Consolidations

[97] The law regarding the approach to construction of a consolidating statute was explained by the House of Lords in Farrell v Alexander [1976] UKHL 5, [1977] AC 59 and is well settled. When construing a consolidating statute, which is intended to operate as a coherent code or scheme governing some subject matter, the principal inference as to the intention of Parliament is that it should be construed as a single integrated body of law, without any need for reference back to the same provisions as they appeared in earlier legislative versions... . An important part of the objective of a consolidating statute or a project like the Tax Law Rewrite Project is to gather disparate provisions into a single, easily accessible code. That objective would be undermined if, in order to interpret the consolidating legislation, there was a constant need to refer back to the previous disparate provisions and construe them… .