§ Sir GEORGE TOULMINMay I draw attention to the manner in which the amendments to the Insurance Bill are printed, and the method by which repetition of identical amendments is avoided, and may I ask you where there are several names before an amendment which name takes precedence?
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe House will no doubt remember that about Whitsuntide the Leader of the Opposition asked the Deputy-Speaker whether it would be possible to avoid circulating a great mass of paper by omitting duplications and reduplications of identical amendments. I have now given instructions to print the names on the amendments to the National Insurance Bill in a novel form. It is merely an experiment, and if the House approves of it it will be continued. But I must warn the House that it will not be possible to do that on the first day on which a series of amendments is put down to a Bill which has just passed its Second Reading. Where there is time to enable the officials of the House to collate the identical amendments the matter can be done; but in order to avoid delay in the circulation of the papers it is necessary for the printer to print all the amendments as they are handed in, and so circulate 976 them to the House. There also may be some difficulty with regard to new clauses in relation to the precedence which hon. Members have. Suppose that three or four Members gave notice of identically the same clause it would not be fair that the second, third, and fourth Member should have the same precedence as the first Member who handed in the clause. If the House finds in working through the Committee stage that this new form of amendment is agreeable to it there is no reason why it should not be continued in the future.
Mr. BALFOURMay I ask is it not possible to get over the difficulty which you have indicated with regard to new clauses by printing the names of the various Members who have put down new clauses in the order in which they have put them down, and it would be understood that the Member whose name was first on the list was the Member who had precedence, and so on down the whole list of Members who had handed in identical clauses? There may be some difficulty in that, but it would seem to be an easy way of getting over the difficulty which you have been good enough to indicate to the House.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI should be very glad to consider any suggestion. The difficulty is: suppose that a new clause appears in the name of an hon. Member, and he is not in his place to move it, then naturally it is passed over. It would not be a fair thing to take the same clause which appears in the name of a second hon. Member who very likely had not given notice of the clause on the first day, or, indeed, perhaps not for a week or two after the first hon. Member had given notice, for by that means he would get a precedence which was not his at all. The result would be that the hon. Members who had given notices of other clauses, immediately after the hon. Member who had given the first notice, would be passed over, and first place would be given to the hon. Members whose notices were given later on. That is the difficulty.
§ Mr. BOOTHAre we to understand that while there are several names down to an amendment the Chair will call on the first that is printed on the Paper?
§ Mr. SPEAKERYes, yes. The ordinary amendments appear in the order in. which they are put down.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThey are. If the hon. Member will look at the Paper he will see that that is so.