§ THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW) had given Notice that he would move to resolve, That it is expedient that a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament be appointed to consider and report whether, as one of the methods of giving effect to the basic price system of charge by gas undertakers in those cases in which a power to make a differential charge in respect of any part of the existing or intended limits of supply is proposed to be continued or granted, it is expedient to authorise a separate basic price in respect of each such part, arrived at by adding to the basic price fixed in respect of the area for which no differential charge is 814 proposed a sum representing the differential charge as proposed to be authorised or continued, or as actually made.
§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, the House will remember that shortly before the Recess, during a debate here on the Bath Gas Order, the noble Marquess, the Marquess of Bath, made a suggestion that the question of one or more basic prices of gas was one which ought to be decided on the lines on which other gas questions had been dealt with, or by a Joint Committee, or something analogous thereto, such as those two Committees which have already sat under the Chairmanship of Lord Chalmers and Lord Marks. I have ventured to discuss this during the Recess with various people, and it was held to be a necessary procedure that we should have at some time to settle this matter in the way that the other two questions have been settled. I therefore put this Motion down on the Paper, but it has been represented to me that this might possibly clash with the Special Order, and therefore I suggest that I should not move my Motion to-day, but leave it over until that has been decided and settled. We could then consider the question of setting up a Committee and deciding this question in the same way as the Committees presided over by Lord Chalmers and Lord Marks have decided the other questions. There is no very great hurry and I therefore suggest that my Motion may be left over.
§ LORD TEMPLEMOREMy Lords, after the explanation of the Lord Chairman I will not trouble you with a long speech, but as the Peer representing the Board of Trade in this House, I think I should say that there has been certain confusion in I his matter of the Gas Undertakings (Basic Prices) upon which a Motion was to have been moved to-day. It has been in some way confused with a question which some of your Lordships may remember, the question of the Bath Gas Order upon which it was my duty to speak to your Lordships when we had a short debate on the last day but one before we adjourned in July. In the circumstances I have to say that His Majesty's Government have no objection to the course which is proposed by the Lord Chairman, and support his suggestion.
§ The EARL OF HALSBURYMy Lords, I would like to ask the noble Lord who 815 has just addressed your Lordships what he means to do about the Bath Gas Order. I certainly understood that this Motion was in connection with the Bath Gas Order, and I think I have a very good reason for doing so. I would like to ask him whether the Government propose to bring forward before this House—in this Session—the Report of your Lordships' Committee or not; because, if they do not, there are many Peers in your Lordships' House who propose to bring it forward.
§ LORD TEMPLEMOREMy Lords, I can only speak again in answer to my noble friend by leave of the House. The position is this, that negotiations are now going on between the Board of Trade and the various parties interested, and I am afraid I cannot say at the moment whether this Order will be brought up this Session or next Session. I am afraid that is the only answer I can give, to my noble friend.
§ THE EARL OF HALSBURYMy Lords, may I be allowed to say a word on that? The noble Lord has said that negotiations are going on between the Board of Trade and—whom? I suppose the undertakers. What negotiations? As to whether your Lordships' Committee is to be absolutely thrown over, or as to whether its Report is to be discussed in this House? What is this suggestion?—that there should be a new Committee set up? If so, are the Board of Trade going to pay them the costs that the undertakers have been put to in producing counsel and witnesses for four days before a Committee which your Lordships appointed to report to you? Will the Board of Trade pay that? If so, under what particular Departmental budget—the House of Lords Committee Shelving Department, or what? I should like very much to know.
We have got a Report from a Committee before us, who have reported that in their view we ought to pass a certain definite affirmative Resolution. Why have the Government not had the courage to bring that before us? Supposing the undertakers had been a little bit unhappy about the finding of your Lordships' Committee: would the Government have listened to them if they said they wanted another chance, by another Committee, or a Joint Committee, or by 816 an adjournment, or going over to the next Session? It will mean that there will have to be another Committee appointed, and at whose expense? At the undertakers? Is this the Government economy? Well, I can quite understand it if you are going to have a Departmental bureaucracy which simply tells this House and another place: "We insist on having what we want, even although a strong Committee of the House of Lords have said that we cannot have it." I still want to know whether this is going to he brought up this Session, because, if not, I for one—and I am sure that there are a good many others of your Lordships who mean to do so too—certainly mean to bring it up.
§ LORD MOUNT TEMPLEMy Lords, may I intervene, because at the end of last Session I prophesied that something would happen which apparently has happened—namely, that during the Recess the Board of Trade would bring pressure to bear upon the undertakers to do certain things, and that the recommendation of the Committee of your Lordships' House would be overridden by a Government Department? As a very humble and junior member of your Lordships' House it does seem to me of very little use having a Committee of your Lordships to investigate such things if the recommendations are not accepted; or at any rate discussed, by His Majesty's Government. It surely must make it a very thankless task to members of your Lordships' House to go into these rather dry subjects, and to spend hours in investigating these matters, if they are to find in the end that their recommendations are flouted by a Government Department. Therefore I support my noble friend Lord Halsbury in asking that the Government's intention as regards this Session should be declared forthwith.