SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFITS BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 1 November 1976)

§ The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. It 964 is, I believe, the last consolidation Bill that will go through the House in this Session of Parliament and I should like to take this opportunity to say a word of appreciation to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, who I regret to see is not with us in the Chamber and who retires at the end of this Session as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Mr. Gladstone said on one occasion when he introduced a budget that he did not call the task Herculean because Hercules could not have done it. Lord Simon and his equally dedicated Committee Members must have felt the same in approaching the consolidation of, for instance, the Social Security Benefits Bill, which had to take account of no less than five amending Bills in the same Session. The consolidation of Statutes in respect of which we owe so much to the Law Commissioners is extremely useful and important, but it is also heavy, difficult and unglamorous work, as we saw in the recent Land Drainage Bill.

This present Supplementary Benefits Bill is no exception. We have reason to be particularly grateful for the fact that, after the Bill was recommitted to the Joint Committee, the Committee proceeded to deal with it very efficiently and quickly in order to enable this valuable measure of consolidation of a branch of the law which affects millions of our citizens to get through in the present Session. The House is indeed greatly indebted to the Joint Committee and in particular to its Chairman the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon, who has borne so much of the burden of the work of the Committee. He followed a distinguished line of recent chairmen in the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber, then the noble Lord, Lord Upjohn, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock; and it is gratifying to know that the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Killowen, has agreed to take over from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale.

During the period of nearly four years since he became chairman we have depended a great deal on the expertise, the advice, and the immense conscientiousness of the noble and learned Lord, Lord 965 Simon of Glaisdale, and I am sure that I speak for all your Lordships when I say how grateful we are to him. He may not have heard this, but I hope that in the fulness of time he will read it. I beg to move.