HC Deb 07 February 1851 vol 114 cc185-7
MR. W. PATTEN

said, it would be in the recollection of the House that a Committee was appointed at the end of last Session to consider the way in which the private business of the House could be conducted, and that it had decided on the abandonment of certain old forms and proceedings which had been found attended with inconvenience, and on the adoption of certain others for the beneficial working of which the superintendence of the Counsel to the Speaker was thought necessary. The duties which the Committee determined to devolve upon that officer were of the greatest possible importance, requiring not only experience but legal knowledge in the gentleman selected to perform them. At that time there was a gentleman connected with the House whom the Committee considered qualified for the discharge of them, and who was accordingly appointed. During the recess the noble Lord at the head of the Government had, for the reasons explained by him to the House on the previous day, thought fit to abolish the office of Counsel to the Speaker, a step which, however advantageous to the public in a pecuniary point of view, he feared might involve the House in considerable difficulties. He proposed now to move for a Committee with a view to consider how they might relieve themselves from those difficulties. There must either be a person appointed as Counsel to the Speaker, or they must resort again to the old forms, already abandoned, for the sake of procuring order and regularity in their proceedings. Having been chairman of the Committee to which he alluded, he was not aware, and he believed the Committee were not aware, that it had been recommended under any circumstances to abolish the office in question, and he thought the noble Lord was in error in referring to the recommendation of the Committee presided over by the right hon. Member for Northampton. That Committee only recommended that when the office should become vacant, the appointment of Counsel to the Speaker should be reconsidered. He would merely express his own opinion, that that office was one of very great importance, and his hope that if it were not to be continued, they might find some other means equally effective of conducting the private business of the House. He would move for a Select Committee, "to consider the mode in which the duties heretofore attached to the office of Counsel to the Speaker, with regard to the private business, shall be performed; and to propose such regulations respecting private business generally as they may think fit."

MR. V. SMITH

said, the recommendation of the Committee of 1848 was, that upon a vacancy, either of the Counsel to the Speaker or of the Clerk of the House, the question of the appointment of Counsel to the Speaker should be reconsidered. If ho might be allowed by the Committee to speak what he supposed their meaning was, it was that upon the appointment of a new Clerk of the House, some gentleman should be selected who would be capable, and willing also, to perform the offices of Counsel to the Speaker as well as of Clerk to the House. If this Committee were appointed, he hoped they would have to consider also whether there should be some sort of combined tribunal of Lords and Commons for the transaction of private business. The House of Lords had appointed a new Chairman of Committees, and he sincerely hoped that, whatever the abilities of the noble Lord who had just quitted that office might be, the new Chairman would not possess the very extraordinary and anomalous power, in the conduct of private business, which appeared to have been vested in Lord Shaftesbury. Every one must recollect that when any clause was proposed in a Committee of the House of Commons, some clerk behind was sure to whisper, "You had better not put that in, for Lord Shaftesbury will throw it out."

MR. LABOUCHERE

understood the recommendation of the Committee to have been, that, when a vacancy took place, the appointment should be reconsidered, with a view to see whether a saving of public money could not be effected. When the vacancy in the office of Clerk occurred, his noble Friend had no doubt felt, as he (Mr. Labouchere) should have done, that that House could no more meet without a Clerk; at the table than without a Speaker in the chair, and that it was impossible not to take measures immediately for filling the office of Clerk to the House. Nothing could exceed the public-spirited manner in which Mr. Booth, the Counsel to the Speaker, behaved on this occasion. Though the place of Secretary to the Board of Trade could not be considered more acceptable than that which he already held, he felt so uneasy at holding a situation which might be considered a sinecure, after the opinion expressed by the Committee of the House of Commons, that he placed himself entirely at the disposal of the Government, and was quite ready to have taken an office of inferior pay, though of greater labour, rather than have stood in the way of any necessary reform. He entirely approved of the Motion, and was only anxious that the whole subject should be reconsidered, with reference as well to economy as to the efficient discharge of the private business of the House.

Motion agreed to.