§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg to move the Motion that stands in his name on the Order Paper. On July 26 last an Amendment was made to the Public Business Standing Orders to enable Commons Amendments and Reasons to be printed and circulated when this House was not sitting, and the opportunity was taken, as the number of Amendments to Standing Orders was then quite substantial, to order the reprinting of the book of Standing Orders.
In preparation of this reprint it was found that in Standing Order No. 63, which refers to the proceedings at the opening of a new Parliament, there still remained a reference to the laying upon the Table of a certificate of the election of sixteen Representative Peers for Scotland. This procedure, of course, with the passage of the Peerage Act, 1963, and the disappearance of the Representative Peers for Scotland, is now obsolete. I therefore beg to move the Amendments to this Standing Order, designed to remove the obsolete words and to tidy up the remainder of the paragraph.
§
Moved, That the following Amendments be made to Standing Order No. 63:
Line 2, leave out ("and the Lord Chancellor shall have taken") and insert ("the Lord Chancellor shall take")
Line 5, leave out ("the certificate of the Clerk of the Crown, of the return of the sixteen Peers of Scotland who have been elected to sit and vote in the House of Lords, shall be laid on the Table;").—(Lord Shepherd.)
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, will your Lordships permit me to repeat a remark made 250 years ago by a gentleman who was no relation of mine: "Here is the end of an auld sang"?
§ On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.