Lords Sitting of 10 April 1843

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN.—The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe took the Oaths.
BILLS. Public.—2a Copyhold and Customary Tenure Act Amendment.
Private.—1ª Marquess of Abercorn's Estate; Cheape's Divorce; Leeds Gas; London Cemetery; Manchester Corporation; Great Gransden Inclosure.
2a Hungerford and Lambeth Suspension Foot Bridge Brighton and Hove Gas.
Reported.—Oxnam's Estate.
3a and passed:—Bolton Gas; Grafton Inclosure.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By the Bishops of Oxford, and Hereford, from Cheadle. and Mitcheldever. against the Union of the Sees of St. Asaph and Bangor. — By the Bishop of Winchester, from Brighton, and Bermondsey, for Church Extension.—From Hastings, for Repealing the Registration Act.—From the Presbyterians of England, against the Laws relating to Marriages in Scotland. —From the same, for the Better Observance of the Sabbath.—From Keamare, for making Cork a Packet Station.

THE NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
Lord Broughamwished to call the attention of the noble President of the Council, to a subject which seemed to him to press for early notice. He wished to know whether his noble Friend would consent to produce the estimate of the amount of expenditure, likely to be incurred by the extraordinary portions of the plan for the new buildings, for the accomodation of the Houses of Parliament not included in the original estimate; he especially referred to the Victoria Tower. This erection, he was persuaded, must be a very heavy expence, and likewise a very heavy weight on the ground it was to stand on; and, if it should ever be erected as proposed in the plans he had seen, nothing, he would venture to say, was ever put upon the ground so contrary to good taste, or more completely devoid of all taste. The height of it was out of all proportion to the rest of the building. He hoped, that care would be taken to
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revise the plan in this respect before it was adopted. Many persons whom he had seen, who were not at all unfavourably inclined to the architect, held up their hands in amazement at the plan with this tall tower on one side, and the smaller one on the other.
Viscount Duncannonsaid, his noble Friend was mistaken on the point, for the Victoria Tower was included in the original estimate, and in the original plan. What his noble Friend meant by the small tower was the centre one, which was intended for the purpose of ventilation, and had been added since the original plan was drawn.
Their Lordships adjourned.