LOCHABER WATER POWER BILL. (Hansard, 21 June 1921)

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE)
My Lords, I beg to make the Motion which stands in my name.

LORD LOVAT
My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Earl in charge of this Bill whether there will be a Committee stage of the Bill in this House. It is a Scottish Bill, and I have yet been unable to ascertain whether the condition in which this Bill leaves the House will represent a Committee stage or not. I rise because I wish to bring up the question of the possible reduction of the assessable rental and the attitude of county councils towards such reduction. By the Bill an arrangement has been made, I think, with parish councils, for making good any loss in assessable rental only during the period of construction. I wish to find out why that arrangement has been made for the period of construction only, and why, if the total assessable value is permanently reduced, the promoters of this Bill should not have to meet a permanent reduction in assessable value.
The second point I desire to raise is as to why county councils and district councils should not also have a compensating clause, similar to that which has been given to the parishes of Kilmonivaig and Killmallic, under Clauses 74 and 75. If this matter can be raised on the next stage of the Bill I do not wish to raise it now.

THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE
My Lords, the noble Lord has described me as in charge of the Bill. He undoubtedly knows that that is only technically so, but that it is my duty as Chairman of Committees to bring this Motion forward. The Bill is an ordinary Private Bill, and if your Lordships read it a second time it will go to a Select Committee in the ordinary way. There will be no Committee stage in your Lordships' House, and no doubt, subject to the Standing Orders as regards the proper date on which to deposit petitions, the points to which the noble Lord has referred could be considered by any Select Committee of your Lordships' 648 House. If the decision then was still contrary to the wishes of the noble Lord opposite, he would not lose his rights to raise the matter on the Third Reading, as in the case of all other Bills. This is a Private Bill and is not a Bill under the Scottish procedure with which the noble Lord is familiar.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH
My Lords, no petition has been presented. As I understand that the time for presenting petitions has expired, will not the Committee stage simply be that of an unopposed Bill, before the noble Earl himself, in the room adjoining? Can questions of merit be taken in those circumstances?

THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE
The noble Lord is asking a question which his experience enables him to answer as well as I can. If there are no petitions, the Bill will go to the unopposed Committee. The Chairman of Committees, as the noble Lord knows, presides over that Committee, and perhaps I may remind him that even in his time it was not unusual for questions of merit to be discussed before that Committee on the initiation of the noble Lord, and very properly.

LORD LOVAT
I desired that the matter should come before the House.