Conveyancing (Scotland) Amendment Bill. – in the House of Commons am ar 27 Mehefin 1924.
Viscount Curzon
, Battersea South
I beg to move to leave out the Clause.
I make this Motion in order to secure an explanation as to what really is in the Bill. Like many other things applying to Scotland, there are very few homegrown Englishmen who understand all the expressions in this Bill. What, for example, is meant by the words in the second line of the Clause, "specify as a title, or as a midcouple, or link of title"? This may be a well-known Scottish legal expression, but I do not know what it means. Sub-section (2) of the same Clause contains all sorts of extraordinary expressions, and in the third line there appears the expression "infeft or uninfeft." Hon. Members who do not come from Clydebank may not be aware what that expression means, and I would invite the hon. Member who is going to reply for the Government to tell us what these extraordinary words mean, and what is the intention of Clause 5.
As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
