---

Statute Law (Repeals) Bill [HL]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. As your Lordships will be aware, one of the statutory functions of the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission is to promote the repeal of obsolete and unnecessary enactments. In fulfilment of this function, the Law Commissions have over the past 40 years presented to Parliament 18 reports on statute law repeals with draft Bills attached. The 17 previous reports have resulted in the repeal of over 2,000 whole Acts and partial repeal of thousands of other Acts. The present Bill proposes the repeal of more than 250 whole Acts and the removal of obsolete provisions from nearly 70 others. The repeals in the Bill are set out in Schedule 1. They are in 11 parts. The areas covered range, alphabetically, from ““Armed Forces”” and ““County Gaols”” to ““Town and Country Planning”” and ““Turnpikes””. They include six Acts to finance the building of workhouses in the London area, including an 1819 Act to build the one in Wapping mentioned by Charles Dickens in The Uncommercial Traveller. There are also 12 obsolete Acts relating to the affairs of the East India Company in the period 1796 to 1832. Your Lordships will wish to know that the Law Commissions have consulted fully with interested bodies on all the proposed repeals. This Bill and its predecessors play a valuable part in the work of modernising and improving the statute book. I am sure that your Lordships would wish to join me in thanking the two Law Commissions for the very careful and detailed way in which they have set about this important task. I should also like to thank those who have been consulted by the commissions for their contributions. As some of the repeals relate to devolved matters in Scotland, a legislative consent Motion has been lodged with the Scottish Parliament, in accordance with standard practice. If your Lordships are content to give the 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 Bach.)