ASHDOWN FOREST BILL [Lords] (Hansard, 23 October 1973)

§ Mr. Charles Loughlin (Gloucestershire, West)
It will be within the recollection of the Chair that I and some of my 1129 colleagues objected to this procedure earlier today. I appreciate that we are now debating a motion in the name of the Chairman of Ways and Means and that the debate is somewhat restricted. But we have indicated that we object to the procedure whereby issues of this kind are put down for discussion at the end of a day's debates and that very often. because of other engagements and because of the lateness of the hour, hon. Members are precluded from dealing with them properly.
We object in principle to the attempt outlined in procedural motions of this kind to safeguard the promoters of Private Bills. Earlier today, my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) put a question to the Leader of the House which is of considerable interest in the context of this debate. Here we have an outside organisation promoting a Bill and asking the House to agree to that Bill going on to the statute book. Whether by design, coincidence or fortuitous circumstances, that Bill comes before the House in its various stages. It is then discovered at the end of the day that it will not be possible to secure the Bill within the Session, with the consequence that the Bill will fall. Along come the Government, through the office of the Chairman of Ways and Means, to put down a procedural motion which is designed to ensure that the Bill does not fall.
That is fair enough. A valid case could be made for the implementation of such an operation. But what happens when an hon. Member adopts the same practice and comes to the House with a Private Member's Bill about which he may have received an -enormous amount of representation? He might have been in the House for 15 or 20 years and in his accumulated knowledge he might con-conclude that it would be highly desirable for him to submit to the House a Bill of a specific kind. That Bill would be equally important as the Bill which the Government might wish to safeguard by the use of a procedural motion.
The Government do not come to the House to say, "The hon. Member for Blackbottom has a good Bill. He has brought it to us and unfortunately, by fortuitous circumstances, it seems as though it will be lost unless we get it through this Session. We will put a pro- 1130 cedural motion before the House." They do not do that. They say, "Too bad, old boy. Hard luck. We will not do anything about it."
If the procedural language which we see in the Order Paper is to be justified in connection with Private Bills promoted by outside organisations, may we assume that in future the Government will apply the same principle to Private Members' Bills? That is the first issue which should be dealt with. [he motion provides: That the Promoters of the Ashdown Forest Bill shall have leave to suspend further Proceedings in order to proceed with the Bill. if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament… The purpose of the motion is to ensure that they have not to go through the procedure which we as Members of Parliament would have to go through if we had a Bill that failed in one Session. We would have to bring it back the next Session, if we got the opportunity to do so. What the motion is saying to Members of this House is this, "We do not apply this privilege, this favour, to you. but we apply it to the promoters of the Ashdown Forest Bill.
We have been told that this procedure is not new, and that there have been three other occasions when this procedure has been adopted. But that does not make it any more virtuous than if this were being done for the first time. I am not arguing specifically about this Bill, but only as it relates to the motion with which we are now dealing. It would apply to the use of procedure in this case and would apply equally to other cases.
There is always a good reason why these procedural motions are adopted. I know that this is a narrow matter, but I think I am entitled to make a passing reference—rather than a detailed reference —to this matter because it is essential to illustrate why I think this procedural motion has been adopted in this case. If we cannot do this within the rules of order, then many of us have been out of order for many years.
It is bad enough when such a motion is used, but it is even worse when in both Houses it has been pointed out that there is a fundamental objection, a point in the Bill which is repugnant both to this House 1131 and the other place. It has been established that this cuts across the whole principle of a democratic procedure which has existed for centuries. That surely cannot be changed by this Bill, and this is one reason why the procedural motion should not apply.
I must be careful in what I say since I do not want to be ruled out of order and perhaps, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will guide me if I go too far. The principle that was repugnant to us and to Members of another place was the method by which voting took place among the conservators.

§ Colonel Sir Tufton Beamish (Lewes)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) has asked for your guidance and he has now, for the first time, started discussing the merits of the Bill, which I would suppose to be completely out of order. Would you be good enough to give a ruling?

§ Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop (Tiverton)
Further to that point of order. Whether this motion is passed or not has some bearing on the fate of the Bill. What fate should overtake the Bill is related to the contents of the Bill. Therefore, if we debate the merits of the motion it cannot fail to be in order to debate the consequences either of passing it or of not passing it. That is intimately linked with the contents of the Bill. I am sure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that, if the hon. Member had not been in order, you would have sprung to your feet and told him so.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu)
The hon. Member is quite right. I have heard nothing that is out of order.

§ Mr. Loughlin
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I had been warned that the supporters of the Bill would be watchful tonight lest we put one foot out of order, and that they would repeatedly ensure that the Chair did its job.
I was saying that there was a fundamental objection by both Houses to the voting system. My problem is that the Bill's amended form, which I have before me, makes it impossible to remove this principle. So, even if the Bill were re-debated we could not amend the voting rights because that would extend the 1132 scope of the Bill. There is, therefore, an even greater need for the Government not to exploit the situation by proceeding with this motion.
In doing so, they would inadvertently —they have no vicious bent—allow to remain on the Order Paper for next Session a Bill which would be debated in the early hours of the morning and not get the proper scrutiny, and which embodies a principle of loaded voting—of some people having 20 or 200 votes while others have only one—to which we are all opposed. It would be sensible to let the Bill lapse and give the sponsors the opportunity to bring back a Bill which was more acceptable to this House and the other place, which has an equal responsibility for ensuring equity in Private Bills as well as public Bills.
There can be no justification for the Government attempting to safeguard a Bill of this kind. There may be circumstances in which a Bill should be safeguarded, but not a Bill of this kind, to which there is a fundamental objection. I hope that the Government will be prepared to withdraw the motion.

§ Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine (Rye)
As I had the privilege of introducing the Bill on Second Reading on behalf of the promoters, perhaps I may briefly explain by I think the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) is wrong. He objects to the procedure adopted in these circumstances. There is nothing wrong with the procedure. There are precedents for it this Session. If he does not like that procedure, that is another matter.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman says that this is not a Bill to which the procedure to which he objects should apply. I apprehend that if we adopt the motion, as I hope we shall, there will be an opportunity on the consideration stage when he and others will be able to raise such matters as worry them.

§ Mr. Loughlin
It does not matter how much we discuss it again, this provision to which we object cannot be altered because the scope of the Bill cannot be extended. It would be unparliamentary to extend it.

§ Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine
I appreciate that point. As I recall it, the hon. 1133 Gentleman made it on Second Reading. It has been under consideration and I have no doubt that the attention of the Committee was drawn to it.

Rh. James Wel!beloved (Erith and Crayford)
The Committee itself found that it was unable to introduce this essential element of democracy—one man, one vote—into the Bill because it was beyond the scope of the Bill. Therefore, what the hon. Gentleman is saying does not overcome the fundamental difficulty that the Bill ought not to pass this democratic assembly because it does not conform to a basic requirement of this country.

§ Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine
I see that we have the advantage of the presence of the Chairman of the Committee and perhaps he will be able to catch the eye of the Chair in due course and deal with the point. Those who have read the proceedings of the Committee will note that this was one of the matters to which the Chairman specifically referred at the end, when he was making his recommendations.
The Bill was unopposed in the other place and it has a great deal of support from many bodies throughout the country. The agreement in the House of Lords was reached only after there had been discussions with the Uckfield Rural District Council and also arrangements with the AA and the RAC which enabled those organisations to give their support as well. The Bill was introduced in the other place and in this House with the support of the Department of the Environment, the Countryside Commission, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society and also the Friends of Ashdown Forest as well as the conservators. That is a very formidable list of supporters.
I see that we have the privilege of the presence of the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Carol Johnson) in the Chamber. On Second Reading he mentioned that discussions had been taking place with the association of which he is president for a period of five years. A great deal of thought and attention had been given to the Bill before it went to the other place.
1134 In the East Sussex County Council there has been unanimous support for the Bill including the support of representatives from not only the country areas in East Sussex but also the resorts and coastal areas. The Second Reading debate in this House took place on 4th July, and the Bill then went to the Opposed Bill Committee. That Committee had the advantage of hearing the clerk of the county council, Mr. Atkinson, the chairman of the conservators, Mr. Mountain, Lieutenant-Commander Angel, clerk to the conservators, Mr. Oliver, vice-chairman of the Ashdown Forest Commoners Committee and Mr. Glover, a commoner. Five days of careful consideration was given to the evidence which came before the Committee. As a result, only three amendments were brought forward by the Committee when the proceedings concluded.
Today is not a proper occasion to debate the merits of the amendments or, indeed, of any part of the Bill. All that I wish to do is to draw the attention of the House to the fact that only three amendments were suggested by the Committee. If the procedure which is outlined by the Chairman of Ways and Means is accepted, there will be ample opportunity for dealing with those matters on a subsequent occasion.
Putting the matter in a nutshell, the view that I should like the House to take is that a great deal of attention and support has been given to the Bill by Committees of both Houses and much public money has been spent in getting the proceedings to this stage. Therefore, the promoters and I would regard it as a disaster if the motion were not accepted by the House.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)
I intervene in the debate very briefly, because the motion before us is strictly procedural, and simply to reply to the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) and to advise the House of the Government's view.
As I understand the matter, it is a quite frequent and conventional procedure for there to be carry-over motions of this kind. I understand that advice was sought from the House authorities, and it fell to the Chairman of Ways and 1135 Means to determine whether or not the Bill was appropriate for the carry-over procedure. It is my understanding that the Chairman concluded that it was. The only other advice that I have which may be helpful to the House is that the conventions on Private Bill procedure are that it is customary for the House to accept the findings of one of its Select Committees in matters of this kind. I might, indeed, quote Erskine May on this particular point, where in his Parliamentary Practice he states: … when debates on third reading have taken place"—

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Will my hon. Friend give the reference?

