PROGRESS OF BILLS THROUGH PARLIAMENT. (Hansard, 31 July 1849)

LORD BROUGHAM
considered that the noble Marquess had acted in a fair and judicious manner in abstaining from all comment on the subject which had been brought under their consideration by the noble Earl behind him, who, he thought, was most forward in performing what he conceived to be his duty, and in a manner very satisfactory indeed. He (Lord Brougham) having made that observation, begged to call their Lordships' attention to the subject of which he had given notice 1137 on the previous evening, with respect to the passage of Bills through Parliament. He did not then mean to propose any plan to their Lordships' attention to what he had so often urged upon them, namely, the absolute necessity of taking some course for duly providing somebody by whom Bills shall be prepared, and shall be watched during their progress through Parliament. It was part of his plan that there should be a Board appointed for the purpose of preparing Bills, and that that Board should have a final inspection of them. There was no intention on his part of controlling the Legislature. Unless the author of a Bill saw what was done to it during its progress, he could not be sure or certain that some mischief had not been done to it, which might not be discovered until after the Bill had become law. If he wanted an instance to illustrate the course which should be adopted, he could take it from the manner in which private Bills are prepared. There is a Chairman of Committees to examine all private Bills, and during all their stages in that and the other House of Parliament the same salutary revision was continued; and were it not for that revision no man could comprehend the extent of abuse that would be committed, or the embarrassment that would be created. This would arise from the passing of Acts deviating from the general law; but, above all, from clauses in the Acts themselves put in by contending parties, each one sacrificing a little to the other, and the other sacrificing a little to that party in order to obtain his consent, neither caring a farthing for other parties, nor one rush for the public, by which a vast mass of confusion in the law might be created, causing embarrassment to the court, and difficulty to practitioners, and, above all, injury to the public; and it was frightful to contemplate the evil that might be done were it not for the careful superintendence that was practised. If that were a good system with regard to private Bills, it would also prove useful with respect to public Bills. The existing law was very much to be considered in all the cases that arose; and the object of each particular Act was also to be considered, because the Bills themselves, from the want of superintendence, might do much mischief that the authors never intended, and might also render them totally inoperative. If he wanted an instance to support his statement, he might refer to what had recently taken place with respect to the Bankruptcy 1138 Bill. He mentioned the case to show what grievous consequences might arise from not attending to details, and from the originator of the measure not being consulted during the progress of the measure through Parliament. There was also another and recent case where they had to suspend the operation of an Act for six months, because it was not properly passed. Then there was another measure that came to them from the other House without a division, having reference to the Irish Chancellor's Secretary of Bankrupts, to which he might also refer in support of his argument. Having made these observations on this subject, he would refer to the course that had been taken during that Session with respect to voting by proxy, and he would move for— Account of the Instances, for the Ten Years ending the 31st July, 1849, in which. Proxies having been called, the Result of the Division was such that the Majority of the Peers present was different from the Majority of the whole Votes, present and Proxy; distinguishing the Date of each Instance: and also— An Account, for the like Years, of the Number of Times in each Year in which Proxies have been called. He (Lord Brougham), however, begged it to be understood that he was not in favour of abolishing the system of voting by proxy.

