COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 28 May 1970)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 32. Amendment No. 32 deletes from the Bill a subsection which provided that the courts, in interpreting the Act, might look at the Report of the Law Commission on which the Act was based. That subsection was welcomed, I think, on all sides of this House, and by certain noble and learned Lords, but violent objection was taken to it in the other place by the Opposition. The Bar Council did not like it and the Law Society did not like it and some of the judges did not like it. I have never been able to understand why. I still think it would have been a sensible clause to have. However, under the all-Party agreement by which it was agreed that the Bill was to go through this Session, contentious matters must be dropped and the Government have given way. Perhaps it is a question that we can discuss at some time when we consider what we have not yet considered, an outstanding Report of the Law Commission on the whole question of the interpretation of Statutes.
1197 However, it is obviously a question which arouses differences of view. It has always seemed to me that if one is enacting a Bill which is attached to a Report of a body like the Law Commission, or perhaps even the Criminal Law Revision Committee—a draft Bill attached to a Report in which they explain why they have used certain words rather than some other words, and what the mischief is at which the proposed Act is aimed—it is only sensible, when the judges come to deal with it, that they should be able to read the Report. There are two views about it, and for the reasons to which I have referred the Government have given way. Therefore I respectfully advise the House to accept this Amendment.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS
My Lords, the Law Commission clause, as it has come to be known, has indeed caused a lot of trouble. The noble and learned Lord is quite right in saying that nobody opposed it here; indeed, it was supported by certain noble and learned Lords, and I think it, or an equivalent clause, was inserted into the Animals Bill by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce. But the horror and consternation which greeted me in another place, when I told my colleagues there that I had said nothing rude about it at all, took my breath away; and there has since developed in the Press and in various other quarters a tremendous amount of controversy about it. I think that the noble and learned Lord is quite right and that this is not a matter which we ought to consider putting into legislation at the moment without a debate on the wider subject of the interpretation of Statutes.
There is also a further point on this Bill. It was tolerably safe to leave this clause in when the Bill left this House, because all that had been done was to clear up a few very minor, almost verbal, drafting matters. But now, as the House sees, we have no fewer than six new clauses. Moreover, great areas of the Bill have been substantially redrafted, and the more that happens the less use a statutory power to refer only to the Law Commission's Report becomes. It would be necessary to refer to the 1198 speeches, and possibly the Judges would, but they would do so without any statutory authority, without its being possible to argue the matter before them. They would have to refer to the speeches in both Houses which explained why the changes had been made. Certainly, in view of the changes which have been made in the Bill I welcome the fact that the Government have given way on this point and I hope they will not put in another such clause before we have had a wide-ranging debate on the matter.

§ LORD LEATHERLAND
My Lords, I wish, very briefly, to put the pages of history right. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, said that nobody in this House opposed this provision at the earlier stages of the Bill. I opposed it, and I explained at some length why I opposed it. I said that it was traditional that when interpreting a law the Judges paid attention to the wording of that law and did not pay attention to any background speeches which Ministers or others might have delivered in explanation of the Bill when they were introducing it into their respective Houses. I do not wish to say whether I think the change is right or wrong. I know that I am usually right on most things, but I shall not press the point now. I merely wanted to have the record right for posterity.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS
My Lords, I beg the noble Lord's pardon. I had forgotten.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for what he has said. Some day, I agree, we ought to return to discuss in this House the whole question of the interpretation of Statutes.