§ Mr. Griffiths
I could not give a page reference, but I will get it for my hon. Friend.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If a Minister quotes from Erskine May, is it not customary for him to give the location within Erskine May so that hon. Members can check the accuracy of what he is reading? We are not shorthand writers.

§ Mr. Griffiths
I do not have the exact page before me, but I will get it for my hon. Friend.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
On a point of order. Will my hon. Friend please get it before he purports to quote it? That is the normal procedure.

§ Mr. Griffiths
I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that I do not purport to quote from Erskine May. I shall quote from the matter which has been supplied to me and I will immediately ask that the reference is provided for the House. I shall, if necessary, intervene to give the reference. Indeed, due to the excellent assistance of my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain), I now have it. It is, I think, pages 1025 and 1026—it may well be that those are paragraph numbers; I am not sure—of the 17th Edition of Erskine May where it is stated: … when debates on third reading have taken place, it has been said that the House, though it has undoubtedly the power to do so, should normally never reject the decision of the select committee unless new or special considerations arise ". 1136 It is open to the House to determine whether "new or special considerations" have arisen in this case. It is not for me to seek to draw any conclusions about that.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Before my hon. Friend leaves that point—

§ Mr. Griffiths
It is the only point that I shall make.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, unless my ears deceived me, my hon. Friend uttered the words … when debates on third reading have taken place… ". Is he under the impression that this Bill has received a Third Reading?

§ Mr. Griffiths
I am about to come to that point. My hon. Friend is very quick in these matters. Perhaps I was getting to the point rather slowly.
I simply wished to draw attention to the view of Erskine May—that in general the House agrees with the conclusions of one of its Select Committees in matters of this kind simply because the Select Committee has had the opportunity of examining the Bill in great detail and of determining the evidence for and against the contents of the Bill. From what I have been advised, I think that the Select Committee in this case should be congratulated on the painstaking and careful way in which it seems to have dealt with the Bill.

§ Mr. Loughlin
We are not debating the Bill. We are debating the procedure motion which is on the Order Paper. There is no reflection on the Select Committee which considered the Bill. It did not determine that this motion should be put on the Order Paper. I do not know what the argument is about.

§ Mr. Griffiths
The last thing which I wish to do is to participate in an argument. I merely want to offer to the House, in part responding to the hon. Gentleman's comments, the advice which has been given to me.

§ Mr. Loughlin
The Select Committee has had nothing to do with the motion.

§ Mr. Griffiths
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to offer the House the advice which I have been given and will make his judgment on it.
1137 If he decides that he does not like it, that is up to him. I am simply making it available.

§ Mr. Loughlin
It is not a question of whether it is available. It is a question of whether it is relevant to our discussion. What we are discussing has nothing to do with the Select Committee's deliberations.

§ Mr. Griffiths
I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his advice. It is for the House to determine whether it is relevant.
The Select Committee having given very careful consideration to the Bill, it is customary—I say no more— for the House to accept its findings. I commend to the House that it should follow this excellent tradition and allow the Bill to go on its way.

§ Mr. James Wellbeloved (Erith and Crayford)
I hope this evening to be able to raise a number of serious constitutional matters which I trust hon. Members will take into consideration in coming LP a decision on this procedural motion. I shall seek to show that the motion puts Private Business in a more favourable position than any other business that comes before this honourable House Secondly, I shall seek to show that a new situation has arisen which ought to persuade hon. Members not to support the motion.
Before dealing with those serious matters, I should like to extend a warm welcome to the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) on his attendance at the debate and hope that during our deliberations we shall hear from him. I say that because this is a serious matter which, if the motion is passed, will affect his constituency. I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will voice the views of his constituents in a speech, and not confine himself to the one point of order that he has raised.

§ Sir T. Beamish
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be more accurate in the rest of his speech than he has been so far. Ashdown Forest is not in my constituency.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
I am aware of that, and I did not say that it lay in the hon. and gallant Gentleman's constituency.
1138 Nevertheless, the volume of traffic and the number of people involved must affect those of his constituents who travel up the A22 to got to London. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman feels that the Bill and the motion have no relevance to his constituents, I wonder what is his interest in being here. I am sure that in due course he will inform us of it. The passing of the motion will have a great impact upon my constituents. Many of them use Ashdown Forest for relaxation, and wish to continue to do so. There is obviously a considerable difference between the hon. and gallant Gentleman and myself, but I am delighted that he is here and I hope that we shall hear from him.
I regret that the Chairman of Ways and Means chose to move the motion formally and not give the House the benefit of his vast experience and some inkling of the reasons which led him to table the motion. It is always considered proper for hon. Members who move motions relating to matters of great importance, and especially when they know that other hon. Members have considerable doubts about them, to explain the position and thus perhaps remove many of the apprehensions and perhaps misunderstandings which exist.
Having been slightly critical of the Chairman of Ways and Means, I must now say that I recognise that in that capacity he has a duty with regard to private legislation and that he has a relatively narrow area of manoeuvre. I do not want in any way to cast aspersions upon the propriety of the Chairman of Ways and Means in putting down the motion, and I shall confine myself to saying that it would have been better if he had explained the position.
I should like to take the opportunity to place on record my appreciation of the great courtesy which the Chairman of Ways and Means has shown me in particular over a number of years during debates of this nature when I have been a vigorous opponent on matters coming within his responsibility. Despite the lateness of the hour and the heat of the debate, the right hon. Gentleman has always shown great courtesy and respect for the democratic process and procedures of the House and has protected the right of individual Members to express a point of view. I know that 1139 the House will join me in paying him a tribute for the courtesy with which he performs his arduous task.
The hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) said that the points adduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) about the great principle of one man one vote could be put right when the Bill comes up, under the terms of the motion, next Session. That course of action is not open to us. The Short Title of the Bill does not permit that. It is beyond the scope of the measure affected by the motion for democracy to be introduced into the Bill. That is why many hon. Members believe that the motion allowing such a Bill the privilege of passing over to the next Session should not be approved.
The Under-Secretary said that there have been precedents for this sort of motion. He drew attention to the presence tonight of my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Ernest G. Perry), who was the distinguished Chairman of the Committee set up to consider the Bill. I am aware of the stalwart and painstaking work that my hon. Friend and other hon. Members performed in examining this measure in great detail. The Minister was therefore right to pay such a glowing tribute to those hon. Members. Service on a Committee considering private legislation is not one of the most sought-after jobs. It is a job which starts in the morning and can continue till late in the afternoon and isolate Members from all that is going on in the House and make it difficult for them to attend to their constituency duties, especially the great volume of mail with which a Member must deal.
The Minister, quoting from pages 1025 and 1026 of that great volume of Parliamentary knowledge, Erskine May, said that it was accepted practice that on Third Reading one did not deal with matters that had been considered by the Select Committee. That is a procedure which is not entirely confined to private legislation. That is the normal procedure on all Third Readings. As I understand the procedure—I regret that I have not the relevant quotation from Erskine May to hand, but I see that the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell- 1140 Hyslop) is looking through Erskine May now and will—

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Lest the hon. Gentleman may have been misled by the Minister's intervention, I hasten to tell him that not only did my hon. Friend produce a quotation which did not apply to the circumstances today, because there has not been a Third Reading, but he produced one from an obsolete edition of Erskine May, which I cannot find in the current 18th edition.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
That could be quickly remedied. The publishing house of Butterworth publishes Erskine May, and I am sure that the House could afford to purchase a copy to put the Minister right so that he could quote from the relevant edition, the 18th edition which is there on the Table, and not the 17th. However, granted that the hon. Gentleman was wrongly advised by those whose job it is—

