LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 20 July 1978)

§ Lord KIRKHILL

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree to the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 46 and 47. The House will recall that Amendment No. 45 was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, at Report stage. The Government, while having some sympathy with the spirit of the Amendment—and we expressed that at the time—took the view that this matter should best be left to the Assembly itself to determine. That remains the Government's view. However, in view of the strength of feeling in this House, the Government did not work to oppose this Amendment in another place. As a consequence, two minor changes are needed to improve the drafting of Amendment No. 45. The purpose of Amendment No. 46 is to convert the passage concerned from a proviso into an ordinary subsection of Clause 26. The proposition embodied in the passage added to the Bill by Amendment No. 45 is not a proviso to what has gone before.

The purpose of Amendment No. 47 is to delete words which were only necessary because of the new paragraph (b) inserted by your Lordships' Amendment No. 45. This Amendment is consequential upon the fact that Amendment No. 45 was disagreed to in another place; it returns 500 the Bill to its original state, otherwise the clause in its final form would not make sense. I hope that the House will understand that it has been necessary to propose these two Amendments.