POST OFFICE AND TELEGRAPH [MONEY]. (Hansard, 22 April 1931)

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I take it that this is the basis for a Bill to be introduced later on. I should like to ask the Postmaster-General how soon that Bill will be introduced and whether there will be an opportunity of discussing it at a reasonable time. This is a question of great practical importance, and it is exceedingly desirable that there should be a full discussion. I should like to know when the Bill will be introduced, when there will be a Second Reading, and whether the Government will undertake that the House will have an opportunity of discussing it at a reasonable time.

§ Mr. C. WILLIAMS
It is very nice to hear the right hon. Gentleman for once asking the Government to give us a reasonable amount of time. It is something for which I have been asking, and I hope he will give us full and firm support, because we are doing an important thing in passing this Resolution. It is very late in the evening. We discussed this matter in Committee, not at a very late hour, but at an hour that was not very convenient for many Members, and now we are having the Report stage brought on after 11 o'clock on a day on which we have been discussing a great constitutional Bill. The figure in the Resolution is something in the nature of £32,000,000 and I do not think it is right that the House of Commons should be asked to vote these colossal sums of money after 11 o'clock. We are asked to do this on the flimsiest of pretexts, because we do not even know yet whether this is really the foundation on which a Bill is to be based. It is conceivable that this is one of the Bills that are coming out of the extraordinary collection of oddities which were put forward the other day by the new Lord Privy Seal. If it is one of the collection which enables the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) to give the Government another chance, possibly it is as well that we should see the Bill in print.
Many people are sick of the way in which the Government are continually bringing in late at night large orders for expenditure and never giving the House a proper and constitutional method of discussing them. I am not criticising the expenditure. It would be easy for me to 1119 do so under the Financial Resolution, but I am merely criticising the passing of the Report stage, at the present time. Many people are beginning to realise that this kind of thing being done night after night, when the House of Commons cannot possibly understand the full details— [Interruption]. It is quite clear that hon. Members opposite are not capable of understanding the most simple point. This is one of those cases where the House will be well advised not to give the Government money until we have had a full and adequate account as to the purposes for which the money is required.

§ The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Attlee)
In reply to the right hon. Gentleman, the Bill of which this Money Resolution forms the basis will be introduced at the earliest possible opportunity, and it will be brought on at a time which will give ample opportunity for its discussion. It will not be an inconvenient time. To the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams), I would say that his absence from the Debate yesterday was regretted. I realise his very great devotion to business, and I think 1120 that he had gone out to get much needed refreshment when this matter came on.