STATUTE LAW (REPEALS) BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 14 October 1969)

§ The Lord CHANCELLOR (Lord Gardiner)
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee (on Recommitment) on this Bill.

The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES
This Bill has been amended by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. There are no further Amendments for your Lordships' consideration this afternoon. With the permission of the Committee, I will therefore put the Question, That I report the Bill to the House without further amendment.

§ The Lord CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.

§ Lord SORENSEN
My Lords, I am sorry to intervene because I know that this Bill is welcomed in all parts of the House, but for my own information and possibly for the information of other Members of the House, I should like to ask just one or two questions very briefly. I presume that when reference is made on page 6 of the Bill to: An Act against the bringing in and putting in execution of bulls and other instruments from the See of Rome", this refers to ecclesiastical bulls. If so, may I ask whether anyone could tell me what part of that Act has been operative up till now, seeing that we are now asking that it should be repealed in toto? Also, page 7 of the Bill refers to the Act of Uniformity 1662 and the Toleration Act of some six years later. I had always assumed until now that the Act of Uniformity had in fact been entirely repealed. May I ask, therefore, what parts of the original Act of Uniformity 1662 still remain nominally operating, and also, in regard to the Toleration Act 1668, what parts have been unrepealed until to-day? This is a matter merely of information on my part. Possibly no other noble Lord desires that information, but at least it is of interest to me, as I hope it is to other Members of the House.

§ The Lord CHANCELLOR
My Lords, the only Motion before the House is, That this Report be now received. I was going to say a word on the Motion, That the Bill do now pass; but in answer to the questions raised by my noble friend 1311 Lord Sorensen, there is, of course, quite a large volume containing all the evidence which was given before the Joint Consolidation Committee, and there is also, subsequently, their Report. I am afraid that I am not in a position to deal with the minutiæ of particular Bills, because the Committee had a very large number indeed to consider. What I can properly say, I think, is that since the Report of the Joint Consolidation Committee I have heard from the Protestant Reformation Society and the United Protestant Council, who were somewhat unhappy about the proposed repeal of the Acts designed to repudiate the authority of the See of Rome. After communicating with them and with the Gospel Standard Strict Baptist Societies, which were also concerned with the same point, I have assured them that any foreign spiritual jurisdiction could be restored only by means of a positive enactment, and they have not, although they could have done so, asked any noble Lord to put down an Amendment on the Committee stage when it was recommitted.
All these Bills were first inquired into by an independent committee of lawyers jointly appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. During the proceedings of the Joint Committee one of their members, Mr. Archer, asked that there might also be consulted the Free Churches and also the Religious Society of Friends. That course has been taken. They have both been heard from and neither has any objection. I hope that that in substance answers my noble friend's questions.

§ The Lord CHANCELLOR
My Lords, as your Lordships know, this Bill was in the nature of an experiment to see whether we could not get off the Statute Book Statutes which had been there for a great many years, in many cases for centuries, although now performing no useful purpose. I feel sure that I can say on behalf of the whole House how indebted we are to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills for the work which they have done and the care that they have taken. They met on six separate days.
1312 I do not at all complain of the fact that they have taken a somewhat conservative view, feeling that unless they were quite sure that each of the Acts proposed to be repealed would perform no longer any useful purpose it was better to leave it there. In their Report to the House they have expressed the hope that on another occasion the Law Commission will call witnesses who are experts in particular fields of Statute law. They themselves heard eight witnesses. They say in their Report: They are of the opinion that the great majority of the enactments proposed to be repealed in the Schedule to the Bill are obsolete, spent, unnecessary or superseded, or are no longer of practical utility, and in consequence they approve the repeal of those enactments. They are further of the opinion that the remainder of the enactments proposed to be repealed may still be of practical utility or at all events they are not satisfied that they are shown no longer to be of practical utility and accordingly they have made amendments to the Schedule to the Bill to preserve those enactments in force. The Joint Committee continue: The Committee agree to the repeal of section 6 of the Sunday Observance Act 1677 which, subject to certain exceptions, prohibits service of process on Sunday, on the understanding that the service of county court process on Sundays (among other days) is prohibited by rules of court and that it is the intention of the Lord Chancellor to invite the Supreme Court Rules Committee to make a comparable rule for the Supreme Court. The Committee suggest that the Lord Chancellor should proceed to do this before the Bill comes into force on 1st January 1970 and that he should draw the attention of the Rules Committee to the reasons why the Joint Committee agreed to the repeal. I thought it right to report that to your Lordships and to say that I will, of course, carry out that recommendation.
My Lords, the only other body from whom I have heard since the Report of the Joint Committee is the Inland Waterways Association on two of the articles of Magna Carta. I have sent them a very long opinion by the Parliamentary draftsman on the point which they raise. Perhaps I may be allowed to conclude with some observations which have been made in to-day's issue of the Law Society's Gazette. It says: The clutter of ancient laws on the Statute Book should certainly be swept away and a useful sweeping away operation is proposed by the Law Commission … 1313 After dealing with certain specific Statutes, they say: None of the statutes proposed to be repealed appear to have any practical significance to-day, so the exercise is a harmless one, a tidying up exercise. Infinitely more good would be conferred upon the nation if we could get a loose-leafed collection of the statutes in force, kept continually up to date "— That is exactly what the Statute Law Committee is now seeking to do— much more consolidation, enactment by insertion into existing statutes (instead of the horrible legislation by reference practice), an improvement in drafting, more comprehensive legislation, and a modernisation of the whole legislative process. Then the statute law might cease to be a forbidding, incomprehensible morass and become the true embodiment of the rule of law in a civilised and humane and law-abiding society. My Lords, I hope that I can say, "So say all of us!" I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.