HC Deb 17 April 1883 vol 278 cc434-5
MR. HENEAGE

asked the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, as Chairman of the Committee of Selection, What arrangements had been made to obviate the inconvenience that would arise when the Chairman of a Private Bill Committee was also a Member of a Standing Committee, and when Standing and Private Bill Committees sat at the same time?

SIR JOHN R. MOWBRAY

The Committee of Selection are not responsible for arrangements made for the adjournment of Committees appointed to sit on Railway Bills. The Committee of Selection, at the beginning of the Session, nominate a Committee on Railway and Canal Bills, and the Members of that Committee appoint from among themselves the Chairman of each Committee on a Railway and Canal Bill, or on a group of such Bills, and may change the Chairman so appointed from time to time. The Committee of Selection do not fix the time when any particular Chairman shall be on duty. The Committee of Selection, as a rule, avoided placing on the new Standing Committees the name of any Member of the General Committee on Railway and Canal Bills; and in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Somerset (Mr. R. H. Paget), who was Chairman of Group G, I requested my hon. Friend to make such arrangements as to the time of his serving on a group, that his duties as a Member of the Standing Committee on Law should not interfere with his duties as a Chairman of a Railway Group, attendance upon which, as the House knows, is compulsory.

MR. R. H. PAGET

said, that the Question of the hon. Member directly referred to him, and he was anxious to state that, in applying to be placed on the Standing Committee on Law, he had explained that he would, if necessary, willingly abandon his position as Chairman of the Committee on Group 6 of the Railway and Canal Bills. The position of a Member whose duties were thus conflicting was somewhat difficult. Duty called him to serve alike as Chairman of a Railway Committee and as Member of a Standing Committee, and he had but acted in the matter in accordance with a sense of duty.

MR. DODDS

asked the hon. Member, as he was required to be in two places at once next Thursday, what course he intended to take?

[No reply was given.]