CUSTOMS DUTIES (DUMPING AND SUBSIDIES) BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 17 April 1969)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass. Owing to the good work done by the Joint Committee our Consolidation Bills now tend to move through Parliament with hardly any mention at all. Therefore I thought that before this Bill was passed I should say that it is a short but useful Bill, consolidating the whole of our Statute Law on Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) as at present contained in the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act 1957, the Import Duties Act 1958, and the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Amendment Act 1968. The purpose of this Bill, as of all these Consolidation Bills, is to put all our Statute Law in one place instead of having it in several places. Obviously this is more convenient.

Apart from the two Bills which I introduced yesterday, we have not had any other Consolidation Bills this Session. That is partly because the Law Commission's draftsmen have been exceptionally busy on drafting Bills and partly because there remain, I hope, for next Session some really major Consolidation Bills, particularly those consolidating the 17 (as I think it is now) Finance Acts and also local government legislation. But our programme of gradually consolidating the Acts in our Statute Book, so that we get as many Acts as possible dealing with the same subject into one Act, is nevertheless proceeding, I think, satisfactorily. I beg to move.