§ MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he has considered the Parliamentary situation arrived at this year of a number of Bills in the hands of private Members having passed a Second Reading and been dealt with by Standing Committees or referred to Standing Committees, at an expenditure of the time and trouble of Members interested, with little chance of being further considered in the House and passed into law; and whether he will make either proposals to alter procedure on such Bills in future sessions, or appoint a Select Committee 87 forthwith to inquire and report what amendments of procedure are desirable to facilitate such legislation.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI hope that the labours of the Standing Committees upon these Bills have not been thrown away, any more than the labours of the Select Committees on such Bills are thrown away. Such discussions usually end in the Bills being brought forward in an amended form on a future occasion. But I am not in a position to pledge myself to appoint a Committee for the purpose of facilitating the progress of private Members' legislation as distinguished from Government legislation. The House of Commons can only sit for a certain number of months in the year, and I think that the bulk of the legislation should be in the hands of the Government rather than in the hands of private Members.