§ Lords Amendments to be printed. [Bill 35.]
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher)I beg to move, "That the Lords Amendments to the Parliament and Local Elections Bill be considered forthwith." The House will recollect that when the Bill was considered in Committee I gave a promise that I would consider very carefully the Amendment moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for North St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson), and that if it were possible to meet the desires which the expressed and which were shared on both sides of the House, I would have an Amendment moved in another place. The object of the Bill so far as local elections are concerned, is to postpone them for another year, but as the Bill was framed it would have been impossible for any elections for county councils to take place until March, 1919. My right hon. Friend the Member for North St. Pancras suggested that as a new register might very well be expected to be ready and submitted to the House in the early part of next year, the elections for county councils ought not to be postponed till March, 1919, but that they ought only to be postponel till March, 1918. 2548 That was a very reasonable request. At the same time that we were considering that Amendment of my right hon. Friend I also consented to a suggestion that the Bill might be recast with a view to putting it in a less involved form, because the form in which it was first framed was undoubtedly legislation by reference almost run mad. In another place we were enabled to recast the Bill so that anyone who looks for the effect of the Bill, when they see the Amendments and the Schedule, would be able to see that they need not look back to the legislation of 1916 and 1915, but that anyone looking at the Act of 191V would very easily be able to see what the effect of that Act is. I have met both the suggestions that were made to the House, first, that the Bill should be made less involved, and that it should be less legislation by reference and more a Bill standing by itself; and, secondly, that elections for county councils can now be held in March, 1918, and not postponed until March, 1919, if it is desired that the elections should be held-I trust the House will accept the Amendments which the Lords have made in the Bill for the purpose of meeting the observations and suggestions made in this House.
§ Lords Amendments considered accordingly.