§ 4.12 p.m.
§ Lord Falconer of ThorotonMy Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to bring forward this Statute Law (Repeals) Bill, which continues to make further progress in the modernisation of the statute book. The Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission have a statutory responsibility to promote the repeal of obsolete and unnecessary laws. Over the past 35 years, 17 reports on statute law revision, with draft Bills attached, have been presented to Parliament. The 16 previous reports have resulted in repeals of more than 4,300 enactments, including nearly 2,000 whole Acts. The present Bill proposes the repeal of 68 whole Acts and the removal of redundant provisions from more than 400 others.
The repeals in this Bill are set out in Schedule 1. They are in 17 parts. They range from the administration of justice, ecclesiastical law and education to obsolete enactments concerning aviation, finance and road traffic. A number of local Acts in Scotland, which have no continuing practical utility, are also being repealed.
As always, the work of the Law Commissions has uncovered areas of some historical interest and antiquity. For example, one repeal proposal relates to Queen Anne's Bounty, an institution dating back to 1704. Other proposals relate to the obsolete provisions in the London Hackney Carriages Acts of the Victorian era. But such has been the pace of social, economic and political change in more recent times that many of the proposals in the Bill relate to statutes enacted since the Second World War. This is particularly true in the area of agriculture where many changes have come about over the past half century because of new farming methods and our membership of the European Union.
Your Lordships will wish to know that there has been full consultation with interested bodies on all the proposed repeals. I am sure that your Lordships will wish to join me in paying tribute to the two Law Commissions for their thorough and painstaking efforts in this important work of modernising the statute book. I should also thank those who have been consulted by the commissions for their contributions.
If your Lordships are content to give this Bill a Second Reading, it will be referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills in the usual way. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Falconer of Thoroton.)
§ Lord GoodhartMy Lords, I have been campaigning for many years for the repeal to the Preamble to the Clergy Ordination Act 1804. I am delighted to see that my campaign has at last succeeded.
I rise only to repeat very briefly the thanks expressed by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to the Law Commissions, which, as ever, have done an 32 extremely valuable job in pruning some of the dead wood that the great forest of our statute law has accumulated over recent years. We are very happy to support the Bill.
§ Lord KingslandMy Lords, it is good to experience a sensation of total harmony with the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. I wholly endorse everything that they have both said about the work of the Law Commissions.
Inevitably, measures such as a Statute Law (Repeals) Bill take some of us down memory lane. In my case, it recalls, pleasingly, Lady Hylton-Foster. I note that her Annuity Act of 1965 is being repealed. It was to settle and secure an annuity on her in consideration of the eminent services of her late husband, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, who was Speaker of the House of Commons. It reminds us pleasurably of Lady Hylton-Foster. As I sit down, I am experiencing the same pleasurable feeling about this particular piece of legislation.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.