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths
No one is seeking to mislead anyone. It is true that the note I have is taken from the 17th Edition. It is probable that the House wisely keeps on the Table the more up-to-date edition, the 18th, and it may be that the quotation which I gave appears on a different page there. But I assure the hon. Gentleman that it is in the same language, although on a different page in the volume which my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton has. I shall be glad—though I hope that he will not ask me to do it now—to give him the reference to the edition which he now has in his hand.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
No doubt the hon. Member for Tiverton will pursue that matter later, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was dealing with the point which the Minister raised about the appropriate time to debate amendments coming from Committees, whether they be Committees concerned with Private Bills or our normal Standing Committees dealing with Public Bills. That moment is obviously when the Bill is before the House on Report, not on Third Reading, so I do not think that we are too much in difficulty with the Minister.
I shall seek to show that the procedure motion puts this Bill and private 1141 legislation in a more favourable position. For this purpose, I think it necessary to explain one or two matters regarding the private legislation which the House is from time to time called upon to consider. There is some misunderstanding of the term "Private Bill". Many hon. Members to whom I have spoken today are under the impression that Private Bills are the Bills for which hon. Members ballot and, if they are fortunate, present to the House. In fact, the Private Bill covered by this procedure motion is quite distinct from that.
Private Bills are covered by two sets of Standing Orders, those in respect of the House of Commons and those in respect of Private Business. The private business with which we are here concerned comes under Standing Order No. 7 of the Standing Orders dealing with public business. Paragraph (1) reads: On Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays the time for private business shall end not later than a quarter to three o'clock and business entered upon and not disposed of at that hour shall be deferred to such time as the Chairman of Ways and Means may appoint The normal procedure is that at 2.30 p.m., before we embark upon Questions, there appears on the Order Paper the title of the private legislation set down under Standing Order No. 7. If it is objected to by an hon. Member being present in the House and calling out "Object" it automatically cannot proceed, because it is opposed business. It is then a matter for the Chairman of Ways and Means. If there is verbal objection, or if a motion is placed upon the Order Paper, normally in the words "That the Bill be read a Second time" —or whatever may be the relevant stage —"upon this day six months", the Chairman of Ways and Means has to arrange for that to be dealt with.
I find that there is often confusion between that sort of private legislation and the Private Members' Bills for which hon. Members ballot or which they can seek leave to introduce under Standing Orders Nos. 13 or 6 of the General Standing Orders covering the House.
We are dealing with quite a complicated area of procedure. It is essential that the House should have clearly in mind the difficulties that face people dealing with and charged with the responsibility of introducing either Private 1142 Members' Bills or Private Bills under the control of the Chairman of Ways and Means.
The other type of Bill that comes before the House—the Public Bill introduced by the Government under Standing Order No. 6(1)—takes priority except on those occasions when the Chairman of Ways and Means has set down for debate the type of private business to which I have referred, at seven o'clock on normal days or on Fridays, which are set aside mainly for other types of business.
The difference between the type of private legislation covered by the procedure motion this evening and public business is that there is no provision and no precedent for carrying over the latter to the next Session. However desperate the Government may be for their legislation and however important that legislation may be to the nation, there is no precedent that I can find which enables the Government to put a procedure motion before the House to take that Bill over to the next Session.
I now put my first major point for the consideration of the House. When we are dealing with the question of a decision on a matter of legislation that involves the life of the country in its totality—a matter perhaps involving a great principle of Government policy—if for any reason the Bill concerned has not completed all its stages by the time the House ends the Session the Bill falls, and the Government have to introduce it again in the next Session, from its very beginning—from the First Reading—right through.
Under the Standing Orders covering private business we give a more favourable position to legislation promoted by private interests. That seems an odd constitutional position that certainly ought to be taken into account when considering the motion, because, without any doubt, it will place in a privileged position over public and private Members Bills legislation which comes under the responsibility of the Chairman of Ways and Means.
It can be and has been argued that there is a precedent for the stand-over of Bills of this nature. That is quite correct. I have taken the precaution of checking back over the last 10 years, 1143 or more, the position regarding stand-over motions of this nature.
In the Session 1957/58 seven such Bills, several of which dealt with water undertakings, were passed over to the next Session. However, as far as I can ascertain, none of them was so hotly contested as the Ashdown Forest Bill, the subject of this procedure motion.
In the next Session no Bills were carried over. In the Session following that two Bills were carried over. Then from 1960 up to 1963—three Sessions—no private legislation of this nature was carried over. In both the 1964 and 1965 Sessions one Bill was carried over to the next Session.
I could go on putting on record the position relating to this matter. Of course, there have been two occasions—in 1966 and again in 1970—when, because of a General Election, the House quite rightly made an exception to carrying over the business. Obviously I do not object to that. I do not think that any hon. Member would object. If it is not possible, because of the intervention of a General Election, for the promoters of private legislation to get their busness through the House, they ought not to suffer any difficulties. On the other hand, if, as in this instance, the difficulties have arisen because of opposition in the House of Commons, they ought not to be given that facility.
I have shown that in a number of years there has been no stand-over under this kind of procedure motion. I hope that I have demonstrated to the satisfaction of the House that there are just as many precedents of parliamentary Sessions when no suspension motions have been moved as there are when suspension motions have been moved as there are when suspensions motions of this nature have been moved. If so, I think that neutralises the precedent argument, unless it can be shown by the Chairman of Ways and Means—I hope we shall have a reply from him—that there are particular reasons that put this Bill in a situation where privilege of this kind is justified.

§ Mr. Loughlin
My hon. Friend has quoted occasions when there have been precedents as well as occasions when 1144 there have been no precedents. But is it strictly accurate to assume that, because an action has taken place previously, it is a four-square precedent? Is it not right that, before it can be determined that it is a precedent, the circumstances in which the action took place should be explained?

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
I am indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West. When I was making a plea that we should get a reply to this debate from the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, I was hoping that he would be able to show some reason for his action in putting down the motion. I think the Chairman of Ways and Means is a fair man, and if he can show to the House that there are conclusive reasons then we shall, quite rightly, have to take them into account and give great weight to them when we come to take our decision in the Division on this procedural motion. It may well be, if we are to get a reply from the Chairman, that he will be able to show that there are similarities. I have not been able to find identical comparisons between this Bill and others that were suspended, but I would accept that my research has not been of great depth into that aspect. I take my hon. Friend's point that if a similarity can be shown it will give great weight to the case for the suspension motion.
But the duty to show and prove that point does not rest with myself or with other hon. Friends who join me in opposing this procedural motion. It rests with those who promoted the procedural motion to prove that, and let us hope that they will at least be able to bring some factual evidence to this debate. It would be a very serious position if we had a motion of this nature before us, and a serious challenge made—as has been made in the debate so far by my hon. Friends and now there is this point which my hon. Friend has allowed me to develop—but not answered, and if we were called upon to take a decision completely devoid of a factual case on behalf of the Chairman of Ways and Means, who, after all, is responsible under his duty to put this motion upon the Order Paper.
I said that I would also seek to show that a new situation has developed which affects this business motion, and that is 1145 on this question of precedent. We are in a situation where it is not only the Chairman of Ways and Means who is facilitating this Ashdown Forest Bill by his motion; it is also the Government who have decided to intervene and give aid to this Bill. As other hon. Members have already pointed out, we have a situation where earlier today the Government's business motion was designed to rearrange the business of this House, in order to suspend the Standing Order which places upon the Chairman of Ways and Means the duty to put down matters for debate at 7 o'clock. The Government, in the form of the Prime Minister himself in whose name the earlier motion stood, have taken the responsibility for rearranging business, for modifying the Standing Orders, in order to facilitate not some great item of public business but this miserable Private Bill which denies basic democracy to the people most intimately concerned with its operation. But I will not develop that point, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or, quite rightly, you will call me to order for getting too deep into the merits of the Bill itself.
The new situation is also complicated because the Leader of the House was unable today, when he presented his Business Motion and made available the special privilege facilities to the Ashdown Forest Bill, to say when he was challenged in an intervention by myself whether he was prepared to grant the same Government facilities as he has now been party to granting to private legislation, to hon. Members in this House who are promoting Private Members' Bills.
This is a serious constitutional situation. This new precedent has been established by the Prime Minister. I do not make this point in any party political sense. I would make exactly the same point if my own party were in power and were guilty of this sort of action. It is important to defend the rights of hon. Members. Here we have this new precedent established, and its seriousness lies in the fact that it gives a special privilege to Bills promoted by private vested interests, whether the vested interest be a commercial or a corporation interest. Those are narrow interests and they ought not to have this privileged treatment. We should not only reject this 1146 motion, but we should organise a substantial campaign to see that the same facilities are granted to Private Members. Whatever may be the merits or demerits of the Bill, I am absolutely and unalterably opposed to the Bill receiving preferential treatment and special facilities.
Having dealt briefly with the constitutional position as I see it, and having put forward a case which must be taken into consideration, I should like to turn to the practicalities of the motion. It would be easiest if I dealt with the five constituent parts of the motion, as I see them. The first part says: That the Promoters of the Ashdown Forest Bill [Lords] shall have leave to suspend further Proceedings thereon in order to proceed with the Bill, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament. … We are not being asked to decide tonight that this Bill shall be suspended to the next Session and re-presented to Parliament. We are asked to leave it to the promoters to decide "if they think fit". Although I am opposed to them having this facility, if Parliament in its unwisdom were to grant them that facility, that would be one thing; but it is quite another thing for a business motion to allow the promoters to have the right to say, "We do not care if you have spent such a long time on this procedural motion; we are not going to take advantage of it." I should much prefer it if we did not give them the facility at all. But I am totally opposed to giving it to them and leaving it to them to decide, as they think fit, whether to use that facility. I hope that we shall hear more about that.
Incidentally, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I note that there is no one present on the Treasury Bench taking note of our many points. I note also that the Chairman of Ways and Means has disappeared. Perhaps I might interrupt my speech with a point of order to you. Is it in order for the mover of a procedural motion to absent himself from the House and not to have present someone who can deal with points arising in the debate?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu)
If the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) makes alleged points of order of that nature, lie will give the impression that he is rather more interested in wasting time than in anything else.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
If it is considered a waste of time to adduce a case upon matters of considerable constitutional importance without the Chairman of Ways and Means being present, then perhaps it is a waste of time. But the waste of time is not by those hon. Members seeking to make these legitimate points under the rules of order. If they were not made under the rules of order, they would be ruled out of order by the Chair. I have proceeded strictly within order, and it is rather strange, to put it at its lowest, and discourteous, to put it at its highest that despite all my kind remarks about the Chairman of Ways and Means at the beginning of my speech, the right hon. Gentleman has chosen to absent himself—

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
Does my hon. Friend wish to interrupt?

§ Mr. Loughlin
I wish to put a point of order to the Chair. I feel sure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you were not charging my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) with disorderly conduct in wasting time. I feel sure that that was not your intention. But that is how it appeared to us.
May I raise a further point of order? Are we to take it that the procedure of the House on a procedural matter of this kind is such that we are to have no reply to the points raised in the debate? I do not necessarily mean by the Chairman of Ways and Means. I do not know the organisation of the House sufficiently well to specify who should reply.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Hon. Members may say more or less what they like within the rules of order. But they cannot insist that other hon. Members listen to them.

§ Mr. Loughlin
Perhaps I have not explained my point sufficiently. All that I am asking is whether, near the end of the debate, someone will reply to the debate or whether the arguments of hon. Members on both sides of the House are to be left in the air.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
That is not a point of order for me.

