COMMONS AMENDMENT TO LORDS AMENDMENT. (Hansard, 22 December 1925)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, the House of Commons has accepted all your Lordship' Amendments, with one exception, and that was an Amendment inserted on the proposal of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, dealing with the offence of driving a motor car while drunk. To that clause your Lordships proposed to add some words, the effect of which was that a man convicted of that offence should be disqualified to hold a licence to drive for twelve months from the date of the conviction, and there was added a proviso that, at any time after three months from the drat, of the disqualification, he might ask the justices to reconsider their decision. The other 1717 House has, in substance, agreed to that proposal, but in terms which have been carefully considered. They propose to leave out the words which your Lordships inserted and to add four subsections which appear to me to have, in substance, the same effect. If necessary I will read them, or give the substance of the subsections.
The first subsection provides that a person convicted under the preceding section shall be disqualified for holding a licence for a period of twelve months from the date of the conviction, and any licence held by him shall, so long as the disqualification continues, be of no effect. The Court shall cause particulars of any such conviction and of the resulting disqualification to be endorsed upon the licence, and shall send notice of the conviction to the council by whom the licence was granted. Then, by the second subsection, it is provided that if a, person who is so disqualified for holding a licence under this subsection applies for, or obtains, a licence while he is so disqualified, he shall be guilty of an offence under the Motor Car Act, 1903, and any licence so obtained shall be of no effect.
There is also a provision that any person who is convicted under this section and disqualified for holding a licence may, at any time after the expiration of three months from the date of the conviction, apply to the Court before which he was convicted to remove the disqualification or suspension, anti on any such application the Court may, by order, as it thinks proper, having regard to the character of the person convicted and his conduct subsequent to conviction, the nature of the offence, and the other circumstances of the case, either remove the disqualification or suspension as from such date as may be specified in the order, or refuse the application. I venture to think that these Amendments are really an improvement on the Amendment adopted by this House, and I beg to move that this House cloth not insist upon its Amendment but agrees with the Amendment made by the Commons.

§ LORD CARSON
My Lords, I have certainly not risen for the purpose of 1718 dissenting from the Motion put from the Woolsack, but at the same time I desire to say a few words as regards the way in which we are treated in the matter of these Amendments. I take it from the noble Viscount on the Woolsack that the Amendment made by the House of Commons to our Amendment makes very little difference, but that is simply because I rely upon the Lord Chancellor I must say I think it is an extraordinary way of legislating that we are asked at the last moment to agree to certain Amendments not merely in this Bill but in another Bill which I understand will conic up afterwards—my observations apply to the two Bills—without having seen the Amendments in print, without knowing what was the reason for them, and being absolutely powerless as regards our rights to insist upon a proper consideration and a weighing in the balance of those considerations which moved us to put in our Amendments.
I must say that I had considerable sympathy with a number of members of the House of Commons who, I see, yesterday protested, as I am now protesting, against Amendments being brought before them, some of which may be very important but all of which not only deserve to be, but ought to be, scrutinised, and being passed at the very last moment. Surely some arrangement as to legislation better than the one we have at the present moment could be made, so that we might not have to hurry up these important matters at the very last moment. I spend my time in these later years of my life in the pleasant occupation, day after day, of finding out what Parliament meant by its Acts of Parliament, and anybody can see who has been as long as I was in the House of Commons, and here for some time, how many of the things arise which take us days in arguing in the judicial tribunal. Somebody suddenly proposes an Amendment, and it is hurried in and hurried up, and the putting in of a single word, "the" instead of "a," or "may" instead of "shall," or "shall" instead of "may," which nobody cares about, looks trivial on paper but may make the vastest difference in the sense of the sections which we have to apply. I do really suggest, whatever my suggestion is worth, to is Majesty's Government, now that they have a sufficient majority and have been entrusted by the people 1719 to carry on the business of this country for a considerable time, as I hope and expect, that it is high time to survey the whole method of legislation as between the two Houses of Parliament.
Let me make this one observation. I know that we have no very specific rules in this House, and I do not want to trespass beyond the real subject which is before the House. At the time that our present practice of hurrying up Bills to this House at the very end of the Session was instituted, this House had powers over the Financial Bills of the Government, and sometimes exercised them, and nearly always discussed the Bills. Whether for good or for evil, we have no power now over Financial Bills. Why, then, should not there be an entire reconsideration of the order of these matters in a friendly way between the two Houses? The moment the House of Commons meets in February they will begin at once in the first half of the Session to apply themselves to finance. They will leave the Bills again to come at the end of the Session up to this House and go back with Amendments to the other House and everybody will be complaining just as we are complaining now.
Why should there not be a rearrangement? Why should they not take their Bills and make the financial arrangements of the year fit in with the financial discussions that would follow? Surely as a matter of business and as a matter of common sense the work which is to come here and the Amendments which have to be made here and considered properly by the other place, ought to be matter for which the fullest time is given, so that we may all conscientiously know what we are doing. There have been Bills before your Lordships within the last few weeks, some of which ought certainly to have been referred to Select Committees, but we are always told that there is no time, with the consequence that the interest in business in this House is visibly decreasing from day to day.
Even in the short time that I have been here the number of Peers who attend in the afternoon is becoming more and more insignificant until eventually the proceedings will not be of interest to any one. And why? All because it is looked upon as a matter of form. There is plenty of ability in this House which ought to be 1720 availed of, and, if the House is nothing else, it ought to be a strict revising Chamber, taking the fullest time in seeing that the Bills are fully considered, both in principle and in their technical details—a matter which is not always possible in the House of Commons. I have ventured to make these few remarks because I have felt a good deal—not about this Bill particularly, but about another Bill, and I do not intend to make two speeches—that really we are not adopting the best system of legislation, and we are certainly not taking the best advantage of the intelligence which the nation possesses.

§ THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY)
My Lords, I think there is no man in your Lordships' House who has a greater right to address us upon the matter which has just been dealt with by my noble and learned friend than himself, because he combines an almost unequalled experience in both Houses of Parliament with the high post of a Law Lord, in which capacity he is able to review, as a Judge, the work which he did, or did not do, as a legislator. Therefore I am quite certain that we all listened to what he said with a great deal of attention and a great deal of interest. For my part I am only too glad that some one who is not an official should voice the extreme difficulty under which the work of the closing days of the legislative Session is carried out in your Lordships' House. No one knows it better than myself, for I have been engaged for years in trying to arrange matters between the two Houses of Parliament, sometimes in office, but very much more often in Opposition, and I can testify to the very great difficulty and the extreme unfairness, not merely to the members of your Lordships' House but to members of another place, too, of the way in which that business has to be got through. I can most sincerely say that I hope that what my noble and learned friend has said will bear fruit, and that this long-standing mischief will lead to some kind of remedy.
In the present case I gather that the House of Commons has been extremely courteous to the Lords. They have accepted in the main the Amendments which the Lords put into the Bill. Therefore there is no grievance on our part. But my noble and learned friend 1721 is quite right. There is no time to examine the phraseology as it ought to be examined, and it is, of course, always possible that some little word may creep in which may be a great blemish on the Act of Parliament in the long run. I hope that your Lordships will now consent to accept the Motion of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack.