§ Order read for consideration of Lords Amendment.
§ The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith)I may perhaps recall to your memory, Mr. Speaker, in connection with this Amendment of the House of Lords, that an Amendment, not in these precise terms, but at any rate to this effect, was down on the Paper when the Bill was in Committee in this House. The Government were prepared to accept it, but it was ruled from the Chair that an Amendment dealing with the future of Parliament did not fall within the scope of the Bill, and that if it was proposed to go forward with it, it would have to be by separate legislation. In consequence of that ruling the Amendment was not put. The Lords have now inserted this Amendment. I wish to ask you to be good enough, for the guidance of the House, to give us your view as to whether the Amendment is still open to the objection which the Chair took when the Bill was in Committee here, namely, that it was outside the scope of the Bill, or whether the Amendment, having been passed by the House of Lords, can now be incorporated into the Bill by the House of Commons assenting to what the House of Lords has done? If I may venture to say so, I would submit that this is not a case of privilege such as frequently arises, because there is, in the ordinary definition, no money involved. I think the House would be obliged to you if, on this matter of order, you would give your ruling.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe Rules of Procedure are different in the two Houses, and each House is the judge of its own Rules of Order. According to the Rules of Order in this House, this particular Clause was ruled out of order by the Chairman of Ways and Means, who stated that it could not be inserted in the Bill. In the House of Lords, however, apparently the same ruling did not obtain, and in the view of the House of Lords this provision was one which could properly be inserted in the Bill. It does not, therefore, now come before us as an Amendment in which the Question of privilege 2696 arises. I can take no exception to it on the ground of privilege. It is for the House to decide the question on its merits as to whether or not it will accept the Amendment.
§ The PRIME MINISTERIn those circumstances, I wish to move that the House agree with the Lords Amendment. It is an Amendment we ourselves were prepared to accept in Committee. Indeed, we promised to inrtoduce a Bill to give effect to that decision. It is obviously for general convenience that we should be saved the necessity of taking a Bill through all its stages through both Houses if it is possible to carry out that purpose by the insertion of this Amendment in the Bill.
§ Question, "That the Lords Amendment be now considered," put, and agreed to.
§ Lords Amendment accordingly considered.