§ Mr. Loughlin
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If it is 1148 not for you, for whom is it? If we are not to have a reply, the debate—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I have ruled that it is not a point of order for me.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
No one will challenge that ruling, and certainly I have no intention of doing so. But I repeat that it is rather an odd position. We are debating a very important matter and doing so within the rules of order. It is rather odd that the Chairman of Ways and Means does not feel it necessary to be here to listen. I thought when he left the Chamber that it might be a call of nature. However, it is an exceedingly long call. I hope that at least a message might be sent by, perhaps, one of the Government Whips, who are unoccupied now because this is private business and not Government business, to inform the Chairman of Ways and Means that it would be an act of courtesy to the House if he were to return. I do not put that view forward as a point of order but as a point in my speech.
I do not take exception, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West, to your remark, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I am giving, the impression of wasting time. That is not a reflection upon me but upon those whose duty it is to maintain order and, for example, to stop repetition. That is not a duty which falls upon me but which falls upon you, Sir. Any reflection about Members wasting time is a reflection upon the occupant of the Chair. I am sure, Sir, that you did not intend to rebuke yourself.
The motion before us provides that if the promoters think fit—that is the part with which I have dealt—they may in the next Session of Parliament, provided that the agents for the Bill—

§ Mr. David Stoddart (Swindon)
I have followed my hon. Friend's argument closely, and in the main I have a great deal of sympathy with what he has said. But does he mean what he said in his last few sentences? Surely it is within the purview of the mover of a motion or a Bill to withdraw at any time? Surely my hon. Friend would not wish to remove from the promoter of the Bill the right which he would normally have to withdraw?

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
I am indebted to my hon. Friend. It is right and proper that at any stage in any Bill, motion or procedure, and even the motion before us now, the promoter, the Member in charge or the Chairman of Ways and Means should have the right to ask leave to withdraw? The point may well be covered in Standing Orders, but I cannot give the exact reference. I do not wish to infer that it is covered by Standing Orders. Certainly it is the custom and practice for a Member who has moved a proposition to the House to be able to seek the leave of the House to withdraw. If the Chairman of Ways and Means were to ask leave to withdraw, we would be delighted to give him leave.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
It occurs to me that the difficulty we are in is even greater than that because the mover of the motion has withdrawn himself. He is not present to be in a position to withdraw the motion. As his is the only name on the motion, there is no one present who has the right under Standing Orders to withdraw the motion. If he were present now he might well, in view of what has already been said, wish to withdraw the motion. However, he cannot do that because he does not know what is being said. That is the great difficulty in which we are in.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
I agree entirely. If I may, I shall finish my reply to my lion. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) and then I shall return to the hon. Gentleman's intervention.
The difference between the right of any Member to seek to withdraw a proposition and the withdrawal of this motion is that we are conferring not upon an hon. Member but upon the promoters, people outside the House, the right to decide whether the proposition should continue. I hope that they will have taken note of all that has been said. I hope that they will be sensible and will decide not to proceed with the Bill but to introduce a new one in the next Session. That would be by far the best course of action. My hon. Friend asked me whether I meant what I said. May I say that at the time I speak I always mean what I say.
The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) raised an important point. We are now debating a motion in the name of the Chairman of Ways and 1150 Means. The Chairman of Ways and Means, for whatever reason, has absented himself from the Chamber and, if he does not withdraw the motion, the only way we can seek to act in this matter is by defeating the motion on a vote It may well be that in the end we shall have to take that course.
I return to my argument on the procedural motion. The motion continues: … in the next Session of Parliament, provided that the Agents for the Bill give notice to the Clerks in the Private Bill Office of their intention to suspend further Proceedings not later than the day before the close of the present Session and that all Fees due on the Bill up to that date be paid". That means that if within the next couple of days the promoters of the Bill say to the Private Bill Office that they wish to operate this procedural motion and give due notice and pay all the fees due, they can operate this procedure.
The fees due fo.r private legislation raise a most important point for the House to consider. I happen to have with me the Standing Orders relating to private business passing through this House. On pages 98 and 99 are set out the up to date fees charged for the promotion of private legislation. They are quite modern because they are set out in decimal currency. It would appear that in this instance it cannot be said that tremendous cost falls on the promoters, for the fees charged appear to be modest. A sum of £5 is payable en the deposit of a private Bill; £5 is charged for a private Bill to be examined; for a First Reading in the House there is a charge of £15; and for a Second Reading a further charge of £15. If there is a Report stage, another £15 is charged and on the Third Reading the promoters have to pay yet another fee of £15. If there is a seven o'clock motion there is a fee of £25. Therefore, the cost of all this procedure is only £95.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Does the hon. Gentleman know whether the fee of £25 applies to a debate that begins not at seven o'clock but at ten minutes to eleven?

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
That is an interesting point. If I were a promoter I would seek to challenge a charge put down for a debate that does not start in accordance with that provision in the 1151 Standing Orders. But that is for the promoters to develop in the appropriate place.

§ Mr. Loughlin
They will need time-and-a-half after midnight.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
Indeed.
For this modest charge of £95, the Private Bill Office does an enormous amount of work. If the motion is agreed, an even greater cost will be involved which cannot be recouped. No more special fees will be charged for this special privilege conferred on the promoters. In passing, the fees seem to me scandalously low. They have not been adjusted since 1969, the date of these Standing Orders. I hope that, at some future date, those who take an interest in private legislation will seek to ensure that an economic cost is paid by the promoters—

§ Mr. Ernest G. Perry (Battersea, South)
An inflationary cost.

Mr. Wellbeloyed
Of course, if, as a result of Government policy, inflation goes on at its present rate—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not go further into that matter. It is not related to the motion.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
Purely a passing reference, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Inflation is the responsibility of the Government, not of the promoters. Nevertheless, the charges involved are scandalously low, and I give notice that I shall seek an opportunity during the next Session of seeing that the economic cost is paid by the promoters of the Ashdown Forest Bill if they take advantage of the motion. I do not see why we should give them, first, the privilege of special facilities which are not open either to the Government or to private Members, and, second, do so at enormous cost to the House of Commons Vote. Therefore, it is not for those promoting the Bill to pray in aid the cost. The losers are not the promoters but this House and the general public.
No doubt it will be said that printing and employing counsel involves a much more substantial cost, but that is a legitimate expense for the promoters. We are concerned only with that expenditure 1152 covered by our own Standing Orders. As I hope I have shown, that is a very slim amount of money, and not relevant to a consideration of this matter.
After dealing with the fees, the motion goes on: … if the Bill is brought from the Lords in the next Session, the Agent for the Bill shall deposit in the Private Bill Office a declaration, signed by him, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill which was brought from the Lords in the present Session. Taken on its own, that paragraph is nonsense. It assumes that a completely new Bill is to be brought down from the other place to this House. But that is not the case. We shall be dealing with a Bill which has had its First and Second Readings and has gone to a Committee dealing with private legislation, and it is a complete fiction to suggest that we are dealing with a new Bill sent from the other place.
How can the promoters comply with that part of the motion? I cannot see how it can be done. It is another reason why the motion should be rejected. It has embodied in it a paragraph which is manifest nonsense and is not capable of being put into operation. One has to dive very deeply into the wording of the motion before one begins to get a glimmer of what it all really means.
I am delighted to see the Chairman of Ways and Means back in the Chair. I will not weary the House by repeating to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, all the arguments for your benefit. I hope that other hon. Members will be able to develop them with more clarity and eloquence and bring home to you, as Chairman of Ways and Means, the force of these points.
The next sentence in the motion reads: That, as soon as a certificate by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office that a declaration as mentioned above has been deposited has been laid upon the Table of the House, the Bill shall be read the first and second time (and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read) and shall be committed to the Chairman of Ways and Means, who shall make only such Amendments thereto as have been made by the Committee in the present Session, and shall report the Bill as amended to the House forthwith, and the Bill, so amended, shall be ordered to lie upon the Table. We are in the ludicrous position of erecting a fiction that a new Bill is entering 1153 the House and being given the formality of First and Second Readings and amendment in Committee. It is stretching nonsense to an extraordinary length for us to be asked to do that. If we are going to give, on the nod, First and Second Readings, then we should be able to have the normal process of debate. If the Bill is to go through the House again, let it go through the appropriate procedures and be subject to proper scrutiny.
The motion goes on: That no further Fees shall be charged in respect of any Proceedings on the Bill in respect of which Fees have already been incurred during the present Session. Here, an extraordinary financial burden is being placed upon the public. It is not the House of Commons which pays for its own establishment and administration but the taxpayers. And all this is being done to assist the passage of this miserable little Bill.

