STANDING ORDERS RELATING TO STANDING COMMITTEES.

HL Deb 10 February 1891 vol 350 cc289-92

Report from the Select Committee considered (according to order).

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Earl CADOGAN)

I rise to ask your Lordships to agree to the alterations in the Orders relating to Standing Committees which were recommended by the Committee appointed by the House for the purpose of investigating these Standing Orders. It may, perhaps, be convenient to the House that I should very briefly state the objects of the proposed alterations. They are intended to meet the objections which were raised during the last two Sessions to the composition of these Committees and to the circumstances under which they were appointed. The chief objections, as your Lordships will remember, were directed to the fact that by the existence of those Committees a large number of the Members of your Lordships' House were liable to be excluded from the consideration of Bills, and that exclusion was characterised by a noble Lord, whom I see behind me, Lord Brabourne, as disfranchisement. I am not prepared to say there were not some grounds for the complaint which was made; and I can quite understand that noble Lords should have objected to the fact that some of the Bills which have come before your Lordships were not considered in Committee of the whole House. There was another objection which was also raised by the noble Lord behind me, and that was to the limitation in the numbers of noble Lords appointed to serve upon those Committees. Your Lordships will remember that under the Standing Orders as they had previously existed the number was limited, and power was given to add 10 noble Lords to any Committee appointed to consider any particular Bill; and upon one occasion the noble Lord behind me, being naturally desirous of acting upon the Committee with reference to a Bill in which he took great interest, applied to be added to the Committee, of which he was not then a Member, but he was informed that the full number of 10 Peers had already been appointed, and that it was therefore impossible for him to be put on the Committee. I think that is a most substantial grievance, and I may explain that a large number of these Amendments are directed to the exclusion of all limitations as to the number of the Peers to be appointed on Committees. Then we also recommend your Lordships to remove a limitation as to the number of Committees that can be appointed. Under the old Rules, as they were worded, it was impossible to appoint only one Committee, and we were not to appoint more than four. That has been struck out, and it will be for the House to appoint through its Committee of Selection any number of Committees it pleases from one upwards. Then, my Lords, what I think will probably be considered the most important of all the proposed changes is that under the proposed Rule 45, which provides that all Bills shall pass through Committee of the Whole House. I need hardly remind the House that that formed the gist of a large number of complaints, and I think it will be considered that the change recommended by the Select Committee in that respect is satisfactory, and that the House will be disposed to agree that under the proposed Rule the amendment is entirely free from objection. Perhaps I may be allowed to read that Rule, in order to show exactly what the procedure will be:— XLV. As early as convenient in each Session of Parliament one or more Standing Committees shall be appointed, to which, or one of which, every Bill shall be committed after passing through Committee of the Whole House, unless, on motion made when the Bill is reported by the Chairman of Committees, the House otherwise order; and the Bill shall be reported from the said Standing Committee, and shall be considered in the House on such Report. There is another line in the Rule which I propose to ask your Lordships not to adopt when the Question is put by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. I think I have intimated sufficiently the objects which the Committee had in view in framing these recommendations. They will certainly, I think, satisfy some noble Lords, in that all Bills will now pass through Committee of the Whole House. They will, I believe, conduce to more elasticity in the management and arrangement of the Committees, and I trust that your Lordships, having had a week to consider them, will agree to the new Orders and alterations which I now beg to move. There is one further purely verbal alteration in a later Order, and if the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack puts these Orders seriatim, I would ask leave to make any verbal Amendments as we proceed.

LORD DENMAN

My Lords, I am extremely glad that attention has been directed to the Standing Committees, and I am pleased to hear that one of the Orders is for Bills to be committed, in the first place, to the Whole House, so that it will be a separate Motion to refer any Bill to a Standing Committee. I could only gather from the speech of the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal that the proceedings of your Lordships' House have been much advantaged by the Grand Committees. The House does not know what is going on before them, and it is all so hurriedly done that when the Bills are re-committed to the House it is found that there has not been anything gained. I would ask the noble Lord whether on Tuesdays the House is to meet at half-past 5, in order to give the Standing Committees time to proceed with their work, in view of the regulation which prevents their sitting while the House is sitting? There is no one who is more solicitous for the honour and dignity of the House than the humble individual who is now addressing your Lordships, and I trust you will pardon any shortcomings on my part.

EARL CADOGAN

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but he has made use of one expression to which I wish particularly to call the attention of the House lest there should be any mistake. He speaks of the re-committal of Bills to the Whole House. I hope noble Lords will understand that all Bills will pass through Committee of the Whole House before they go to the Standing Committee.

Standing Orders Nos. XLV. to LII. considered and amended; and a new Standing Order agreed to: Then Standing Order No. XXXIX. considered and amended: The Standing Orders as amended to be printed. (No. 36.)