extraordinary piece of drafting, because if you read the clause now you will see it says:
or not later than fourteen days before …I believe that that occurs twice in the Bill. Either it is done so that we get about ten extra words, and they can put up the price from 2s. 3d. to 2s. 6d. for those sufficiently unfortunate to have to buy a copy, or it is done because there must (have been very slack drafting in another place. It seems that we might ease everyone's burden by substituting the "thirteenth day of May" fornot later than fourteen days before the … twenty-seventh day of May …",as I cannot see that would make any difference to the substance of the Bill and would make it somewhat easier to define.
§ LORD CRAIGTONMy Lords, I am afraid the noble Duke has not got it quite right. This is not a point of substance; it is a drafting point. The point was that the words:
shall be served on the chief constable not later than fourteen days before the date specified as aforesaid, or the twenty-seventh day of May …did not make it clear whether it was May 27 or fourteen days before May 27 that was meant. If we did what the noble Duke suggests we should not be clear whether it meant May 13 or fourteen days before May 13, which is April 30. I suggest to my noble friend that the drafting is correct—unless we wanted to redraft the clause which, of course, would be impossible. So I must support the draftsman in this case.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.