§ Mr. Ernest G. Perry
That is not fair.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
If my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, South wishes to intervene, I shall be delighted to give way. He served with great distinction as Chairman of the Committee and I feel it very important that these matters should be properly considered. But if he does not wish to intervene, I am sure he will not wish to continue interrupting from a seated position.
The House will surely agree that it is quite wrong that this extra cost, involving officials and officers of the House, should be borne not by the promoters but by the public through general taxation. That is unacceptable. It needs considerable further investigation.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
That is not to mention the continuing irrecoverable costs to which the petitioners against the Bill are being put by the continuation of processes on a doomed Bill.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
The hon. Gentleman will develop that point with great effectiveness when he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is a most important point to be considered. I want merely to confine myself to the constitutional argument which I have developed. If all this is being done with regard to the procedure and without cost to the promoters, it ought also to be done for Private Members' legislation, because that 1154 is tremendously expensive for the Member concerned and those who assist him.
I come to the final part of the business motion, which states: That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House. That is the absolute clincher of the whole of my argument. If passed, the motion gives this special facility and privilege and we shall be changing the whole of Standing Orders. Shall we be doing that for some great public purpose? No. We shall be doing it for the passage of a Bill which is the subject of great contention in the House and in the area concerned.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West opened the debate in his usual style with a clear exposition of the facts and the case as he saw it. He based his case upon a great principle for which men and women have suffered and died and which people will not lightly see laid aside. That is the principle that in this realm it shall be one man, one vote. It is the principle that a person will not be elected to a public office—in the House, on a local authority or as a conservator of the Ashdown Forest—on the basis of the acreage of land that he holds, and that he will not have more or less votes according to that acreage. That is a central issue which, when considered in addition to the other points that have been adduced, shows that there is no case that can possibly justify the House approving the motion.
I have noted that the Chairman of Ways and Means has now resumed the Chair. I assume that from that position he is no longer able to reply to the debate, unless a precedent new in all respects is to be established tonight. It is, however, a matter of great regret, because there is and will be many arguments to answer. Many of the points that have been made have justified an answer. But I shall leave the matter now in the sure knowledge that the House will not allow the motion to go unopposed. If by some stroke of misfortune the principle of one man, one vote is swept aside by the passage of the motion, we shall seek to ensure that the Bill is not passed when it returns to this Chamber.

§ Mr. Loughlin
On a point of order. Your name, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is on the motion, indicating one of your 1155 capacities. Is it within the rules of order for the sponsor of a motion to occupy the Chair during the debate on it?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris)
I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point because hon. Members may have been wondering about it.
It is quite normal for the Chairman of Ways and Means to leave his place on the Front Bench and to take a turn in the Chair. If the hon. Gentleman casts his mind back perhaps two years, he will recall that there were only two Deputy Speakers and it would have been necessary for one of them, because perhaps Mr. Speaker could not be present, to be in the Chair for the whole time. It has therefore always been the custom that the Chairman of Ways and Means, although in charge of a Bill, can relieve the other occupant of the Chair for a short time.
That is what I am doing in this case. I do not intend to remain in the Chair for long tonight, but it is only fair that the occupant of the Chair should have a short respite. After that I shall return to the Front Bench. I should not like the House to take that as meaning the I shall take certain action afterwards.
I hope that what I have said satisfies the hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When you are sitting on the Front Bench, are you able to speak as a Member and tell the House on what grounds you are recommending, if you are recommending, the motion or whether the putting of your name to the motion is a formality which in no way implies that you exercised judgment but is an automatic stamp? It is not clear to me whether your name appears there automatically procedurally or whether it is because you exercised the judgment that it should do so. If the latter, will you give the reasons for exercising that judgment from the Front Bench, from the Chair, or not at all?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
It is the custom for the Chairman of Ways and Means not to enter into any discussions upon the Bill which he moves. I have to make certain decisions based on listening 1156 to advice and then to make up my mind about what is right in any given circumstances. But the precedents for my not speaking on the Bill are based on immemorial custom of the Chairman of Ways and Means. I am now answering the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved), who is perhaps expecting me to say something at the end. Much as I should like to say something, I would not like to break from the time-honoured precedent that the Chairman should not enter into the merits of the matter. It is plainly better that he should not because it might affect the impartiality of the Chair. He might be involved in discussions in answering the debate, which would be bad for the Chair.

§ Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does that mean that a motion can be before the House without anybody having any responsibility to answer the debate?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
One must remember that the House is dealing with Private Business. This is not Government Business. No member of the Government is obliged to take part in these debates. Members of the Government come to these debates in order to give the House certain information to help it to come to a decision. This is one instance when the House as a whole is free to come to its own decision about things.
I know that the promoters of a Bill enlist the services of an hon. Member to speak for the Bill, as it were, and no doubt those who are opposed to the Bill get someone to speak for them against it. There is no question of the official mover of the motion having responsibility for the merits of the Bill. It is for the House as a whole to decide whether it wants the Bill.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I fully understand your position and in no way challenge your ruling, but the House is in a difficulty. Hon. Members—and I, too—have given reasons why the motion ought not to be passed. Those reasons have been based upon precedents and Standing Orders, and it will be difficult for hon. Members to make a judgment based upon facts if they are deprived of the opportunity of hearing 1157 the mover of the motion give his reasons for exercising his judgment and carrying out his duty in the way that he has under the Private Bill legislation, and try to satisfy the House that there are sound reasons for the motion.
If it is not possible for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to do even that in your capacity of Chairman of Ways and Means, is it not within your ability, when you vacate the Chair and return to the Front Bench, to seek the leave of the House to withdraw your motion? Or is that prohibited by the custom and practice of your office?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I am as sure as I can be that that is precluded by the custom and practice of my office. A situation similar to that which exists tonight has arisen on many occasions when promoters of Bills have sought to have them carried over into the next Session. When that has happened, my predecessors have made up their minds on the merits of the case and decided whether or not to accept the motion, but they have not given their reasons for so doing even though, I have no doubt, arguments similar to those which have been advanced tonight were put to them.
I do not feel that I should be justified in breaking with what has become a time-honoured precedent. If the hon. Member for Edith and Crayford feels that that is a harsh judgment, I recommend that he should bring the matter to the attention of the appropriate authorities and, if necessary, get it laid down in Standing Orders that in these cases the Chairman of Ways and Means should, if necessary, give his reasons for what he has done. As matters stand, I feel that I must abide by the custom which my predecessors have honoured from time immemorial.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is this additional difficulty, that, so far as I am aware, on every other occasion when an hon. Member has introduced a similar motion, he has listened to the debate, and if he has been satisfied that the weight of opinion is against the motion he has saved the time of the House by withdrawing it. Accepting that custom and practice interdict you from commenting on the merits, are you interdicted from withdrawing 1158 the motion at any stage, or is it doomed to roll on and on, consuming more and more of the time of the House when it is evident that the vast majority of those who have listened to the debate and who have taken part in it are against the motion?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is right in the last part of his observations. We just have to roll on.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In your usual courteous fashion you answered my earlier point by suggesting that if I or other hon. Members believe that the custom and practice act harshly upon our point of view we should seek to change the Standing Orders. That is very sound advice.
To assist the desire among the authorities of the House for a change of Standing Order, would it be in order during the next Session of Parliament for an hon. Member like myself—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I cannot take that point of order because I cannot discuss or consider anything that might take place in the next Session of Parliament.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
I withdraw "next Session" and say "in the remaining days of this Session". Would it be in order for an hon. Member to oppose all future private legislation in this Session so that a situation would be created such that there would be a virtual standstill on Private Business of this nature and considerable inconvenience caused to Government and Opposition in respect of the time that has to be set down by you under your duties for the discharge of this business? Would that be a method, within the rules of order, by which an hon. Member could seek to bring about such a fundamental change in this most unsatisfactory situation?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
As we have less than 48 hours remaining of this Session, I should think it is most unlikely.

§ Colonel Sir Tufton Beamish (Lewes)
I am very glad to be able to catch your eye. Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) was not correct, though he was very nearly correct, when he 1159 apparently thought that Ashdown Forest lay in my constituency.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
I did not think that.

§ Sir T. Beamish
It makes no difference; it is a small point. The northern boundary of my constituency is only about three miles south of the southern edge of Ashdown Forest. I live on the forest and I am a commoner. It goes without saying that I care deeply about the forest and its conservation and that I look very carefully at any proposals for its future management.
I am very strongly in favour of the House passing the motion. I regard the Bill presented by the East Sussex County Council as a most excellent one. The House should know that the Bill has the support of all the Sussex Members of the House, those from East Sussex and from West Sussex.
I have been told today that the Bill has the strong support of an ex-colleague of ours, Mr. Dennis Hobden, who was the Member for Kemptown and is now the Leader of the Labour Group on the East Sussex County Council. Therefore, the Bill is completely non-party in character and has all-party support. That is one reason why I believe that the House should pass the motion.
I want to give a few more reasons.

§ Mr. Loughlin
Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman—

§ Sir T. Beamish
No, the hon. Gentleman has filibustered quite enough already. I wish to make my speech.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) has just accused my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) of filibustering. Is not filibustering a breach of order, since it implies tedious repetition and deliberate obstruction? My hon. Friend spoke for only 10 or 12 minutes, and is it not an unwarranted allegation by the hon. and gallant Gentleman that my hon. Friend has been filibustering?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu)
The hon. Gentleman knows that the word is not out of order, and he is in as good a position as most to 1160 know whether there has been any waste of time.

