LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL (Hansard, 18 June 1973)

§ Mr. Speaker
I must trouble the House with a short statement. The House will know that there have been certain printing difficulties, to which reference has just been made. As a result, the amendment paper available in the Vote Office is in photographed form. The earlier printed amendment papers are not complete. The photographed amendment sheet is complete but it shows certain amendments as being starred—that is, as if notice of them had been given by last Friday—whereas in fact notice of the overwhelming majority of those amendments so marked was given earlier. These amendments are not, of course, being treated as starred for the purpose of selection. The only genuine starred amendments are to be found on inter-leaved pages 1024A and 1030A, where the amendments appear in their proper place in the Bill.
There are also a few mis-prints, most of which are easily recognisable, though there are two mis-prints to which I shall draw the attention of the House when we come to the amendment concerned.

§ Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)
On a point or order, Mr. Speaker. One of the other disadvantages of the position that we are in is that we do not have bound copies of the Committee Proceedings, which are generally the corrected proceedings, taking account of some of the errors of printers and of mis-reporting.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, in the photographed copies we do not have the name of one hon. Member followed by four or five supporters on an amendment. Very often the person who moves an amendment is not at the top of the list of names.
I trust that you will appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that we cannot have the position where those who are second or third in the list who were intending to move amendments would be ruled out of order because of some process whereby their 32 names had to be on the Order Paper. We are working under considerable difficulties indeed.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am aware of the point which the right hon. Gentleman has made. All that I can say is that I think that those who advise me have worked very hard indeed to see that the House does have something. We shall certainly have regard to what the right hon. Gentleman has said about names.

§ Mr. Hugh D. Brown (Glasgow, Provan)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. An amendment to which you referred, Mr. Speaker, at page 1024A is numbered Amendment No. 378 in my name. I am sure that it is one of the amendments that you, Mr. Speaker, would have selected, but, unfortunately, on the provisional list selected by you Amendment No. 378 refers to an amendment on page 1039 dealing with salaries. I am assuming that Amendment No. 378, which is a starred amendment in my name, is being called, but I cannot find it anywhere in the provisional selection.

§ Mr. Speaker
That is an ingenious way of querying the Chair's selection. That amendment was not selected.

§ Mr. David Steel (Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. One of the consequences of the printing difficulties is that we have not been able to see the marshalled list of amendments until very recently. I take it that you, Mr. Speaker, or your successors in the Chair, will be sympathetic in regard to representations about the selection which hon. Members were unable to make privately.

§ Mr. Speaker
This is a provisional selection.