§ Mr. H. BrookeI beg to move, That the consideration of the Lords Amendments in the Title, lines 8, 10 and 14, be postponed till after the consideration of the subsequent Amendments.
§ Mr. S. SilvermanI should like to know why the right hon. Gentleman would like these Amendments to be postponed until the end. I said in the remarks which I made a little while ago, when we were discussing the last question before the House, that I could not remember any occasion in which the House was asked to take into consideration Amendments from another place that began with a necessary Amendment of the title. I do not say that it is not within their rights—of course it is. It seems to me, however, to be a sufficiently striking new feature to make it worth while that the Minister should explain to us how it has come about that when this matter was being considered in another place the whole scope of the Bill had to be altered in order to make Amendments to it.
A great deal of time would be saved if the House negatived the Motion and if we decided now whether we wished to alter the Title of the Bill or not, because if we decide that we do not want to widen the scope of the Bill at all or in the way advocated in the proposed Amendments to the Title, a great deal of time would be saved. If we accept the Minister's proposal we have to debate before they are really in order Amendments which could be incorporated into the Bill only if subsequently the Title of the Bill is altered. We may waste all that time. We may debate these Amendments at length. We may ultimately defeat them and then it will be unnecessary to alter the Title of the Bill.
1614 We may save a great deal of time if the right hon. Gentleman will at this stage tell us which subsequent Amendments are covered by these Amendments to the Title and defend those Amendments. Then, if he persuades the House that it is right in principle, the House will make no difficulty whatever about altering the Title in order to give effect to the Amendments, whereas if he does not persuade the House that the Amendments he wishes to make which would necessitate alteration in the Title are good Amendments, he would not need to move the Amendments to the Title at all.