§ Sir T. Beamish
The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) has himself been guilty of a disgraceful filibuster in which he deliberately delayed the passage of this measure by talking for as long as he could and saying absolutely nothing.
There is another reason why I hope that the House will pass the motion. Ashdown Forest is an area of great ecological importance. It is of great interest to naturalists from all over this country, and many from abroad as well. I am president of the Sussex Trust for Nature Conservation. We recently discussed the Bill and we were unanimously of opinion that it is an excellent measure in every way.
That is another reason why I hope that the motion will be passed, so that the Bill, the purpose of which is to make sure that Ashdown Forest remains an area of peace and pleasure, with adequate funds for the purpose, will be carried into law. People not only from Sussex but from all over the country will through that means be assured of being able to enjoy Ashdown Forest to the greatest possible extent.
The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West complained about the voting system incorporated in the Bill, and his hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Cray-ford made the same complaint four or five times. Let us look at that, since it is apparently in order to discuss the merits of the Bill in this way. If it has been criticised, others may support the voting system. I shall not go into great detail, but, if it is said that the voting system proposed is wrong and objectionable, I take it that, in the normal cut and thrust of debate, one may answer that point. I shall be brief, and I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be quick to tell me if I go out of order.
In Schedule 1 provision is made for commoners to change the voting system. Twenty-one days' notice has to be given of any meeting, and they may then meet together and decide to change the system. Thereafter, a period of 28 days has to elapse during which any other commoners will have time to make their views known if they do not like the system which has been proposed.
1161 I want the House to know—this is in direct answer to the point made—that all commoners were circulated in June with a questionnaire sent out by the clerk to the conservators, and by the middle of July two-thirds of them had replied saying that they strongly favoured the new voting system based on forest rates. Out of the 66 per cent. who replied, by 10 to 1 they favoured the new suggested system. Thus, it is right to say that the overwhelming majority of the commoners are not at all unhappy about the Bill as regards voting. They are satisfied. It is grossly misleading of hon. Members opposite to suggest that anything else is the case.
To oppose the motion and refuse to allow the Bill to be carried forward to the next Session would be to frustrate the views not only of the organisations to which my hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) referred but of the East Sussex County Council, all the Sussex Members of Parliament, as I said, of the Uckfield Rural District Council—in which area Ashdown Forest lies and which originally had objections, all of which have been withdrawn—of all the parish councils in the area, of the great majority of the commoners themselves, of the Board of Conservators of Ashdown Forest and of the Friends of Ashdown Forest. If this filibuster were successful, it would frustrate the views of all those people. I want that to be clearly understood.
My hon. Friend the Member lot Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), who is an opponent of the Bill for reasons which I have been quite unable to ascertain, mentioned to me recently that the new Weald authority which is to be created from the Uckfield Rural District and the Hailsham Rural District Council is opposed to the Bill. Perhaps he will do me the courtesy of listening to me for a moment. I can tell him that only a few days ago three councillors who take a special interest in the forest and are authorised to speak on behalf of this authority met a conservator of the Forest and said that they wanted the Bill to be a success. I hope that my hon. Friend will get his facts right in future. It is clear that if the Bill's passage is frustrated by its being talked out, which is the intention, it will be flying in the face of the overwhelming majority of 1162 opinion throughout Sussex and in this House.
I conclude by saying that I regard further opposition to the Bill as unwarranted, irresponsible and frivolous. I very much hope that the few opponents of the Bill, having had their say, will let Parliament carry it forward to the next Session.

§ Mr. Carol Johnson (Lewisham, South)
Although every hon. Member will probably agree that opponents of a Private Bill may use all possible opportunities to oppose it, there must come a time when the House has to come to a decision. Nothing that I have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) and Erith and Cray-ford (Mr. Wellbeloved) has satisfied me that they have advanced any valid reason why we should not support the motion for carrying over the Bill.
I listened with great care—as I always do—to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford, who has spent a good deal of time studying matters that are quite extraneous to the motion. He displayed a woeful ignorance of the substantial difference between Public Bills and Private Bills. When he sought to draw an analogy between this Bill and the ordinary business of the House he should appreciate that the Government have control of their business but the promoters of Private Bills have to go through the most detailed and restrictive procedures. The promoters of the Bill have followed all the procedures, and it is not their fault that the Bill has not completed all its stages. I suggest that as we cannot deal with the Report stage and Third Reading the promoters are quite entlitled to take advantage of the carry-over provisions that exist for this type of legislation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford, who objects to this procedure, might like to know that this was not always so. In the past, Private Bills of this character were killed at the end of the Session. It was the House itself that said that if a Private Bill had complied with all the Standing Orders of the House, if it had gone through a Select Committee, and if all the expense involved in getting it to that stage had been 1163 borne, the promoters should be protected if the House itself, for other reasons, could not complete it. Therefore, it is right that the promoters should take advantage of the provision introduced for the very purpose of dealing with a situation of this character.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
The House will be greatly interested in this point, namely, that it was because of the difficulties experienced by the promoters of Private Bills that Parliament changed Standing Orders. I should like to study that in detail. Will my hon. Friend give me a little more detail about the Session in which that change of procedure occurred?

§ Mr. Johnson
Not now.
Secondly, it would be very regrettable if the reflections of my hon. Friends who have opposed the Bill should be seen to have any support in the House. To refer to this as a "miserable little Bill" is to use parliamentary language quite inappropriate for serious discussion.
When one analyses the very lengthy and erudite speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved), its substance is: "Let us kill the Bill tonight". All the arguments were used to bolster up a plea to the House that we ought to kill the Bill tonight and that the promoters should be asked to promote another Bill in the next Session of Parliament.
My hon. Friend then proceeded, as had my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West, to present his main objection to the Bill which, as was indicated by the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish), is that the Bill does not provide a particular system of voting by the commoners that my hon. Friend favours. That is the gravamen of the objection to the Bill.
If the Bill were killed tonight and an entirely new Bill were introduced next Session, the promoters could not embody that provision in the legislation. It is not within their power to interfere with the rights of commoners.
The Select Committee went as far as it could go by saying that, if the commoners would agree amongst themselves upon a change, all the procedures would be available for it to be made.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
I think that the hon. Gentleman has got his facts wrong. Certainly into a new Bill could be written what should have been written into this one before it was introduced into Parliament. The dilemma in which the Committee found itself was due to the way that the Bill was drafted. The Bill having been introduced, the Committee could not amend it in the way that it wished. However, there is nothing to stop the promoters of the Bill introducing it in a form which embodies what is required.

§ Mr. Johnson
It would also not be appropriate for the promoters, a local authority, to decide what the procedure should be. The procedure for voting having been laid down, it would have been quite inappropriate for the promoters to change it. If the promoters had sought to do that my hon. Friends would have risen in great objection. They would have wanted to know why a local authority should be allowed to make a change of that character. It was never possible for the promoters to introduce a measure of that kind.
I think that this motion should be passed as a matter of some urgency. There are two main grounds for this Bill. First, it will afford a proper financial basis for the operation of the forest and, secondly, it will provide for adequate management of it to meet the needs of the constituents from the areas represented by hon. Members who have opposed it. Therefore, it would be undesirable to put further difficulties in the way of this Bill reaching the Statute Book.
Finally, although my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford sought to brush this point aside, a substantial amount of public money has been spent in getting the Bill to its present stage. We have also had the opportunity of arguing on the merits of the Bill in this House. Indeed, we sent it to a Select Committee to make sure that it was properly in order. Certain changes were made, and those have been accepted by the promoters. Therefore, we now have a measure that can be commended to the House, and the sooner we approve this carry-over motion the better.

§ Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop (Tiverton)
My task tonight is regrettably prolonged 1165 by the somewhat bizarre intervention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment. That intervention took the form of quoting to the House an inappropriate section from an obsolete volume of Erskine May. Having done that, he has apparently disappeared for the evening.
For the rectification of many distortions that may have crept in, I would read to the House from the current edition of Erskine May; that is to say, the 18th Edition—one of the two Table copies—page 821, the section which is headed, Private Bills Pass Through Same Stages As Public Bills. The House will recollect that the gravamen of the irrelevant advice given by the junior Minister with some trepidation, because he did not even know where it appeared in Erskine May, was that if a Bill had passed its Third Reading—which it has not—we should facilitate its further passage by the adoption of this motion. It was clear that the Under-Secretary was unaware that not only had the Bill not passed its Third Reading but it had not even undergone its Report stage. Even had the copy of Erskine May been up to date—which it was not—the section which he read to the House was inappropriate.
What is appropriate, however, is to be found on page 821 with the heading which I have already given, and which reads thus: Although private bills are examined and contested as private suits before committees and officers of the House, and are subject to notices, forms, and intervals unusual in other bills, yet in every separate stage, when they come before either House, they are treated as if they were public bills, although separate hours are allotted for their discussion. There is a footnote "(q)", which reads: For private bills imposing charges, see 897. I continue: They are read as many times and similar questions are put, except when any proceeding is especially directed by the standing orders, and in general the same rules of debate and procedure are maintained throughout. In the same way, if any proceeding on a private bill is postponed on motion for three or six months, such postponement is equivalent to a rejection of the bill and no new bill 1166 for the same object may be introduced that session. The first question that therefore arises is this: is there a Standing Order which "especially directs" that this Private Bill now before the House should be treated in a different manner from a Public Bill? There is no such Standing Order giving any such direction. The advice of Erskine May therefore stands, that we should treat this Bill as we would treat a Public Bill.
It does not lie with the House to carry a Public Bill over to the nest Session. There are good reason for this. It may cause some annoyance; it way cause a waste of Ministerial and other time. But the House has always up until now accepted that the advantage of clearing the legislative system, so to speak, by pulling the chain on any undigested matter at the end of each Session is a necessary precursor to the generation and passage of new legislation in a new Session of Parliament. If the Government or the House wished to change this rule on public general Bills, they have been at liberty to do so and they are at liberty to do so, and they have not chosen to exercise that liberty to do so. The advice of Erskine May is that they are treated as if they were public bills, although separate hours are allotted for their discussion. Indeed, they are. So far as Erskine May is concerned, the advice given so persuasively and unambiguously in the 18th edition, which is entirely appropriate to the situation in which we now find ourselves, is that we should resist any such temptation, however alluring might he the reasons adduced by my two hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Carol Johnson.)
Regrettably, the temptation has not been resisted, and this motion has appeared on the Order Paper—the motion that we should treat this Bill in a way in which we can treat no public general Bill. The case that needs to be proved, therefore, is the case for abandoning the sage advice given in Erskine May and adopting a procedure for this Bill which we reject for every public Bill. The onus is certainly not on Members of the House to defend the proposition that this motion should be defeated. The onus is entirely the other way. We have listened with symapthetic impotence, because we sympathise so much with the mover of 1167 this motion, that he is by his office prohibited from telling us what were his reasons for moving it.
Three colleagues on both sides of the House have advanced the fact that they wish to see this Bill on the statute book as a reason why we should reject the advice given in Erskine May and why we should not treat this Bill in the same way as we treat most important public Bills which die because a Session comes to an end. However much they may wish to see this Bill on the statute book, their devotion to its cause is no greater than the devotion of many other hon. Members to many public general Bills of much greater importance to a much larger number of people in this country and which are denied passage into statute law because, for instance, three hours is consumed tonight in debating this totally inappropriate motion.
In Committee the hands of the Committee were substantially tied by the terms in which this Bill was drafted. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) referred to the expenditure of public money; by that I take it that he meant the county council's money—

§ Sir T. Beamish
I never mentioned it.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
My hon. and gallant Friend mentioned public money that would be wasted if the Bill died.

