THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY)My Lords, the Amendments to the Standing Orders this year are apparently very large in number, and occupy eleven pages of your Lordships' Paper. But they are, with very few exceptions, formal alterations, a great many of them being the result of the Irish Local Government Act coming into force. The Amendments to Standing Orders 38 and 111, which deal with the rehousing of the working classes displaced by any undertaking, are not formal. The first Amendment gives a definition of the word "house." It was thought that, at the present moment, "house" might include a very large tene- 4 ment, such as are being erected all over the metropolis for the housing of many hundreds of the working classes. It is quite clear that "house" ought not to cover such a tenement, and therefore a definition of the word is given in the Standing Orders to avoid all further misunderstanding on the point. The definition adopted is:
The expression 'house' means any tenement separately occupied by any person or persons.The other point to which attention has been called during the past session is that the provisions of the Standing Order, especially in London, have in certain cases been a good deal evaded. There was the notable case of the London School Board, which, instead of taking twenty houses under one Bill, brought in a series of Bills for a small number of houses, and thus evaded the Standing Order. Other authorities and companies, we are given to understand, have, in certain cases, also evaded the Standing Order, and Amendments to Standing Orders 38 and 111 have been made, which are designed to meet these evasions.
§ Standing Orders considered and amended, and to be printed as amended. (No. 214.)