SOUTHAMPTON HARBOUR BILL. (Hansard, 29 July 1913)

§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU
My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Glenconner. The paragraph which I propose to amend is in Clause 3, and runs as follows— The expression 'owners of foreign-going vessels' means all persons residing or having their principal place of business in the United Kingdom and paying shipping clues in respect of a vessel or vessels registered in the United Kingdom and trading or working between places in the United Kingdom and places abroad. I move to add to this paragraph the same words as are contained in the next paragraph in the clause. The words which I propose to add are— but shall not include any authority, company, or body authorised by the Act to appoint a member or members of the Board. I am informed that the question of the representation of the various bodies interested in the Southampton Harbour Board was carefully gone into by the Board of Trade, who appointed a Commission which settled the representation of these various bodies, and I understand that it was due to an accidental omission that the words which I propose to add were not included in this as well as in the succeeding paragraph. The London and South Western Railway Company have laid out a great deal of money, very wisely and well, at Southampton, and to them is undoubtedly due a great deal of the prosperity of the port. I wish to say at once that I am moving this Amendment in no hostile spirit whatever to that company, who everybody admits should have fair representation on this authority. But I am acting on behalf of the Southampton Corporation, and they and other persons interested think that to give the railway company a vote on account of their foreign-going shipping interests as well as in respect of themselves as a railway company would be to duplicate their interests and to give them an undue proportion of representation. The railway company pay only one-tenth of the amount paid by the foreign-going shipping in the port of Southampton, and if they are to vote with reference to representation of foreign-going shipping, that would give them an undue voting influence. I suggest to the noble Lord who represents the Board of Trade 1462 that as his Department appointed the Commission which settled the terms of representation the Board of Trade should support those terms and also the Amendment which I am moving. The issue is whether the railway company should be given more representation with reference to the Harbour Board or be left with the representation settled on by the Commission appointed by the Board of Trade. In my opinion their present representation of three is a fair one, and I ask the House to accept my Amendment and say that the representation as originally laid down by the Board of Trade is sufficient.

§ LORD CLINTON
I hope your Lordships will not agree to accept this Amendment. My noble friend who has moved it said that the railway company should have only the representation which was laid down for them by the Board of Trade, but I think if my noble friend would look more closely into the Bill he would understand that the actual representation both of appointed and of elected members is exactly that which has been laid down by the Board of Trade itself. The history of the matter is, I think, a very clear one. By the Southampton Railway Act of 1911 the Board of Trade were required to appoint a Commission to look into the constitution of the Harbour Board of Southampton, and in the event of their finding any modification necessary the Harbour Board were bound to bring in a Bill to carry that out. As a result of the Report of the Commission the Harbour Board was divided up into appointed and elected members, and the London and South Western Railway Company were entitled to three appointed members, and were also in view of the fact that they were owners of a fleet of foreign-going vessels, entitled to be placed on the register of electors for that part of the Board. This Amendment now endeavours to take away from the railway company that which the Board of Trade laid down they were entitled to have. I am glad that my noble friend has spoken in a favourable manner of the work of this railway company at Southampton. They are the owners of the docks they have spent upwards of £5,000,000 upon 1463 them, and have developed them into an undertaking, not only of commercial, but of great national importance, and we say that they are fully entitled to this further representation. I think from reading the Report it is quite clear that this was not an accidental omission in any way. The Report very clearly states that the company were entitled to a number of representatives as traders and owners in the port, and in the Appendix to the Report appears the name of the London and South Western Railway Company as entitled to elect members as part of the Board. I do not think there can be any question that that was not fully before the Board of Trade at the time. If it had been the view of the Southampton Corporation that the railway company were not entitled to this privilege, undoubtedly evidence ought to have been laid before the Board of Trade or before the Committee of the House of Commons at the time the Bill was under consideration by them. But there is a further point. When the railway company appeared before the Board of Trade they claimed that they were entitled to five representatives on the Board; but partly, we understand, in view of the fact that they would be placed upon the register of voters that number of representatives was reduced to three. So we have this somewhat peculiar position, that the Board of Trade reduced the number of the railway company's representatives because they were to be on the register of electors, and now the Southampton Corporation is endeavouring to take them off the register of electors because they are represented in another way. It seems to me that it would be quite inequitable that the representation of the railway company should be reduced in the manner proposed, and I therefore hope your Lordships will not agree to the Amendment.

§ THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD STRACHIE)
My noble friend the Master of the Horse has asked me on this occasion to represent him and to state to the House the Board of Trade attitude on this question. I do not think the noble Lord opposite was quite correct in a saying that the Board of Trade contemplated that the railway company should have further representation than the three members that were allotted to them. They had this special representation given to them owing to their great interest, and no doubt very properly so. But as regards the general 1464 merits of this Amendment, I am asked to say that the attitude of the Board of Trade is simply that of being neutral. The Board leave the matter entirely to your Lordships' House to decide.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE)
Lords, I do not think it is necessary for me to go into this matter in any great detail, but I think I ought to draw your Lordships' attention to what is the Parliamentary attitude of the question. Personally I should be sorry if my noble friend pressed the Amendment, and for this reason. The noble Lord said, and I have no doubt perfectly accurately, that the absence of these three lines from this particular part of the clause was an accidental omission, but it is a very regrettable omission, and it would be most unfortunate if we had many of its nature in the course of Private Bill procedure. In accordance with the Standing Orders of Your Lordships' House, this Bill was deposited, after notice, on December 20 last. I have the original copy of the Bill here. These three lines do not appear; and the London and South Western Railway Company when they got a copy of the Bill, as they could have done in Christmas week last, if they had not seen it before, understood absolutely the position in which they could expect to be put, and all through the proceedings upon this Bill before the House of Commons Committee they fought knowing on what ground they could expect to stand if the Bill got through. The Bill was unopposed in your Lordships' House and still remains in the same form. The noble Lord referred to the fact that these words appear elsewhere in the clause. So they did last December. It would be very unfortunate to parties in future if, after agreement upon a certain basis had been arrived at, attention was called in your Lordships' House a fortnight before the end of the Session to what was described as an accidental omission, and we were asked to put it right, thereby considerably harming the privileges which your Lordships' House and the House of Commons extend to opponents, or possible opponents, of Bills, who would have been at liberty to have been heard at length on the point before the Committee of this or the other House. As to the merits of the question, my noble friend said that his Amendment effected what the Commission desired should be carried out. I have the Report 1465 of the Commission before me, and I am bound to say I can find no guidance as to what the Commission thought on this particular point. So tar as their Report goes, there is no guidance one way or the other. The point raised by Lord Clinton as to the representation having been reduced from five to three in consideration of the position of the railway company under the Bill as it now stands was, I confess, a new one to me. I do not find it in the Report, but I have no doubt the noble Lord has made inquiries and satisfied himself that that is so. In the circumstances I hope the noble Lord will not think it necessary to press the Amendment.