§ Sir T. Beamish
I never mentioned public money at all.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
It must have been my hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine). The point is not relevant, for this reason. Before the Bill was even introduced into the Lords I warned the parliamentary agent acting for the promoters—I warned him in front of a witness—that the Bill was extremely unlikely to pass through this House unless and until it was altered to encompass equal voting. I gave him that warning at a time when it lay within his power to advise his clients so to alter the Bill before it was introduced.
I gave that advice to the parliamentary agent at a time when it was not too late to be taken. I do not know whether he personally advised the promoters to adopt that course and they rejected his 1168 advice or whether he did not give them that advice, in which case he is party to wasting public money. But that advice was given. It was not taken. As a result, the position in which the pro-motors find themselves is of their making or of their parliamentary agents making. It is not of my making. It is not of the making of the Committee which examined the Bill. It is of the making of the promoters of the Bill.

§ Mr. Carol Johnson
I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman's argument. Surely this point was the main feature in the debate on Second Reading, and the House did not accept the argument.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
As the hon. Gentleman knows, on Second Reading it is often argued, whatever case is adduced, that the matter should be left to the Committee and that that is where the lawyers can argue it. There is some substance in such an approach if the Bill is so drafted that the Committee can exercise its judgment and amend it. The whole point about this Bill is that it was drafted in such a way as to deprive the Committee of that essential power. All that the Committee could do within the Standing Orders of the House was to insert what now appears as Schedule 1, paragraph 1 (d), which reads: If the Secretary of State or the arbitrator, as the case may be, determines in accordance with sub-paragraph (c) of this paragraph that the objection to the resolution is upheld, the resolution shall be ineffective but if he determines that it is overruled, the resolution shall be effective from the date of such determination. That was as much as the Committee could do, not because it was as much as it wanted to do but because it was as much as the drafting of the Bill enabled it to do.
If we revivify the Bill, which would otherwise die a decent death, we are prolonging the life of a Bill which in the next Session will retain the same inbuilt and avoidable but not avoided defects as those that it has in this Session. Postponing the Bill and carrying it over until the next Session does not by some magic salve remove this deformity from it. There is no known way of removing the deformity.
That is why it should never have been introduced in this form and why it should not be prolonged into another Session. 1169 That is a guaranteed way of wasting parliamentary time, the promoters' money and the objectors' and petitioners' money, enriching only parliamentary counsel and parliamentary agents.

§ Sir T. Beamish
Schedule 1 lays down clearly that the commoners can decide on what system of voting they wish to adopt. Who is my hon. Friend to tell them what system to adopt? Why cannot my hon. Friend leave it to them and mind his own business?

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
My lion. and gallant Friend asks why I cannot mind my own business. It is the business of every hon. Member when a section of the community comes to this House asking that an exception should be made to the public general law of the land. That is what a Private Bill is. Incidentally, as my hon. and gallant Friend apparently has forgotten, unlike Public Bill procedure, Members who have a constituency interest in a Public Bill are precluded from sitting on the Committee which examines it. Of course, if a Member speaks on Second Reading of a Public Bill, it is more than likely that the Committee of Selection will appoint him to the Standing Committee which examines the Bill. Standing Orders on Private Bills provide—if Standing Orders do not, Erskine May does—that a Member will not be appointed to the Standing Committee if that Member speaks on Second Reading and if he has a constituency interest.
The whole of Private Bill procedure is slanted to the proposition that those who have an interest are least qualified to judge the issue and that those who have no interest, personal or constituency, in the outcome are best qualified to judge.

§ Sir T. Beamish
I said in my speech that a substantial majority of commoners have already agreed to a new voting system proposed by the clerk to the conservators. Who does my hon. Friend think he is to tell the commoners how they should vote?

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
I have not told the commoners how they should vote. I am proposing that the Bill should be withdrawn and another Bill introduced with the same system of voting as is to be found in any other civilised body. I 1170 do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend has read the proceedings of the Committee, but the line which he follows was followed by the counsel appearing for the promoters of the Bill. In page 2 of the fifth section of the report of the Committee, counsel appearing for the promoters at Question No. 8 asked Mr. Walter Keith Oliver this question: If one man one vote were imposed in the Bill, of course, no such opportunity would be given? That would be an opportunity for the commoners to say which system of voting they wanted. Counsel continued: That must be right, must it not? If one man one vote were to be imposed by the Bill, no such opportunity would be given to those who might be of a contrary view to state their case? That is counsel's question. That is counsel's way of putting the same question that my hon. and gallant Friend has just put. Mr. Oliver answered: No opportunity was given to the commoners to discuss this matter before the Bill was deposited. That was the right time for the promoters of the Bill to show an interest.

§ Sir T. Beamish
rose—

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
I shall continue with the first point that my hon. and gallant Friend raised before dealing with anything else which he wants to raise. Counsel then asked: Just answer the question, Mr. Oliver. If a voting system is imposed by this Bill, it gives no opportunity for those who may quite sincerely be of an opposite view to state their case, does it? Mr. Oliver replied: You will forgive me for appearing not to answer you directly, sir, because it does not seem to me that ' yes' or no' is appropriate in this case. May I say that"— Counsel said: Say whatever you like, Mr. Oliver, but I shall go on asking the question until I get an answer. Mr. Oliver replied: May I give a little further explanation? Counsel said, "Please do." In a nut shell, this is the answer to my hon. and gallant Friend. Mr. Oliver said: One man one vote, as I mentioned yesterday, has been accepted, I think, since 1832 as the method of electing members to public bodies of all kinds. 1171 We are talking about a public body—namely, the conservators. Mr. Oliver continued. I said yesterday that I could see no difference between the election of the conservators of Ashdown Forest and the election of a member of a parish council. We are not nowadays"—

§ Sir T. Beamish
rose—

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend disagrees with Mr. Oliver's opinion, but I happen to think that it is reasonable.
We are not nowadays given an opportunity of arguing whether one man one vote in parliamentary elections is the best possible method.

§ Mr. Carol Johnson
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) is going deeply into the merits of the Bill. He is anticipating the debate which will take place next Session when the report is before the House. Those of us who have spoken in the past have made only passing reference to the merits, but the hon. Gentleman is attempting to make a detailed examination of the main basis of opposition to the Bill.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu)
I am sure that the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) will draw to a conclusion his remarks in that respect.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
You can be sure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I shall stay in order. If the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Carol Johnson) had spent more time in the Chamber during the debate, he would have noted what the Chair has considered to be in order. As he has only visited the Chamber quite recently, he would do well to hold his peace and rely on the Chair.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would get on with his speech.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
That I am endeavouring to do.

§ Mr. Carol Johnson
The hon. Gentleman must be unaware that I have been sitting in my place since the debate started.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
In that case it is incomprehensible that he has not noted the ruling on this point given by the 1172 Chair and particularly that the Chair has already allowed extensive debate, for instance, on Schedule 1.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I hope that the hon. Member for Tiverton will not carry on for too long with his lecture of the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Carol Johnson).

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
No, but it was the hon. Gentleman's intervention that—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Will the hon. Gentleman get on with his speech?

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Yes, I will do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would have finished by now but for the intervention of the hon. Member for Lewisham, South.
The evidence continues: We are not nowadays given an opportunity of arguing whether one man one vote in parliamentary elections is the best possible method. I am sure some people do not think it is. But I can see nothing wrong in introducing the same method of election to the conservators of Ashdown Forest as is the rule for every other election of which I am aware. I do not think I could have put more succinctly the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes than was put to the Select Committee in the evidence which I have just quoted. The nub of the objection to the Bill is concerned with that.
We must concern ourselves with two questions: first, what are the results which follow if this motion is passed, and secondly what are the results which follow if this motion is not passed? That in a nutshell is what presumably will determine how we vote in the Lobby. If the motion is passed, it is open to the promoters of the Bill to instruct their parliamentary agent to give notice not later than Thursday to the Private Bill Office that they intend to operate that suspension, that notice being effective only if they have paid their fees up to date. We do not know—because none of those speaking for the promoters have told us—whether at this stage the promoters have decided whether they would exercise that right, but we must assume that they probably would.
On the assumption that they probably would, the Bill would be carried over 1173 into the next Session of Parliament. We do not know whether the next Session of Parliament will be the last of this Parliament. We know that the Bill would come into this House in exactly the same form as it left the Select Committee because under the motion which we are now debating it cannot come back unless there is a certificate from one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office certifying that it is in exactly the same form as it was when it left this House. Therefore, any defects that the Bill has now it will have then.
It is therefore unavoidable that, in considering the motion, we should consider this question, does the Bill have such inherent and incorrigible defects that to prolong its life into the next Parliament would merely be to waste Parliamentary time? If the answer to that question is, "Yes", the motion should be defeated. But even if some hon. Members believe, as they may, that the Bill's defects, although glaring, are not such as to render it totally unacceptable in another Session, that does not substantiate the case for rejecting the advice in Erskine May on page 821 to which I have referred—that we should not treat a Private Bill differently from a Public Bill.
Since Erskine May was prayed in aid in the rather bizarre speech of my hon. Friend, this point must be seized by all who wish to participate in this debate. No contrary advice has been given to the House on the precedents quoted in Erskine May. Even if it were thought that, without the assistance of Erskine May, there might still be some merit in suspending the Bill until the next Session, is it good practice that we should adopt a procedure of always passing these motions almost "on the nod"?
If we do, with the efflux of time, they will acquire what they do not now have—a prescriptive right to be passed. Possibly they may be debated, but the day will come when the occupant of the Chair will have to advise the House that the practice has now developed so that, when such a motion has been put down by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the House ought to agree to it.
There are many things which, because they have happened for some time, achieve exactly this sort of momentum. To take an analogy, there is an interdic- 1174 tion in Erskine May on hon. Members reading speeches, yet if any hon. Member complains to the Chair that another hon. Member is reading his speech, instead of enforcing the Standing Order, the Chair replies that the hon. Member is "making copious use of notes". I took up this very point with Mr. Speaker King. He wrote to me that, although the Standing Order indeed prohibited the reading of speeches—

§ Sir T. Beamish
What has this to do with the motion?

