PRIVATE BILL STANDING ORDERS. (Hansard, 21 December 1925)

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE)

My Lords, I beg to move the Amendments of which Notice has been given to the Standing Orders relating to Private Bills—the first five pages of the Order Paper. They are a formidable number, but I think I can explain them very shortly. No doubt it would be convenient for me to take them, as I can, in four groups instead of taking all these Amendments one by one. There are really four subjects dealt with. The first deals with the application of Standing Orders to Private Bills relating to Northern Ireland—or rather a little more than that; it deals with the situation which has been brought about in our Private Bill legislation as the result of the legislation of 1920 and 1922, that is, since the setting up of the Northern Parliament and the Irish Free State. So far as the Irish Free State is concerned your Lordships' Standing Orders need take no further notice of legislation arising in that part of the Empire; but as regards Northern Ireland some sort of difficulty has occasionally arisen and may arise again. That is why the Standing Orders appear in the form in which they do, including particularly the new Standing Order 181A.

I do not think I can better illustrate the necessity for this particular Standing Order than by reminding your Lordships of a Bill that your Lordships passed dealing with Lough Swilly Railway, a railway which starts in Derry and runs out to the west coast of Donegal. The headquarters office and about 100 yards of the line of that railway are in Northern Ireland and the remainder of the railway is in the Irish Free State. When, a Session or two ago, it was necessary that Parliamentary authority should be got to certain financial proposals a great difficulty arose as to how these could be best dealt with. It is to meet a case of that kind that the new Standing Order 1646 181A is proposed. It proposes that in all simple cases the Lord Chairman should be authorised to make whatever arrangements are necessary, and in any case of difficulty, of course, the matter would go to the. Standing Orders Committee. I think that is a convenient proposal. It will enable us to deal with cases as they arise, and if experience shows that any further proposal is required it is quite easy to make the necessary proposal to the House.

The second subject dealt with is a revision of the form of estimates which is to be deposited in respect of permanent works proposed to be executed. At present the deposit, and estimate are made under Standing Order 36A and experience has shown us that the working under that Standing Order has not been satisfactory at all in practice. We propose, therefore, to substitute as an appendix to the Standing Order a much more detailed and illuminating form of estimate. This form has been settled after considerable discussion with the Ministry of Health, with representatives of local authorities and, of course, with the officials of both Houses. I understand that similar Amendments were made in another place before the August, adjournment, and it is a matter on which I think it is obviously highly desirable that both Houses should follow the same practice.

It is only right that I should here mention that three-quarters of an hour ago I received a letter from my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton, who cannot be in his place to day, on behalf of the London County Council, objecting to the form of a part of this Schedule—namely, the obligation that is put upon parties of stating in the detailed estimates their estimated cost of purchases of land. The difficulty feared is that where only one piece of land has to be purchased under a Bill the promoting authority do not want to give away the price that they may have to pay. In view of future negotiations I should think myself, at first sight, that the fact that the price they thought the land was worth was disclosed at an early date would facilitate the purchase and not make it difficult. But be that as it may, I do not think it would be at all reasonable to ask your Lordships at the moment to depart from the form of estimate as I submit it to your Lordships, for it is, as I have said, the result of months of discussion by 1647 those primarily concerned. But the Standing Orders are always in your Lordships' hands and we can easily amend them if experience later shows that it is desirable we should do so.

The third heading covered by the Amendments is the revision of certain fees paid in connection with the work of your Lordships' House. Some of the fees are left unchanged and some are increased, but I can shorten matters by saying that we are again taking opportunity of getting into harmony with the practice in the House of Commons and with the practice in the Record Office. Your Lordships will understand that people requiring copies of ancient documents have a very similar procedure to go through in the Record Office as they have amongst the archives of your Lordships' House. I have been carefully through the amounts with those of more experience than I possess and I am quite satisfied that the new fees are not on an extravagant or unreasonable scale. That being so I leave them in your Lordships' hands. Lastly, the verbal Amendments in Standing Order 93A I think explain themselves. They are obviously only designed to correct mistakes. Those really being all the points covered by this very large number of Amendments I will not weary your Lordships by enlarging them, but if there is any question on any particular one that your Lordships would desire information about I will do my best to answer it. I think, however, that I have covered all the salient points. I therefore move this Motion which stands in my name.