§ LORD REDESDALE
had listened with very great attention to the statement which the noble and learned Lord had just made, of the inconveniences arising from the want of a better system for the management and preparation of Bills, and for correcting any errors which may have been introduced into them during their course through both Houses of Parliament. No doubt if any practical measure could be devised for obviating all such errors and oversights, or getting such important business into a well-digested and consistent shape, it would be highly desirable, and a very beneficial thing for all parties. But he (Lord Redesdale) feared that this was precisely one of those cases where a measure, about the expediency of which there could be no second opinion in point of principle, would be found absolutely impracticable in execution. With regard to the constitution of any commission for the revision of Bills such as the noble and learned Lord seemed to glance at, that was a consideration of very grave importance, and suggested doubts in his (Lord Redesdale's) mind, as to how far the plan could be carried out 1139 without involving the most serious questions touching the privileges of Parliament. Of whom must such a commission consist, if not of persons "learned in the law," according to the technical phraseology applied to such bodies? and to what, in effect, would their revision of public and private Bills amount to, if not to a delegation by both Houses of their faculties of legislation? When an enactment is doubtfully expressed, or when it is contradictory to some other part of a Bill, it can frequently be construed in different ways with almost equal propriety; and the manner consequently in which palpable errors might be corrected, and in which in some cases two or more clauses of a Bill could alone be made consistent and intelligible, might make a total alteration of the law as intended to be enacted by Parliament. However valuable, therefore, such an Amendment in the mode of preparing Bills and other business might be, as the noble Lord had suggested, with a view to obviate in future those evils of which he had with so much reason complained, he (Lord Redesdale) must be permitted to repeat that he considered the object sought to be attained by his noble and learned Friend was wholly impracticable. He must, therefore, vote against it as a measure that would inevitably lead to more perplexity and confusion than any which it was designed to remedy. With respect to the calling of proxies, that, also, was a question of great delicacy and importance. He himself had been a Member of their Lordships' House now for about twenty years, and in all that period until the present Session he had never known more than two instances in which the proxies had struck a majority on the vote against a majority of "presents." The one of these was on the Earl of Wicklow's Motion in 1832 on Irish Education; the other was in 1846, on a Motion of the Duke of Richmond to hear the silk weavers at the bar against the proposed alteration in the silk duties. In both these instances a majority of one only among the "presents" was reversed by proxies. In the course of the present Session, however, this manner of using proxies had been pushed to a much greater extent. There had been no less than three very remarkable cases of this sort. In one of them, although on counting "presents" there appeared for a given Motion a majority of fourteen, it had actually been set aside by the proxies called. Still he 1140 was favourable, like the noble and learned Lord beside him, to the system of proxies; but he thought the calling for them should be governed by some sort of discretion.

The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDE
was curious to know how any such discretion could be practically reserved if proxies were to be called at all; and again, how the noble and learned Lord who had just spoken meant to obviate the contingency of a majority of the "presents" being occasionally set aside on calling proxies. Suppose at a certain period of the Session, one-third of all the Peers had already left town, and deposited their proxies, such of them as wished to do so, with those Peers who remained. It was obvious that, on any contested question, there would always be a great probability, on proxies being called, of any majority of presents being outvoted.

LORD CAMPBELL
inferred that the noble Lord's (Lord Redesdale's) notion of the discreet exercise of the power of giving in a proxy for an absent Peer, amounted to this, that when the resulting majority on any question in which he gave it happened to be on the side for which it was so given by him, he, the noble Baron, conceived he had exercised the privilege under due discretion; but when the majority was against the side supported by the proxy so contributed, then the noble Baron felt he had used his proxy indiscreetly.

§ The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE
was glad to find that the noble and learned Lord was in favour of retaining the use of proxies. At the same time, he thought it appeared, on the showing of the noble and learned Lord himself, that the difficulties likely to be experienced in regulating the sort of discretion with which he seemed to contend that the privilege should be always exercised, would be found in practice endless and impracticable. There were difficulties—there would be difficulties—as to the nature of the questions on which proxies should, and as to those on which they should not, be called. As to the commission for revising the Bills, and other business, from time to time coming before the House of Peers from another place, he was quite at a loss to see how the noble and learned Lord could hope to make provision for all conditions of the principles he desired to apply, without taking from this branch of the Legislature some of its chiefest and most peculiar functions. He found himself, therefore, unable to accede to any 1141 such proposal as that suggested by the noble and learned Lord. And it occurred to him to add, for the consideration of that noble and learned Lord, another element of difficulty in connexion with the possibility of regulating the discretion of using proxies, or indeed of calling them. What additional weight ought to be attached to the opinions of the Peer in whose hands other Peers, out of deference probably to the general soundness of these opinions, had confided their proxies? In short, he could see no way out of the many considerations that surrounded the suggestions which had been submitted to the House, and which, therefore, he trusted that the House would decline to adopt.

LORD BROUGHAM
felt that no course remained to him but to withdraw his proposition, after what had fallen from the noble Marquess who had just sat down. But the noble Marquess would give him leave to say, when he talked of the impossibility of putting any control on the exercise of the privilege of calling proxies, that they had already established precedents for that control in several cases. For example, the Standing Orders had successively prohibited the questions in respect of all judicial questions, on divorce cases, and on votes of censure.