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
Each time my hon. and gallant Friend intervenes, he prolongs the proceedings. This is a very general rule.
Mr. Speaker King replied that, although the Standing Order interdicted the reading of speeches, the Chair had so often refused to enforce the Standing Order that the practice had now acquired such a status that it would take a new resolution of the House to reactivate the Standing Order, although it appeared clearly in the blue book. Therefore—I will now satisfy my hon. and gallant Friend's curiosity—the relevance is this: a case has been put that motions of this kind ought to be passed merely because they have been moved, not because of any inherent merit. This was the case which a Minister of the Crown took the trouble to put, with his irrelevant quotations from an obsolete copy of Erskine May. His case was that because the motion had been moved we ought to pass it.
I am pointing out the very great danger of allowing that to happen. So far from it being an accumulated custom of the House that it should always pass motions of this kind merely because they have been moved, it is particularly incumbent upon the House to ensure that this situation which has not yet come about should not come about and must not come about.
What are the dangers which face us if we allow this motion to pass, quite apart from the merits of the Bill whose life it would prolong? Every time there is a motion of this kind, potentially a considerable amount of parliamentary time is consumed. Moreover, motions of this kind are moved only in the dying days of a Session—that is why they are 1175 moved. It is in the dying days of a Session that parliamentary time is most precious because there are other measures for which this privilege is not suggested and to which the privilege of surviving into an afterlife in another Session is not given.
If the House does not put its foot down, we shall grow into the position where, whenever sloppily-drafted, badly-presented and inadequately-argued Private Bills get themselves into trouble in Committee, so that they get later and later and later, we are asked when they finally fall from Committee to the Floor of the House, to stop all our normal business and entertain motions of this kind. That I regard as a very great danger to our parliamentary system because it puts in jeopardy in a way which cannot be remedied by similar motions so much other work which has been done by Parliament in that Session.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that about the only justification for a suspension motion of this nature would be where we were facing a General Election and the promoters of private legislation were, through no fault of their own or of the drafting of the bill or of its principles, put at a serious disadvantage? Apart from such circumstances, there is no justification for this type of motion.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
I go a long way with that argument. But I recommend to the House that we should make certain rules for ourselves and adopt certain tests, and if a motion of this kind does not pass these tests, then automatically the House should not entertain it and the Chairman of Ways and Means should not even bother to table it. I should like to put this motion to those tests.
First, does the lateness of the Bill in the parliamentary Session, necessitating, if it is to be enacted, a motion of this kind, arise from any act or default on the part of the promoters? If it does, certainly we should not hold up our other business to dig them out of their own pit. In this case it does arise from an act or default of the promoters. They were warned of the consequences of introducing the Bill with not only a par- 1176 ticular unacceptable provision in it but one which could not subsequently be remedied.
What action did they then take? They did not take the only effective action that they could have taken. They just let things go on in the hope that it would be all right on the day. The day has come now. This is the day of reckoning. This is the time when the inherent defects in the Bill have so delayed it in Committee, apart from anything else, that there is simply not time, under the Standing Orders of the House, for the notice which has to be given after Report stage before Third Reading can come and for the Bill to reach the Statute Book in this Session.
There is no action which any of us can take, or which the Government could take if they were so minded, to have the Bill receive its Third Reading in this Session. That is how late it has got. As I have said, it has reached this position because of the manner in which it was handled by the promoters.
The second test which we should apply in general, but in particular now to the motion, is whether, by consuming in this case three hours of Parliament's time on debating the motion, there is any other business yet to come which is being postponed by this consumption of time. Manifestly, from the Order Paper, there is. That is another reason why the motion should never have been moved in the first place. If hon. Members are in agreement that the motion should never have been moved but, nevertheless, allow it to be passed, they will have established a precedent, that even when they disagree with a motion they allow it to be passed. That is another precedent which we ought not to establish on the basis of any decision which the House arrives at tonight.
There are more tests. We do not want to judge this matter in isolation. The same tests that we apply to this motion we should apply to similar motions on similar occasions. If we do not, this is a practice which will grow. Private Bills will tend to come later and later in the Session, for a number of reasons. I have alluded to the fact that a number of Members are disqualified from being put by the Committee of Selection on the Select Committee to examine a Bill but 1177 would be qualified to go on the Standing Committee to examine a Public Bill. There has been a great increase in the number of Select Committees set up by the House which must be manned.
All these events make it increasingly likely that in future we shall have not less but greater pressure for motions of this kind. Therefore, unless we want our other business to be swamped, the tests which we apply before we allow this exceptional course of action to take place need to be made more stringent. I believe that it is the feeling of the majority of those present in the Chamber that even the lax application of tests of this kind should result in discouragement of motions like this. Nevertheless, although the promoters of the Bill and everyone else concerned wore aware of its defects, they have soldiered on and have made the House, late art night, entertain this business, with other business to come.
There is only one effective way of discouraging that process. If the House does not adopt and maintain this effective check, I predict that next Session it will be increasingly overwhelmed with Private Bills of this kind. The nearer we get to the end of a Session, the greater is the temptation to hurry in Private Bills, because the make-up of an existing Parliament in terms of political parties is known whereas the political complexion of a future Parliament is, by definition, unknown.
This motion does not pass any of the tests which I have suggested should be applied to all such motions. If it were passed, it would still further reduce the chance of other Private Bills in the next Session because presumably it would go ahead of the queue of Private Bills properly introduced next Session. By passing this motion, we shall prejudice the status of Private Bills introduced next Session. If not, it is not worth passing it. If passing this motion does not give the Bill precedence in the next Session, it is purposeless to pass it.
No one has produced advice from Erskine May to contradict the advice which I have read to the House.

§ Mr. Loughlin
On the question of the Bill's receiving precedence over other Bills, may I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the third paragraph of the 1178 motion which says that under certain conditions the Bill shall be taken as having received a First and Second Reading and completed its Committee stage? In that sense, the Bill is bound to have precisely the precedence to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

§ Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having, with his great knowledge of procedure, succinctly summarised what is inherent in the motion. His intervention confirms the fears that I was entertaining, namely, that Private Bills, the merits of which we do not know because they have not been deposited though they could scarcely be worse in the sense of inherent defects than this measure—are to be sacrificed to the interests of a Bill of whose defects we are aware. I do not think that we should entertain the proposition of granting to the defective an unnatural preference over the putative perfection of the yet undeposited. I add that as the fourth test which we ought to apply not only to this motion but to any similar motion before the House.
That leads me to a fifth test which I think we ought to apply, and it is this. Ought we to pass into law—I say that because if the motion is defeated the Bill will not become law—a measure of this kind which, theoretically, will receive the Royal Assent during the next Session at about the time that the whole system of local government is reorganised. I make that point because local authorities are among the promoters of the Bill, and they will become different in form during the currency of the next predictable Session of Parliament. On 1st April next year, the new first and second-tier system of local government comes into operation. The second-tier authorities, in particular, have not yet been able to function normally.
This point is not applicable generally to Private Bills, because not all such Bills are concerned with, or are the concern of, local authorities, but it is my view that, in so far as local authorities have a major legitimate interest in the outcome of a Private Bill, we should not take exceptional steps to bring about the situation that authorities which are about to come into existence do so too late to affect the outcome, whether or not the Bill receives the Royal Assent.
1179 Quite apart from the fact that a local authority is among the promoters of the Bill, under this measure it is a local authority which appoints a majority of the conservators. That is a major feature of the Bill. How can it reasonably be said that we should prolong the life of the Bill in such a manner that the newly composed local authorities are prevented from debating and influencing it in embryo?
If we take the alternative course, if we say that we will not pass the motion, we bring great advantage in that sphere. It is reasonable to assume that if we do not pass the motion a new Bill on the subject would not have received the Royal Assent by 1st April of next year. The result would be that the newly constituted local authorities which come into existence on 1st April would be enabled themselves to decide whether they wanted to reintroduce a Bill of this kind but shorn of its unacceptable defects.
If the junior Minister from the Department of the Environment were still here after his somewhat strange intervention, I would have asked him if the Government take the view that, after all the work which he, his fellow Ministers and the House of Commons have done on the Local Government Bill, amending it and passing it into law, we should then deprive it of the power to influence private legislation of this kind.