COMMITTEE ON UNOPPOSED BILLS. (Hansard, 16 December 1937)

§ The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Dennis Herbert)

I beg to move, That, if at any time the Chairman of Ways and Means is of opinion that in order to facilitate the progress of the Bills then referred to the Committee on Unopposed Bills under Standing Order in the adoption of such a course is desirable, he may apportion the Bills between two Committees on Unopposed Bills, the composition and quorum of each being those prescribed by Standing Order 111 as modified by this Order, and each Committee shall have the assistance of the Counsel to Mr. Speaker, and all the Standing Orders applying to the Committee on Unopposed Bills shall apply to each Committee: That the Chairman of Ways and Means have power to select from the panel appointed under Standing Order 111 one Member to act as chairman at every meeting of a Committee on Unopposed Bills, at which neither the Chairman of Ways and Means nor the Deputy-Chairman is present, and at any such meeting the Member so selected shall be a Member of the Committee in addition to the three Members mentioned in Standing Order 111: That during the present Session the Committee of Selection have power to add to the panel appointed under Standing Order 111. The House will probably wish for a few sentences by way of explanation of this Motion, which is really very simple. The effect of it, if the House is good enough to pass it, will be to enable the Unopposed Bill Committee to be duplicated in case of need. The House will remember that some difficulty was found owing to the lack of what I might call unification or uniformity of Clause in local legislation, and that great work was done to help in that difficulty by the Committee presided over by my right hon. Friend the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means, in getting out a number of common form Clauses. Those local legislation Bills are really the main business of the Unopposed Bill Committee. It has been found very difficult toward the end of the Session to get all this local legislation through because the Un- 1306 opposed Bill Committee has become somewhat overloaded. The House knows that my right hon. and gallant Friend is a glutton for work, but notwithstanding that fact it has been found almost impossible for the Committee to get all these Bills through. In the Motion, therefore, it is asked that it may be made possible for a second Unopposed Bill Committee to sit.

A point to which I would draw special attention is the question of the Chairman, who, it is suggested, should be appointed by the Chairman of Ways and Means to preside over that second Unopposed Bill Committee, in the event of neither the Chairman nor the Deputy-Chairman doing so. It has for some time been the custom that presiding over the Unopposed Bill Committee shall be the business of the Deputy-Chairman, and it is obviously advisable that, if this second Committee does sit, it should have as Chairman a Member with some experience of these matters, and able to keep in touch with Mr. Speaker's Counsel and the Clerks of the House, with a view to his Committee following the same kind of procedure as has been followed by the Unopposed Bill Committee, under the Deputy-Chairman.

Now that I have explained the first Motion, perhaps I might, to save time, mention the second Motion which is in my name, and under which it is proposed that the services of Mr. Speaker's Counsel shall be available in the case of Opposed Bill Committees, when there are local legislation Clauses in Bills before them. That is done for the same object of ensuring that local legislation Clauses shall be uniform one with another, in different Bills.