HC Deb 30 November 1944 vol 406 cc63-4
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Major Milner)

I beg to move, That, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders relating to Private Business during the present Session,—

  1. (a) Standing Order 242 shall have effect as if for the Proviso to that Order the following Proviso were substituted: 'Provided always that the provisions of this Standing Order shall not apply to an adjournment from a day in one week to a day in the following week';
  2. (b) where by virtue of any Order in Council any functions of any Minister have been transferred to some other Minister references in any Standing Order to the Minister from whom the functions have been transferred shall so far as the Standing Order relates to the subject matter of the transferred functions have effect as if for such references there were substituted references to the Minister to whom the functions have been transferred and references to any 'Ministry' shall be construed accordingly;
For the purpose of this Order 'Minister' shall include any Government Department; (c) where by any Standing Order there is required to be deposited an ordnance map or a map published prepared or approved by the Ordnance Survey the deposit of a photographic copy of an ordnance map shall be sufficient compliance with the requirement; Provided that where the map to be deposited is required to be on a specified scale the photographic copy shall be on that scale; (d) where it is intended to make application for a Private Bill a draft of the notices relating to the Bill proposed to be published in accordance with the requirements of Standing Orders 10 and 11 shall twenty-one days at least before the 4th day of December be deposited at the office of the Ministry of Information. If it appears to the Minister of Information that the publication of such notices in accordance with those Orders would be contrary to the national interest he shall not later than seven days before the said date so notify the Promoters of the Bill and the Chairman of Ways and Means and in that case those notices shall not be published and in lieu thereof such notices of the proposed Bill shall be published within such time and in such manner as the Chairman of Ways and Means may direct. Where the Minister does not issue any such notification the notices as published shall not differ from the draft deposited with him except so far as he by general or special direction may allow. In the case of a Bill for which the Petition is deposited or proposed to be deposited by leave of the House after the 27th day of November the provisions of this Order shall apply subject to the following modification that is to say for the reference to the 4th day of December there shall be substituted a reference to the date on which the Petition for the Bill is deposited in the Committee and Private Bill Office. It has been usual at the beginning of each Session during the war to obtain the approval of the House for the temporary modification of certain of the Standing Orders relating to Private Business. This Motion is identical with that moved in previous years, except that I am not proposing two of the paragraphs that were included last year. One is concerned with petitions on Private Bills and is unnecessary owing to the fact that the date formerly mentioned in it, namely, 27th November, is now past. The other one enabled the Committee and Private Bill Office to be closed earlier than the hours laid down in the Standing Orders. The relaxation of the black-out makes this also unnecessary and the office can revert to the normal time of closing.

Question put, and agreed to.