§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he rose to a point of Order. He understood that among the Regulations that guided the Business of the House was 95 one that prevented any controversial matter being entertained after 10 minutes to 7 at a Morning Sitting, and another practice was to allow Amendments to be moved in the order in which they appeared on the Paper. His hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Stanhope) had a number of Amendments, which had been printed on the Paper for some days past; and the Amendments of his hon. Friend and his own raised questions of great importance, and affected the position of tenancies outside the provisions of the Bill as it stood. His Amendment had been some time on the Notice Paper, when the Prime Minister suddenly proposed an Amendment, the discussion of which would prevent his Amendment being put. This Amendment which the Prime Minister foisted suddenly on the Committee was an elaborate Amendment in manuscript, altogether without Notice, and put from the Chair so close to 10 minutes to 7 that few could know whether it was really in Order or not. When he came down to the House he found that the Amendment of the Prime Minister, put at 10 minutes to 7, was inserted as the first Amendment; and, consequently, if that Amendment was discussed, the whole of the subsequent Amendments to the same part of the clause standing in other names would be excluded from consideration. He would venture to ask whether it was in Order to put this Amendment of the Prime Minister's at a time when nobody [in the House could say whether or not it was really later than 10 minutes to 7?
THE CHAIRMANWhether on the Paper or not, the Amendment would come first, and the position of the noble Lord's Amendment is the same; but the 10 minutes to the hour had not been reached when I put the Amendment, and I thought it would be for the convenience of the Committee to know exactly what the Amendment was. For obvious reasons, and as the noble Lord knows, the Minister in charge of the Bill has precedence in his Amendments; but if he agrees to postpone his Amendment he may do so.