§ 3.20 p.m.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER)My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. This is a Consolidation Bill which has been carefully considered by the Joint Consolidation Committee. As your Lordships will appreciate, when a highway authority is repairing a road it is no good its doing so if that road is just about to be torn up by the Post Office or if the Gas Board is about to make a large hole in it. One must wait for a gap when nobody is doing anything to it. Consolidation is like that, and there are times when the consolidator must wait for a gap, because the subject is one on which there is usually a Bill every other year.
This Bill is really a straggler from the major consolidation of the National Insurance and related Acts carried out in 1965. It was held back then because of the imminence of major amendments which were eventually enacted in the Workmen's Compensation and Benefits (Amendment) Act of that year. It was then held up for a while, waiting for some minor amendments by the Ministry of Social Security Act of last year and then kept back by the General Election. Then it was nearly caught by Lord Blyton's introduction of a Bill in the same field. However, this Bill moves in smartly behind that one, and so all the law in this field will be now up to date and in one place. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Industrial Injuries and Diseases (Old Cases) Bill be now read 3a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§ On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.